My govt. issued 40 buck discount on a DTV box was about to expire, so I bought one today. I don’t have cable, and ever since the WTC went down my TV reception has been for crap. I was pleasantly surprised that with the box I get crystal clear images (better than dvd images) from 18 channels in Downtown Manhattan.

I was going to post about the scare ads for cable and DTV ready televisions, preying on people’s tech fears about the switch. I was going to say don’t worry, I’m using rabbit ears and getting great reception on my old TV. But I then I read that the current DTV signals here are temporarily on the UHF band, and that after the switch the stations will revert to using the VHF frequencies that I currently receive so crappilly. So, it could be that after the 12th my reception will once again go to hell, but instead of ghosts I’ll be getting blocky images and audio interruptions. I suspect it will be OK, but it’s nothing I can definitively say at the moment.

Get your TV converter box coupons here: dtv2009.gov It took a couple of weeks for my card to come.

Update: I ran some coax cable to the top of my west facing living room window. To the ground and the central wire I attached two 26 inch long pieces of speaker wire. They are stretched making an upside down Y from the top. I can now receive 40 channels about a third of which may be something I might watch. The rest are Spanish, Korean, Christian or infomercial. This is very cool. It is almost like getting basic cable for free.