Having watched digital HDTV for 5 years now with a 177" super log periodic fixed antenna fades can be very annoying as the sound and picture blurp to nothing then return a few seconds later. Fades can be short or long in duration and with intermod can be "stacatto" driving you clean bannanas. They can occurr at relatively strong signal strengths depending on weather conditions, path conditions (trees, buildings, towers), transmitted power output, and receiver sensitivity. The signal strength meters in your TV's are heavily damped so you will not see the "quickies". Most of my local stations are pretty solid but some of the cheapies drive you nuts. The AVS forum had the official tv station radiation coverage graphs for my location which was very interesting. Sometimes "ducting" can reak havoc with some digital channels interferring with each other if you happen to be re-channelizing your tuner. This happened to me with some digital channels 200 miles away. The tuner did the typical"Three Stooges" act. I said to myself "Holy Toledo". (The offending digital stations were from the Toledo area).

Confuscious say: "Get big antenna, good lead-in, or get Cable/Sat guy to install stuff".

JJK

I just installed a couple of Zenith boxes from RadioShack for my daughter.  Stunning results.  Full of features -- maybe too many!  You will need a really good UHF antenna, not just a "bow-tie".  I used a double colinear.           DRBILL

Groomlakearea51:

Hurricanes? They take out the cable, the power, etc. The old battery operated AM/FM portable radio comes to mind as the standby. Sorta like a Norman Rockwell scene from the 40's, family gathered around, small fire in fireplace, single candle, little mother clutching kids, father tuning radio, and suddenly, the voice, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself".....

A good reminder on the portable radio unit. We have a crankable one. Good also is a NOAA/NWS radio frequency. A touching scene, having the family close, listening to historic technology. [:'(]

Yes, I am considering making myself available locally for the big switch to all digital. This time looking like it may well happen. The Echostar mentioned earlier will be worth considering, while shopping. 

Loss of digital signal can happen for tons of reasons. I have Directv and when it really rains hard it will lose signal. I also have cable internet that you can hook up to the tv when the DTV is down and it also will lose signal at times. When talking about digital all connections must be top notch and not too many at that also you can't use a bunch of splitters it degrades the signal. Another thing I learned which really surprised me, was if you have a splitter with unused ports it will cause signal loss at times. All in all I love HD but this switchover is going to be a nightmare for the people who wait and suddenly have no watcheable TV. If you have cable or sat it's not a problem but for OTA people it will be.

bigdaddy:

Loss of digital signal can happen for tons of reasons. I have Directv and when it really rains hard it will lose signal. I also have cable internet that you can hook up to the tv when the DTV is down and it also will lose signal at times. When talking about digital all connections must be top notch and not too many at that also you can't use a bunch of splitters it degrades the signal. Another thing I learned which really surprised me, was if you have a splitter with unused ports it will cause signal loss at times. All in all I love HD but this switchover is going to be a nightmare for the people who wait and suddenly have no watcheable TV. If you have cable or sat it's not a problem but for OTA people it will be.

I am seeing these boxes all over the place and people buying them up. Honestly I had no idea that many people still used TV antennas.

Yes, there are a sackfull of people still doing the vertical VHF/UHF thing, even with satellite because of the charge for locals.

Well, its been about a month now, and I'm still waiting for the discount coupon to arrive....

It's almost 2 months, and no coupon yet. Has anyone else received theirs lately? How long did it take?

I just got my discount coupon. 4 months, ugh. Anyway, has anyone bought any of these things and found one that is really good?

 I did get my coupons a while back. Make sure to check the expiration date. I got to Best Buy the day my coupons expired. The price of most boxes has gone from a hypothetical $50 to a real $60, so minus the $40 coupon the net cost for most is $20 each. Usually they give you two coupons.

I've never had CATV or SAT at this house. I watch enough tv as it is without haveing a gagillion channels to choose from. My hotel experience shows me that most of it is garbage anyway. I use a simple rabbit ears set with my new Samsung 42" plasma, and have a slightly fancier Radio Shack antenna on my little 13" Panasonic analog tv in the bedroom. 

I'll hook up these and give them a try. The 'blurps' are annoying, but I'm in a very good zone in the city and all the majors are within about an 8 degree arch so setting up the antenna is easy. 

Here's a website for checking the local stations broadcasting towers in relation to your position. 

www.antennaweb.org

Click on the CHOOSE AN ANTENNA and give your address.

On the next page all the stations in your area are listed.

I click on SHOW DIGITAL STATIONS ONLY, then STREET LEVEL MAP. 

Print this and you'll know how to adjust your antenna. 

I too am only over the Air.  I was amazed how many more channels we get now that we have converted. PBS has 3 kids channels! My youngest is thrilled.

JM