After many weeks of anticipation, our Congress-authorized coupons arrived, the converter boxes were purchased, and now we’ve experienced the new world of digital television to decidedly mixed reviews in our household.  As expected, many more channels are received, the picture is slightly improved, and the dynamic range of the audio is noticeably broader.  That’s the positive.

 

The slightly improved picture is enjoyable, but once in awhile the video and audio don’t seem to be synced exactly right, with the audio lagging behind the video ever so slightly, like bad Japanese sci-fi.  As far as the dynamic range of the audio being broader, it mainly means that the commercials come in one heckuva lot louder than the regular programming.

 

It’s great having the extra channels, but in our situation it came at the expense of being able to receive channels 11 and 13  And while those two channels don’t come in at all, channels 2 and 28 only come in intermittently.  And it turns out that, not unlike short-wave radio, the broadcast signal is much improved at night over daylight hours. 

 

For us, the ultimate problem-solver for the inadequate digital television signal may mean installing a new antenna on the roof.  In the very least, it’s going to mean a crawl underneath the house, so as to give the spiders down there a little visit. 

 

So until that unpleasant task is accomplished, the box for now is being used according to what’s on what channel.  After all, enduring without channels 11 and 13 (FOX and a FOX affiliate) would be no sacrifice, however existence without channels 28 and 2 (PBS and CBS) would seem rather barren.  It’s a good thing we have until next February to sort it all out.  Guess we’re going to somewhat rely on the old analog signal for now.