One of the most avid participants of the Maine HDTV community is a guy named Dave from north/central Maine. I was recently going through my email and discovered that since August of this year, Dave and I have emailed back and forth 63 times. I have tried to assist him in any way possible and have given him lots of advice and suggestions for avenues he could try.
Dave has been struggling with the loss of reception when he started using a digital converter box. Since all of the channels he should be receiving are broadcasting in digital, he should not have a problem. However, as we have found out, when it comes to digital TV and HDTV nothing is as simple as it might sound.
This all started quite some time ago. I don't even remember when. I do remember Dave contacting me through the forum with lots of questions and he was frustrated at how much wasn't working.
Maine television stations, the Maine Association of Broadcasters, and the FCC all say that there are not any reception issues to speak of. Their party line is that if you were able to receive the analog signals, you should be able to receive the digital signals.
As Dave and many others have found out this is simply not true. And I take it personally that I have not been able to help more. I have some decent contacts in the business but sometimes you just reach a dead end.
Dave contacted WVII - Channel 7 in Bangor, Maine when he realized he could not receive their digital signal. They said they couldn't help him except to say he was on the "fringe" of their coverage area and there was nothing they could do to help. Dave then tried to get ABC out of New York from his satellite provider. He had to apply for a waiver and was eventually turned down so now he will be left with no ABC channel after the February 17, 2009 conversion.
There is a small chance that Dave might be able to receive WMTW-Channel 8 out of Portland depending on WMTW's signal strength at the time of conversion.
So after many email and phone calls to television stations, the Maine Associate of Broadcasters, and a reporter doing a story on this forum as it related to the digital conversion, Dave is still frustrated that nobody in the TV industry seems to care how many viewers will actually lose signals after the conversion. Dave is not the only person with these problems. We have received emails for all over Maine, New Hampshire, and from around the country - even from other countries.
Unfortunately, and as usual, it is the less fortunate, the elderly, or anyone on a fixed income that will lose out on the deal. These are the people who can't afford expensive rooftop antennas, a new digital TV, and a monthly cable bill. And some don't have Internet access to even reach a site like this to get resource information.
I'm sure Dave and I will still communicate as we all go through this together. This site has received a lot of traffic lately. And I suspect it will only increase as we get closer to conversion time and as the economy weakens. In economic downturns, one thing that gets cut from family budgets is cable TV. Those that haven't been paying attention, because they didn't have to, will suddenly find themselves in a position where their older TV set won't receive a signal without cable and without a converter box. They will need information and resources to understand everything they have not been paying attention to. We at the Maine HDTV Forum are here to help. We have tons of articles about how things work and even a 6 part online tutorial for beginners.
As we near February 17, 2009, we need to keep in mind that this is not the end. In some cases it will only be the beginning as the fallout appears.
My recent conversation with Dave reminded me how precarious TV still is we aren't even aware of some of the problems people will encounter during the transition.
Take care and thanks for stopping by.
No comments:
Post a Comment