With the coupon you could get a converter box for less than $10. You get a crystal clear picture and potentially more channels as is the case with most public brodcasting channels.

Originally posted by Burnasty:

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With the coupon you could get a converter box for less than $10. You get a crystal clear picture and potentially more channels as is the case with most public brodcasting channels.

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If you live within range of the transmitter.

Nearly everyone does! tvfool.com will show you topographically what you should expect to recieve. I live 43.5 miles from the closest tower and recieve enough signal to be within the threshold of a digital signal without dropouts. Free HDTV is a great deal.

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Free HDTV is a great deal

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That has nothing to do with the converter boxes, they are for converting the digital ATSC signal to an analog NTSC signal for people who don't have ATSC tuners on their televisions, they do not give you "HDTV". If you have a rooftop antenna you will likely get signals from upwards of 30 miles away, if you live in an urban or hilly area that range is likely to be much less, indoor antennas will also generally fare less well. Also, for those using antennas for OTA reception you may actually receive fewer channels after the transition secondary to the nature of digital braodcast signals and the increased degradation of the signal over distance vs. analog signals, as well as the "threshold" amount of information necessary to tune in the signal.

I know it doesn't. I was stating what my signal strength is and commenting that I get the hd programing being over 30 miles away, which is digital. By saying I get an hd signal that far away it shows you can meet the threshold even when you are a good distance away. I think if your reduce the bafflegab in you post more people will know what your saying. BTW, low level transmitters and repeaters aren't switching so the rural towers will still be able to give you the ghosty pictures if you want.

Originally posted by Burnasty:

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I know it doesn't. I was stating what my signal strength is and commenting that I get the hd programing being over 30 miles away, which is digital. By saying I get an hd signal that far away it shows you can meet the threshold even when you are a good distance away. I think if your reduce the bafflegab in you post more people will know what your saying. BTW, low level transmitters and repeaters aren't switching so the rural towers will still be able to give you the ghosty pictures if you want.

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Sorry Burnasty, I guess I misunderstood your post. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "bafflegab". There is no jargon used or points of fact raised that aren't already well known. I think my post is fairly straight forward, bringing up a few of the shortcomings of digital broadcasts despite the excellent picture.