Convert Your Old TV to Digital and Get FREE TV
So, for example, PBS in my local area broadcasts three sub-channels on channel 17. Its HDTV signal goes out on channel 17.1; its SDTV signal goes out on 17.2; and its ThinkBright channel goes out on 17.3. (I’d never heard of ThinkBright before, but it looks like it has good learning programs for all age groups not just kids.) Separating its HDTV from its SDTV signals on two separate sub-channels provides benefits to viewers with old sets like mine. Those who want to see their entire screen filled with a picture can watch 17.2. Those who want to see a show in HDTV can select 17.1.
The other nifty benefit of digital television is a guide. The converter box’s remote control will have a Guide and Info buttons. These work just like the Guide and Info buttons for cable TV. By pressing these buttons, you will see useful information like date and time, title of the show, a description, and what’s coming up next. US stations provide more info than Canadian stations with the Guide button.
So now that you know what it is, how do you get it?
Is your TV a DTV?
Why rabbit ears work
How to get that digital signal
In trying to figure out how to see digital television on my 20-year-old set, I read a lot about how I’d need a digital antenna or a special antenna. Not true.
There is actually nothing special about the antenna you’ll need to see digital television. You see, stations are broadcasting their digital signals on the UHF spectrum, that is channels 14 to 69. You’ll probably already be familiar with UHF because television stations have been broadcasting on those frequencies for years. In the Toronto area, several stations broadcast on UHF: Citytv, Global, OMNI (both 1 and 2). In the Buffalo area, Fox is the best-known UHF station, and there’s also the CW.
To go digital, all the stations had to go onto a different frequency from their usual one. The most dramatic changes are the ones who traditionally broadcast on the VHF band, stations like CBC on channel 5 or CTV on channel 9 or in the US CBS on channel 4 or ABC on channel 7. However, their change in frequency location from VHF to UHF makes no difference to you in how you receive them. If your rabbit ears pull in your local UHF stations nicely, then your rabbit ears will pull in the new digital channels.
But if your rabbit ears do a lousy job in pulling in UHF stations, then you’ll need to look for a new antenna (or rabbit ears). The rabbit ears part of the antenna is actually the part that pulls in the VHF signals. Although there is some debate about whether you’ll need to have a VHF antenna anymore, prudence dictates you get an antenna that can still pull in VHF. Besides which, I cannot imagine any company or public service allowing all that frequency real estate going to waste!
The circle or bowtie part of your antenna is the part that pulls in UHF signals. My UHF looks like a mini-satellite dish. No-one can tell you which antenna works best because it differs from location to location, even moving a step can change which antenna works best. VHF is easier to pull in than UHF, for UHF is extremely directional. That means it isn’t swirling all around you; it’s coming towards you from exactly one direction, and you need to orient your antenna to that direction. But I’ve discovered that that direction is not intuitive. For example, it took me a long time to realise my UHF comes in my window at an angle, bouncing off one wall, and it’s that wall where my antenna needs to be near.
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