Digital TV Rant

Ok, this is a blog which means that I can write whatever I want (for the most part). So I'm going to do a little rant on this one.

This whole TV switch over thing is a crock. Since we're currently in a rental we decided not to get cable. The cable companies usually want 6 month or yearly contracts which we don't want to do since we're hoping to only be here for a couple of months. So, we bought the stupid Digital Converter Box with the lovely little $40 coupon the gov't gives you and set it up thinking that it would be all we need, right? Wrong. All we got was a blue screen. We couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong. So we did a little research on the Internet only to find out that you also need an antenna (which the gov't doesn't give you a coupon for). No biggie we thought since we had bunny ears that came with the TV. We tried them and got blue. Again, no biggie. We had purchased a different antenna a while ago with the bunny ears and a loop in the middle with a switch. We tried that. Again, only blue. At this point we were irritated. So I called the local TV fix-it company to be told the following:

If we invested in a $350 - $450 dollar middle of the road antenna system we still would only get 50/50 TV. It could come in great in the daytime only to disappear at night and not have any TV for the rest of the night. Why would this happen you may ask? Because of the trees. The person that I spoke to said that the gov't knew that this would happen to people in rural areas and decided to go with this stupid digital thing anyway. So, what can I do it get TV? They told me to get CABLE. Ugggggggggggggggggggggg!

Since we moved here on the 4th of July, we have had NO TV. I have rented movies for the kids from the Library and we have rented movies for ourselves from the Local grocery store, but that's it. It's not that I watch a ton of TV or anything, but when you can't have it at all it really starts to bug me. At least before this stupid switch over I could have gotten a fuzzy channel or two, but no, not anymore. It's ANNOYING!

Anyway, my dad had an extra big antenna that attaches to the roof. He gave it to us and Henry partially hooked it up yesterday to try it out. We got one channel 12.1 - YEAH (I think)! For the most part I it's WCCO but it also had a little QVC on it too - watch out Henry! :) Now when I have nothing better to do I may do a little spending - I think cable may end up being cheaper in the long run! :)

Henry is going to make my brother Jeremy bungee cord it to the chimney today to see if we can get anything else, so cross your fingers for me!