Travel Technology - DTV converter clinic for my in-laws

OK, so my clueless in-laws still have 3(!) old school tvs that they use rabbit ears for. Fine, they buy the converter boxes from Best Buy and hook them up per the instructions. Everything is fine for awhile. Then I get a call today saying that they're not getting a few channels that they used to get. They say that when the "light" is on green the picture doesn't look as good as when the light is "red." I don't know exactly what model converter they have. I take the light thing to mean that when the converter is on they're getting one picture and when it's not they're getting something different. But why the different quality? Shouldn't it be about the same? They said with green it is significantly worse. And it's not clear why those channels disappeared. I asked them if the channels are there when green is on and I got inconclusive results over the phone.

What do you think? What accounts for the different picture quality while on vs. off? And why would on be worse?

I'm guessing they have the tv tuned to the channel they want to watch, and then turn the converter on.

If the converter is on then the TV needs to be on channel 3 or 4. If they are watching, say, channel 11 and turn the converter on, the picture will go to crud. To get channel 11 in digital they need the converter on, the tv on channel 3/4 and the converter tuned to whatever the digital channel for 11 is.

Did that make any sense?

PS - Are you sure you are asking this for your inlaws, and not yourself? It's ok to admit you have rabbit ears. "My name is magiciansampras, and I'm a luddite.":p

Compelling. They didn't say anything about a converter remote. I wonder if that's the issue, they're turning channels on the tv not the converter. I'll give it a shot! Thanks!

Don't know about the light. But they (which means YOU, I guess) may have to re-scan the channels.

Despite the mandated cutover date extension to June 12, some stations got permission to cut over early. I think some may have done this during May.

In most cases that doesn't matter. However, some stations during the dual analog/digital period (the last several years) had their digital channel on a temporary UHF frequency rather than a permanent UHF digital assignment. If those channels have now discontinued analog entirely, they may have moved their digital signal to their permanent digital assignment. That may be another UHF frequency, or even back to their old original RF analog channel.

For example, in Raleigh NC, ABC 11 (11 Analog VHF) is "11" (11-1, 11-2, 11-3) on digital. But they actually are on UHF channel 57 (or somewhere up in the 50's - I'm back in Colorado and don't have my Raleigh channel guide handy). In June when they cut over, their digital signal will move back to VHF channel 11 - one of the fairly rare VHF assignments for permanent digital frequencies. Digital channel numbers are all artificial mappings, which only coincidentally may be to the same as the RF channel. So a re-scan may be needed so that the box knows that "Channel 11" is now on VHF 11 instead of UHF 57 in my example.

Another related possibility - if the channel moved back to VHF, it's possible that the antenna being used isn't being fed into the converter at all. Many older VHF/UHF rabbit ears (usually with UHF loops) were really two entirely separate antennas with separate connections, that just happened to be in the same housing. That worked fine with 1960-1980's generation TVs that had separate VHF and UHF input terminals. So maybe the VHF leads of their antenna aren't going into the digital converter box at all.

The newer rabbit ears and the somewhat overhyped "Digital Indoor Antenna" models all have a single coax output, which should be going into the box.

Finally, even if it is, if the channels have moved to VHF digital, maybe the VHF part of the antenna (often still good old rabbit ears coming out of the swoopy new "digital antenna") need to be adjusted differently than they were for analog stations. For that matter, the UHF look or other part of it might need to be pointed differently. That's because some of these stations are moving from one tower location to another when they cut from temporary to permanent digital assignments, in some cases even if their RF channel for digital isn't changing.

Hope some of these ideas may help!

LOL well I know all about these converter boxes now, because both our tvs have rabbit ears. Even the big tv (25") :-)

I have attic antennas in both homes (DC & Sarasota)

and I get much better reception with the old analog

signals (still available with some stations) then with

the new digital signals throught the converter boxes

The red light means that the converter is off and if

it has a pass through feature the old analog signal

can still bring in the stations (with a slight loss)

The green light means the converter is on and only

digital signals pass to the set

In both of my cases the new signals seem to have

less strength (NOT HAPPY)

I
In both of my cases the new signals seem to have
less strength (NOT HAPPY)

You can check predicted signal strength here:
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/
(In addition, you can click on the station call sign to see what actual RF channel is being used.)

You can check predicted signal strength here:
http://www.fcc.gov/mb/engineering/maps/
(In addition, you can click on the station call sign to see what actual RF channel is being used.)

Thank You

Thanks for all the input. I have forwarded the various suggestions along and hopefully something will work. I'll update the thread later with results (and possibly more questions!).