Friend wants to dump the 13" portable tv that is connected to the rabbit ears, this is if it's possible to get the "over the airwave" signal into the LCD.
Point is, the local channels are available over the air, and would like to watch them on the big screen.
ps, what will change when the "digital" switchover actually happens?
Works fine. I replaced my mom's old analog with a new 32" Visio from Costco for about $400. Got new stand alone rabbit ears, $16, as her last ones were attached to the TV. Let the TV scan and lots more channels with digital. Some of the local stations have Weather only on a subchannel.
Stations have been broadcasting their digital signal on UHF channels for several years. A tv with a digital (ATSC) tuner can find them and will list them as (old analog channel) - #, for example I'm watching the news on digital channel 9-1, actually transmitted on UHF channel
The next channel down is 9-0, the original VHF channel 9 which will shut down on the transition day, a few have already. Then some of them may move their digital broadcast to the freed-up VHF channels, so you'll need to rescan.
This site can tell you which stations you could possibly receive with a good enough antenna:
LCD what? Computer monitor, A/V component monitor, TV, what? Lots of LCD flat panels out there and they don't all have tuners. If it's a recent flat panel TV, it may have both analog and digital tuners and all you'd have to do is convert the 300 ohm twin-lead connection to the 75 ohm coax connector, Radio Shack may have the old-timey adapter for such. Connector is usually marked "ANT" on the TV. Your TV stations are going to have to be fairly close for that to work out. If it's just an LCD A/V monitor or a TV with only an analog tuner, you're going to have to pony up for a tuner box, one of the cheapy DTV converter boxes may work, if the monitor has composite or component inputs. There's only a couple of models of the cheap converters that have S-Video outputs. What you'll get from the cheapies isn't real HD, though. Won't make a difference if the LCD isn't HD, too. If it's a computer monitor, you'll need a TV adapter, these typically will have both tuners in them and have DVI or HDMI outputs. If the old rabbit ears won't make it, you'll have to fork out for a better antenna, there are amplified indoor ones that take the place of the old rabbit ears although aren't as cheap. Whether or not it works depends solely on location. If you've got satellite there, the provider may have an OTA digital tuner available for cheap.
If you go the cheapie DTV converter route, do some internet surfing, all boxes are NOT equal.
As far as what happens come the day, analog goes dark, no programming, the digital transmitters get fired up at full power and at their final locations. Everyone gets to tweek their antenna setups again. There will be dancing in the streets and the Dow will hit 14000 again. Or maybe not. Then the LOLs will start phoning in about not being able to see their soaps, that's a certainty.
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