Don't throw out that old antenna just yet

Some people think that to get the digital channels they have to get entirely new antennas. On the other hand, some Best Buy employees are telling customers that their old antennas should work just fine with new TVs they buy there. I guess they aren't working for commission.

It would be better to tell people: "You might not need a new antenna." If an antenna doesn't work with one TV, try it on the other TV in the house (odds are good there's more than one TV in your house). A flat antenna is useless in my room. It works wonderfully in the living room.

And if the old antennas don't work anywhere in your house, don't rush out to buy a $100 outdoor antenna. A different kind of indoor antenna might work without setting you back hundreds of dollars. I read somewhere that some outdoor antennas need a motor to rotate them when you change the channel. The motor will cost something extra, I'm sure. Wouldn't you feel silly installing a motor and then finding out than an indoor antenna that you can more around with your hand works better?

DTV has "clearer picture and better sound"... if you can get it to come in

So I've had a digital TV with ATSC tuner for about four months now. And yet, when Channel 7 broadcast their DTV education special yesterday, I watched almost the whole damn thing on analog. That's because here in Detroit, by the Ambassador Bridge, Channel 7's digital channels still have the second worst reception of all digital channels. Only Channel 50-1 is worse: I got it to show up in the channel scan, but its signal level remains stuck at 0 no matter what I do to the antenna. I suppose that, in a way, that's better than Channel 7. Sometimes you get lucky and 7-1 suddenly comes in. But then the wind blows a little, the image gets stuck and then it just goes to black. I've tried to wean myself off of using the analog reception as a guide for digital reception, because after February 17, it's not going to be available. Finding reception for some channels will be like trying to find water with a twig.

I mentioned last year that I had given up on RCA antennae and gone with a Philips antenna. Of that Philips, I broke off the left "ear" and twisted the right "ear." Channel 20-1 comes in almost no matter what I do to the antenna. Channels 4-1 and 62-1 have been fairly reliable with my specially broken antenna, requiring only minor antenna adjustments, as soon as I put the antenna in a position that's worked before, the channel comes in. Channel 2-1 has been OK, but besides Sunday "Animation Domination," is there anything on that channel? (Right, football, the art of the time-out). So Best Buy, forget it if you still want me to shell out $100 for an amplified unidirectional antenna that might not even work anyway. You'd have to pay me a $100 to give it a try. Nor will I shell out $70 each for converter boxes for the remaining analog TVs in my house (I'm still waiting on the rebate coupon, supposedly they mailed it January 2).

DTV does offer more channels than analog. It's actually useful to have a 24-hour weather channel, so I'm not happy about Channel 4 ditching their 24-hour weather channel and replacing it with a 7-2 knockoff (old movies and TV shows at 480i, which on a 1080i screen looks rather crappy and JPEG-artifacty). At least WXYZ still has a weather channel (at 7-3), but it's useless if you can't get it to come in, and when it finally does come in, it gives you the weather for Albuquerque and then drops out before swinging back to Michigan.