Converter Box – Déjà Vu

We are getting closer to the date when digital television replaces most of the analog television that is broadcast in the United States. This seems so strange to most people but that is only because the last time that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) fooled with the broadcast segment. In the 1950’s the FCC decided that smaller cities would not have a split between VHF (channels 1 to 14) and UHF (the upper channels). It was up to the people to do what was needed to receive television. In my case the change in the Fresno, CA market changed all of the stations to UHF. It meant that to receive the higher frequencies we needed a converter box that allowed those stations to be viewed on the lower frequencies. Our family had a television that came from the east and we actually had to wait for KMJ TV the first Fresno station to go on the air. It made a nice table for a while then the fun of west cost tape delay began. The fact is that when the CBS station tried to convert to a UHF frequency they lost their first new tower. It fell off of the truck on the way up the mountain road to its location. You know that they had no love for the FCC. These boxes were not much fun to use even if the TV sets did not have remote controls anyway. They were just one more thing to do in a town that had four stations and the transmitters were not all located in the same place.
Moving forward to today.
The new converter boxes are designed to change the digital signal to an analog signal that older sets can use and at least this time they come with a remote to replace the useless one on the television set. Hopefully they will work with the universal remotes that many people use to control the variety of devices that they have in their homes.
Some things that should be remembered:
1. Not all people will need converter boxes. If you are on a cable system or on a satellite system you can disregard all of the messages you are hearing now. At least until these systems decide that they want to go all digital. That change will be in about five years.
2. If you are in the range of a low powered TV station these stations will still broadcast in analog for now because they have been given a waver. Some converter boxes should be able to handle this situation but may not be available at this time.
3. The FCC is in the process of giving the public who need it $40.00 coupons to cut the cost of the devices and give back just a small amount of the money that the government will make on the sale of the analog spectrum. But remember:
a. The coupons are only good for 90 days.
b. The government will not replace a coupon that is lost.
c. If you do not use the coupon in the 90 days it will not be extended.
d. Stores that run out of the product will just need to tell customers to try another source and you know how that goes over with retailers.
4. Wait for the next step in the process when they try the system out in September to finally try seeing if the whole system will work. It will finally show the rest of the country what to expect next February.

So as in the past you never know what will happen until it happens and the past is always a window to what will happen in the future. But then you already knew that