Digital TV & Converter Boxes

[OakLeaf]

You're going to get more up-to-date information online, anyhow. If you're just talking about what you need for emergencies, I'd make sure that your ISP offers dialup access, that you have all the information in your system preferences to get online via dialup, and that you bookmark websites that you can access at dialup speed. That's true even if you get your internet via DSL - as we found during a recent power failure, the DSL can go out at the source but you can still have phone.

And get a plug-in emergency weather radio, and a hand-cranked radio with weather band and phone charger power take-off.

Do you know whether you can even get broadcast TV? Do you have an antenna tower? In our part of the world - pretty much the same as yours - hills often get in the way. Even up on our ridge, there's a higher hill between us and the closest TV station, and the other stations are 50 miles away. When the antenna came down off our tower in a storm a few years back, that was the end of our broadcast reception.

[Aggie_Ama]

I don't have advice but I find this whole thing a crazy rude awakening that I will keep growing up (darn it). My junior year of college I took a class on the evolution of technology and how it related to media. We discussed at length analog signals and the switch to digital that would be coming. I think back then (2001 or 2002) I was floored at how far away it sounded. Now it is here and happening on my birthday no less. Just funny to me, makes me feel like time is just flying whether I want it to. We just had a 5 year college reunion, I still feel like a fresh out of college person!

Okay back to your regularly scheduled thread and I second the weather radio.

[Pedal Wench]

I hope y'all are still reading my Sound & Vision blogs! I posted one the other day y'all will love.

http://bitstream.soundandvisionmag.c...0/dtv-psa.html

So, yeah, having a converter box as a back-up isn't a bad plan, unless your digital TV has a built-in tuner. But, as others have said, a weather radio, battery-powered, should already be in your home in case of emergencies.

I find it an even ruder awakening that when I was in college, we were just starting to learn about digital audio -- pre-CD!

[sgtiger]

Pedal Wench, that video was hilarious!