Antenna type is major factor

Published 2:33 pm Friday, February 20, 2009

To those who are puzzled as to why their converter boxes aren’t letting them receive many (if any) TV stations … well, there’s something out there that the FCC and TV stations have misled you on.

The new digital format will be — for the most part — transmitted on UHF channels. Those “rabbit ear” antennas they show are VHF. UHF are those little circle antennas. If you don’t get UHF where you live, or if your antenna doesn’t have UHF built in, you won’t get digital. UHF tends to be a weaker signal and digital is an “on/off” type system, so if your UHF signal is too weak for the box, you will get nothing.

So much for the millions the FCC has spent trying to sell those of us who live in the toolies converter boxes. I got one, got virtually no channels, and then researched it and found out why.

The FCC site: www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/digitaltv.html

You’d think since they put it on their Web site, they’d have not used a misleading “rabbit ear” visual, and would be doing something to fix it, but no. As usual, our government “knows” one thing, passes a law that forces it on us, then tells us a neato cover story, complete with wrong information.

Yep, I’m disgusted.

Denise Foster

Snohomish