Today is the day that television stations nationwide will finally begin ending their analog broadcasts for good. It’s great news for digital technology, but according to the AP, not-so-great news for the estimated 1 million people who haven’t gotten converter boxes for their older TVs and will be left without service by the end of the day. Scary, right? So you know what that means: Call your grandparents and make sure they’ve been set up with a box (go here to get more info). Or better yet, buy them a new freakin’ TV. Don’t they deserve one?
While we’re saying farewell to analog, let’s all share our favorite rabbit-ear memories. I’ll go first: one of my earliest TV experiences was watching Happy Days reruns and being perfectly content to stand really close and hold on to the antenna just so the picture would come in a tiny bit better. How about you?
Comments (1-30) of 58 Add your comment
Not just “grandmas” rely on rabbit ears.
When I was in 10 grade upn was only watchable if you where standing in the right spot. We had no Wb in my area so I had never had a chance to see a buffy first broadcast episode.the two Hour season primer of buffy season 6 was worth standing up for.
actually, rabbit ears are still needed to pick up the digital broadcast (unless you use satellite, cable, or FIOS, in which case you aren’t receiving “broadcast”)
We use to have this little TV in our kitchen and it only had one antenna. At one point we kind of bent the antenna. Not sure if the TV worked better that way, but whatevs. There were only like 5 or 6 channels I would watch on that TV anyway. It was perfect when I ate lunch during my summers off from school. Watched some really bad TV including Passions and Muary.
If you don’t know about the switchover to digital by now, get out from under that rock and talk to people.
Sorry, Casey, take a look at this:
Fact: Only grandmas rely on rabbit ears.
Thanks to the author for writing this, my grandma is dead and seeing this headline made me cry a little. Your an awful author.
Well no more TV in our house. No cable and no more outlets to plug a box into.
It’s hard to imagine, but almost every house in my neighborhood had one of those tall TV antennas on the roof. The kind that had a wire that connected to a box by the tv with a dial you rotated to make the antenna move towards the best signal…and it made a funny noise when you turned it to tune in Gilligan’s Island on channel 13 in LA!
On our old Zenith console TV (circa mid-to-late 70’s) the color would go off kilter sometimes without warning. The tint would turn reddish/orange. Getting up out of your chair and hitting the side of the TV usually fixed it. Eventually I discovered that banging the floor hard enough with your foot while seated would do the trick as well.
Plenty of Grandpa’s out there too. Stupid sexist headline.
Waah, I couldn’t figure out how to get TV and had 2 years to do it. Those who didn’t switch don’t deserve TV. I am 70 miles from TV transmitters and receive digital just fine.
The bad news about digital is that it doesn’t penetrate buildings as well as analog. That means that, unless you’re already in a very strong service area, you likely won’t be watching any broadcast TV after the switch is made. My digital converter receives about half as many digital channels on the same antenna as we used for analog. A snowy picture is a lot better than no picture.
Holding onto the antenna for better reception? Didn’t your family have any aluminum foil? Talk about being out of the loop… sheesh!
Do not worry about grandma or grandpa. The research has shown that the over 55 age group is vastly more prepared for the DTV switch than the under 35 age group.
It should be the other way around. Parents and grandparents should be calling their slacker kids and grandkids.
It’s no trouble at all if your cables are correctly polarized. Go to Screen 47 of the DTV Converter Box On-Screen Installation Guide and use the resident GPS to correctly align your antenna for each channel, allowing for local ionospheric conditions, and ARRRGGGHH!
Technical reference:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/tv-d-day-usa
This whole thing has been engineered by cable companies who want to destroy free to air TV and make everyone pay for their lousy service.
I remember the TV being sandwiched in between the Record player stand and the radio…I didn’t realize it then, but that was a console TV! Not only that, but since mom and dad made us kids get up and change the channel, that was the first version of a remote control. When the folks bought that tri-color overlay from Sunset House (they always had the neatest stuff) that had green on the bottom, red in the middle, and blue at the top, well by gosh, that was color TV.
Anyone know of a good hardware store where I can get all my TV tubes tested?
So the TV, that I used one time for hurricane information when the power went out, is no and the digital converters require a power supply. No more emergency messages when there’s a power failure.
Rabbit ears aren’t a memory, though. If you can’t afford/don’t have cable you still need them and can enjoy bending and twisting them to get the station especially when there’s rain, a car driving by, or a rabbit hopping through your yard, with the extra bonus of not being able to watch at all if you can’t get the signal perfectly. Gee, I’m so glad we’re all forced to switch to digital.
I remember when you could actually watch the channel with a weak signal. Now if you don’t have 50% strength you get nothing. Also whats with half the stations switching over and the other half not. I spend 90% of my time watching public television because the other stations are still analog.
I remember when you could actually watch the channel with a weak signal. Now if you don’t have 50% strength you get nothing. Also whats with half the stations switching over and the other half not. I spend 90% of my time watching public television because the other stations are still analog.
It’s not only Gdma its ME! i have 4 TVs in my house (1 main, 1 secondary, and 1 small BnW one, 1 handheld) and have only 1 box, of course my main TV is the most used one, but all my 3 other TVs will be unusable (unless i accept to pay another 150 bucks, wich i doubt). When people say they are ready it only means their main TV, there’s millions and millions of devices that will be leftout in ‘transition ready’ households
I’m a 75 year old grandma and have had digital/hd tv for nearly a year. Getting old doesn’t always (aside from illness) mean you get dumb!
And don’t forget to RECYCLE your old TV set if you just bought a new one, please don’t just send it to a landfill !
And don’t forget to RECYCLE your old TV set if you just bought a new one, please don’t just send it to a landfill !
Actually, not rabbit ears. Digital TV is mostly in the UHF spectum which works much better with a typical loop UHF antenna. Lots of bad info out there. “Digital” TV is just the modulation riding on the same old UHF frequencies we’ve been tuning in for decades. Your current antenna is most likely just fine if it includes a UHF element, typically the small bits on the front end.
As far as rabbit ear memories – I’m still making them. Cable/Satelite sucks for the most part. I still use rabbit ears into my converter box, and I use Netflix for movies. The major networks still have the best programming.
I resent that remark about “call your grandma”. My TV is probably newer than most of the idiots out there and is paid for as well.
Of the million people who are unready for the switch over from digital, It’s not like you weren’t told and this has been sprung on you!!! Like how many times has the date been moved about a million times now!!!! So for you poor slobs that can’t pull yourselves from the boob tube for an hour or two….BOO FREAKIN’ HOO