Nancy Howell said: (quoted from post at 04:35:18 06/17/09) guess we have to replace the tvs. GRRRR.
That is impossible. ALL TV's that can tune channel 3/4 will work with a converter, and most (all?) converters also have video ouput if the TV does.
Here's some possibilities:
It IS possible but DOUBTFUL that the boxes are all that bad. I'm using Radio Shack here and they seem pretty fair
We don't know the terrain, the distance of your stations, or how well you received them previously If the best station you used to get was pretty snowy, you might as well give up right now
We don't know the condition of your outdoor antenna or where it's pointed, IE is it actually pointed AT a station
I hate to say this but you SHOULD have done this long before analogue stopped, so that you could use the analogue stations as a crutch to aim the antenna as a starting point, and "check" the rest of the system.
My advice:
go over your outdoor antenna, and check the connections of the cable./ twinlead. If it's over 10 years old, replace it. IF you buy a new antenna do NOT fall into the trap of a "digital antenna". THERE IS NO SUCH THING. Antennas work today just like they did when the Titanic sank, only there ARE some better designs.
ALSO is your antenna a combo VHF/ UHF? Some digital stations are now on UHF BUT WILL BE MOVING BACK to VHF. This is because of a game of musical chairs envolving vacated channels, and the fact that they were temporarily on UHF for "somewhere to be." Many want to move back to VHF because it covers better (propagates) and is more efficient (cheaper) to operate the transmitters.
BUT many will BE on UHF and this means (depending on your area) that you need an antenna for BOTH VHF/UHF
I'd start by doing thus:
Make sure your antenna is pointed toward what was the BEST analoge signal that you got. If the best you got was pretty snowy, YOU ARE OUT OF LUCK.
Go through the menu and "do a scan" of channels. If you can't find your strongest signal, don't be bashful, CALL THEM. Their engineer should be glad to help, and can tell you what their DTV channel IS so that you can enter it manually.
Next, whether you get a picture or not, enter whatever menu there is for "signal strength" or "signal meter" or other such term. This will bring up some sort of graph that will show if there's any signal and how strong it is.
At this point (sorry to say) you'll want to play with the antenna a little, and antenna direction SEEMS to be much "sharper" with DTV on weak signals.
If you don't have on, consider getting a rotator.
Also, check with your local stations to see if any of them have "translators" (relay stations.) Many of these lower power analogue stations ARE NOT GOING OFF the air, and you may be able to either watch them as-is or at least use them to check out your antenna/ tv setup
Just to show you how bad things are, I'm in Coeur d Alene, ID, about 40 mi from "Tower Mountain" in Spokane, but shaded by a hill in the path. I cannot get channel 2 (CBS) reliably, which has an 800ft tower. I can only get PBS channel 7 about 1/3 of the time, who's on the same mountain.
I'm using a BIG VHF/UHF combo with a FOURTEEN FOOT boom, with a rotator, at about 55ft on my amateur radio tower.
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