The U.S. government, in its infinite wisdom, has launched a website that allows you to apply for a “converter box” coupon so that your analog-only TV will work after the digital transition.
We’d love to tell you more about the website, but we can’t get most of it to load, and neither could the reader who told us about it.
We’re also not sure how people without internet access are supposed to apply. If any of you manage to get the website to work, you can post your thoughts about it in the comments. We’re going to stop clicking and go make some coffee.
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While I sort of like the idea, it does bug me in emergency use that the little Casio TV I have (That works incredibly well for its size and age) is pretty much worthless. It’s come in handy a few times during power outages and the like. I’m sure new portable TVs with digital tuners will come out (seems like there’d be a market for a PSP-compatible tuner here somewhere in the US) it’s annoying to have to buy new stuff to replace something that’s working fine.
Are we allowed to request these even if we answer “most of the TVs in the house use cable”? Like I said, I can see some emergency cases where a box, while not a great solution, may work (like running off an inverter in the car with my portable TV if I can figure out how to rig them together).
@Justin42: Yep, the first batch of them is intended to allow people that have one or two tvs (in the kitchen or what not) that want one for back-up, the spare TV, whatever. Its after that batch (22 million) is gone that only households only recieving a OTA signal will get one.@
href=”#c3517687″>forgottenpassword: I wouldn’t worry much about the looks of it. There are only a handful of manufactures making them and the ones that qualify for the coupon in the first place aren’t going to be the ones they are going to focus on.
In short you’re going to get an ugly one the size of a VCR regardless of when you decide to get one.
@canerican:
We are not “the most technologically advanced country.”
If you want proof, simply look at broadband speeds compared to, say, most of Europe and Asia. And look at broadband coverage.
I just tried to apply and I got an error for my address because is has “special characters.”
I live in Los Angeles and lots of people, including me, have residential addresses with 1/2 or 1/4 in the house number.
This sucks
Oh, nifty. Channel reception charts available here:
[www.tvfool.com]
My grandmother can get a single digital TV channel at -50dBm, not counting any of the trees between here and the transmitter. Which is a lot.
All the rest are at -70dBm and below, which means “no signal”.
@forgottenpassword: The boxes won’t be in stores til then and they aren’t sending the coupons out until about the time the boxes become available.
@Justin42: Some of those (but not all) do have antenna inputs. Check the manual for yours, although it should be immediately apparent if there’s an input just by looking.
This is DISGUSTING. Why is the government paying for this garbage?? BUY A NEW TV!!!! They cost next to nothing. Don’t think my tax money should be going towards people hooking up digital in the 4th bedroom. Sham.
@superborty: Ahem, the TV converters will keep useful televisions out of the landfill until they expire naturally. The savings from freeing up the spectrum on top of keeping these TVs out of garbage heaps for awhile more than pays for the cheap converters.
It just kept saying my session timed out and I should try again, but every time I tried again i got the same message.
Government subsidised television. What will they think of next. In the meantime I’m paying $600 a month for health care insurance with a $2500 deductible.
I ordered one for my congressman, to be sent directly to his home.
Ok lots of things no one is thinking of. The program isn’t for every house in America to run out and get two coupons. But think of this. Does your grandma on SSI have enough money in her budget to run out and buy a $70 box to be able to see the news? And the other thing no one is thinking of is even if you got a new tv for the living room. Did you splurge and buy a tv for the bedroom and every other room. So if the cable goes out or the dish goes out you will have any signal at all. It will be $70 for the box on that day. Also you can apply online or over the phone as above. You can also do it by mail to: PO Box 2000; Portland OR 97208 or by fax 1-877-DTV-4ME2. The app must be submitted by March 31, 2009 and you get the coupon in 2-3 weeks unless you call now then you have to wait until Feb because they are not starting to mail them out until the boxes go onto the market.
The site is up now. I will try to get a coupon.
You can apply for 1 or 2 coupons.
This whole government-mandated conversion is a fiasco!!!
First, designing such a massive conversion project of any kind with a single cut-over date guarantees failure!! Successful projects phase-in, phase up, phase down, and then phase out: that is, they do things gradually so that there is opportunity to correct screwups, snafus, and stuff nobody thought of!! With this plan, the design integrity of every digital station in the US, the design integrity of the converter boxes, and things like the antennas and coverage areas will be UNKNOWN until the cut-over day: guaranteeing MASSIVE FAILURE WITH NO PROSPECT OF TIMELY RECOVERY in some, if not all, areas!!!!
This project should have been slowly implemented over a decade or so. Government greed…not being able to wait for the spectrum… is a poor reason to force certain failure upon a huge number of consumers. A more reasonable plan would be something like “UHF first”, and phased in region-by-region so that problems could be identified and solved before there is an inventory of millions of boxes and tens of millions of TV sets which could require redesign in order to be useful in some areas.
As an example of the stupid and unnecessary problems caused by rushing this project is the narrow-minded design of the available converter boxes. They all require line-of-sight tuning via a remote and one box per set. How does this work in a house with 9 sets, or in a room which has more than one TV? Why are there no antenna-mounted converters with RF controls? More stupidity will be found on “the day”.
I predict a huge backlash against the congressional boobs who signed off on this hare-brained, we-know-what’s-best-for-you, big-government scheme.