Monday, May 11, 2009
The Government's Secret Plan to Make Everyone Get Cable
(aka the DTV conversion)
So it seems the reason why our apartment building's rooftop antenna won't work after the DTV conversion is that after DTV, some of the stations will be shuffled to UHF or something or other. I'm still confused from my electronics 101 understanding of such things how switching from analog to digital will free-up bandwidth? My guess is that it's more about shuffling bandwidth to make us think this is a good idea.
I still don't get the point of the switch: sorry to sound like a libertarian here, but if the switch were such a good idea, the free market would have made it already.
Anyhoo, it seems that after the switch, we won't get any TeeVee anymore (unless we pay for cable). My wife has long argued that we don't get signal with our antenna because we either need a converter box to receive digital signals (but our TV is already digital ready) or because we need to set our antenna in some special way. But it seems that we need (get/do) neither. We simply don't get enough signal in our apartment to make an antenna (even our amplified one) too useful.
So is this really a plot to get us all to buy cable? Or is the government, bent on proving glibertarians correct, so stupid as not to have figured out that not all of us can get TeeVee signals in our apartments, which have recalcitrant co-op boards who are too busy enriching cronies to have any money to spend to replace roof-top antennas? (if only one of our board members could manage to have a crony in the antenna business)
Why didn't they run a pilot switch to make sure everyone could actually receive DTV signals before fixing when and how they'd make a permanent switch?
So it seems the reason why our apartment building's rooftop antenna won't work after the DTV conversion is that after DTV, some of the stations will be shuffled to UHF or something or other. I'm still confused from my electronics 101 understanding of such things how switching from analog to digital will free-up bandwidth? My guess is that it's more about shuffling bandwidth to make us think this is a good idea.
I still don't get the point of the switch: sorry to sound like a libertarian here, but if the switch were such a good idea, the free market would have made it already.
Anyhoo, it seems that after the switch, we won't get any TeeVee anymore (unless we pay for cable). My wife has long argued that we don't get signal with our antenna because we either need a converter box to receive digital signals (but our TV is already digital ready) or because we need to set our antenna in some special way. But it seems that we need (get/do) neither. We simply don't get enough signal in our apartment to make an antenna (even our amplified one) too useful.
So is this really a plot to get us all to buy cable? Or is the government, bent on proving glibertarians correct, so stupid as not to have figured out that not all of us can get TeeVee signals in our apartments, which have recalcitrant co-op boards who are too busy enriching cronies to have any money to spend to replace roof-top antennas? (if only one of our board members could manage to have a crony in the antenna business)
Why didn't they run a pilot switch to make sure everyone could actually receive DTV signals before fixing when and how they'd make a permanent switch?
# posted by alberich @ 6:33 AM 
Comments:
<< Home
It would make too much sense to run a pilot switch first. My understanding of the switch is that digital signals are smaller in size and allows the government to sell more lots of digital space, i.e., more revenue for the government. Analog space was running out, or all bought up, or something like that. It's like the modern day selling of lands for our westward expansion, except without the native genocide.
Post a Comment
<< Home
