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emergency TV's....will they still make them?

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28 comments

  • daveald
    if you keep your analog tv and your hooked up to eather cable or rabbit ears you won't see a differance. if you have a satellite dish you must either get a new tv to see digatal or a converter box to see analog.
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  • Aspen79se
    quote:Originally posted by daveald
    if you keep your analog tv and your hooked up to eather cable or rabbit ears you won't see a differance. if you have a satellite dish you must either get a new tv to see digatal or a converter box to see analog.


    Satellite and Cable subscribers are fine. All broadcast signals will be in HD/digital.
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  • bobski
    exactly...broadcast ends...thus anything on rabbit, NOT hooked into some common power source wont work.

    meaning, battery TV's wont work. theres no connection other than the rabbit ears.

    case in point....100 miles out in death valley.....wont work. anything out in a boat....wont work.

    has anyone tackled that market problem?
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  • Aspen79se
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    exactly...broadcast ends...thus anything on rabbit, NOT hooked into some common power source wont work.

    meaning, battery TV's wont work. theres no connection other than the rabbit ears.

    case in point....100 miles out in death valley.....wont work. anything out in a boat....wont work.

    has anyone tackled that market problem?


    More than likely. Broadcast doesn't end, it just changes format.
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  • bobski
    uhhh...how do you get a cable out to a boat in the ocean?
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  • slipgate
    quote:Originally posted by Aspen79se
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    exactly...broadcast ends...thus anything on rabbit, NOT hooked into some common power source wont work.

    meaning, battery TV's wont work. theres no connection other than the rabbit ears.

    case in point....100 miles out in death valley.....wont work. anything out in a boat....wont work.

    has anyone tackled that market problem?


    More than likely. Broadcast doesn't end, it just changes format.


    +1 They will still be broadcasting, just a different type of signal on a different band.
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  • bobski
    how does the signal travel...thru the power line or the air?
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  • dongizmo
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    how does the signal travel...thru the power line or the air?

    Thru the air, the goverment will give you a coupon for a decoder so you can still watch your old Zenith....
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  • bobski
    so its just a freq change. where is the antenna in the new TV's? so does this converter require power or does it just go in the input receiving line?
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  • slipgate
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    so its just a freq change. where is the antenna in the new TV's? so does this converter require power or does it just go in the input receiving line?


    It is more than a frequency change, it goes from analog to digital which is why you need the converter. I am sure after the dust settles that you will be able to buy a new portable TV that works out of the box on the digital signal.

    The converter boxes will be like cable boxes so they will mostly use A/C. If demand is high enough, I am sure someone will make a battery powered one.
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  • Captplaid
    I thought back in the early days of HD, the experiments showed the hd signal traveled farther than uhf/vhf
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  • slipgate
    quote:Originally posted by Captplaid
    I thought back in the early days of HD, the experiments showed the hd signal traveled farther than uhf/vhf


    NOT likely! The frequency is most likely higher since all the lower bandwidth is taken. The higher the freqency, the less distance it travels.

    added - the reason this seems to be so is that with a digital signal, if you get it at all, even at the fringe of the range, your picture will be perfect just like if you were right next to the transmitter. With analog, you get a lot of interference the farther you go.
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  • bobski
    so my point still remains, people in remote places or WITHOUT POWER wont have a TV that will pick up a signal without an AC power source....meaning, plugged into the home or draining every ounce of a gas generator. see my point?
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  • dongizmo
    Don't know, I should go down to radio shack and check them out, I want one for the motorhome....
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  • slipgate
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    so my point still remains, people in remote places or WITHOUT POWER wont have a TV that will pick up a signal without an AC power source....meaning, plugged into the home or draining every ounce of a gas generator. see my point?


    True until the converters are battery. But a portable tv and these converters will use almost no juice. So a generator could run them forever. Heck, if you charged up one of those portable power packs you could probably run one for weeks.
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  • dongizmo
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    so my point still remains, people in remote places or WITHOUT POWER wont have a TV that will pick up a signal without an AC power source....meaning, plugged into the home or draining every ounce of a gas generator. see my point?

    So buy a 12 v inverter, a electronic device like that can't use much juice.
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  • ljwrench
    I'm wondering about the T.V./antenna in my RV. My t.v. is H.D. ready but I have the UHF/VHF antenna. I haven't seen any H.D./digital antenna's yet for R.V.'s other then the dish (DirectTv or Dish network). I don't like all this change. I spend most of my T.V. time watching Andy Griffith reruns in B&W so why do I need digital?
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  • bobski
    in most cases, the converter will be bigger than the little TV i have!

    so, too, im wondering if they have made SMALL new TV's yet?
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  • Chief Shaway
    If you have a HD TV you will get a better picture from a local chanel from your antenae than you will from cable. The cable compresses it too much. When the change is made to digital from analog, the antenae tv's will be absolete. I'm hoping to pick up a tv/vcr combo to watch tapes in for my camper really cheap.
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  • allen griggs
    I have a nice battery powered radio that has am/fm, weather channel, and tv. I can pick up channels 2 through 13. The local tv is 13.
    Often early in the morning I will listen to the local tv broadcast, it is the best source of weather info, that way I don't have to get out of bed and go upstairs and turn on the tv.
    When the hdtv changeover happens early next year they will no longer broadcast tv on the radio, tough luck for me.
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  • dheffley
    What is changing is the receiver. They will build new protable TV's with digital receivers rather than analog.
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  • bobski
    so the receiver is a new type antenna so to speak.
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  • mrseatle
    quote:Originally posted by Aspen79se
    More than likely. Broadcast doesn't end, it just changes format.


    doesn't end yet...

    The Transmitters are their biggest expense... it take a lot of electricity to transmit those signals through the air.
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  • dheffley
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    so the receiver is a new type antenna so to speak.


    Nope, it's an electronic device designed to receive a different type of signal at a different frequency. Much like the difference between a shortwave radio and an AM radio.
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  • tysonagreen
    I did a quick search and found this. I'm sure there are lots more out there. Digital TVs have been on the market for a while now. If you want a battery powered tv I think you are going to have to replace your old unit, I highly doubt anyone will make a battery powered one.

    http://www.allcam.biz/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=138
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  • bobski
    ok, which requires power.
    so back to my point.
    scenero....power is out statewide. on the old tv running on batteries....we thru away the rabbit ears in 09, now to get a new signal, the old tv on batteries would require a converter running on a generator.....right? because....the converter needs power and the batteries running the tv wouldnt be enough?

    i guess the next step would be to build a converter that runs on batteries. follow me? or like it was said, wait for them to build a new tv with a emrgency power pack that will run the emergency tv via batteries of extreme power.
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  • tysonagreen
    x Builtin Li-ion battery (~ 3.5 hours)

    The run time might not be long enough, but since its 12V, you could run it off a car battery.
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  • dheffley
    quote:Originally posted by bobski
    ok, which requires power.
    so back to my point.
    scenero....power is out statewide. on the old tv running on batteries....we thru away the rabbit ears in 09, now to get a new signal, the old tv on batteries would require a converter running on a generator.....right? because....the converter needs power and the batteries running the tv wouldnt be enough?

    i guess the next step would be to build a converter that runs on batteries. follow me? or like it was said, wait for them to build a new tv with a emrgency power pack that will run the emergency tv via batteries of extreme power.


    You are correct, but, a new portable TV will still run on batteries, and have a digital tuner which will pick up the "over the air" signals sent out in digital format rather than analog format. The answer is, your old TV will need a converter. You will need to buy a new battery TV with an digital receiver, and it won't require a converter.
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