Peculiar TV

I get 15 free digital TV stations with my converter box. 2 of those are Spanish and 5 of those are variations of PBS. Often times I end up watching children's shows when nothing else is on. I must admit I am a big fan of Word Girl.

Not all of the stations come in at the same time. Right now channel 9 and 13 won't come in. If I move the converter box around I might be able to get a picture but I'm not that motivated at the moment.

Every so often I get a new channel. A few weeks ago realized that the music video channel is not Spanish as I had thought. It comes in so rarely I didn't know. Last weekend I found a new channel, 11.2, which plays obscure movies from the 80's as far as I can tell. It doesn't tell me the names of the movies like the other stations do and I can't find the TV listings online. The station is called THIS. Last weekend I watched the beginning of a movie with Betty White and Leslie Neilson as the main characters. Tonight I caught the end of a movie with Rob Lowe and Andrew McCarthy and now it is a movie about the Kennedy family.

With so few channels to choose from this new channel is a welcome change. Not that I have a lot of time to sit and watch TV anyway. But when I do sit down it is more fun if there is something entertaining to watch.

Half Way Through Another Week

Sometimes I think I am wishing my life away just waiting for weekends. Another week is more than half way over. Looking at my mortgage plan, I can hopefully be mortgage free in 2 years. 2 years seems like a long time because I want to be free NOW. On the other hand, 2 years is a very short time compared to the 26 more years it would have taken to pay off my mortgage the "normal" way. I'll be able to spend those extra 24 years doing things I enjoy.

3 lunches down this week, only 2 to go. There's a birthday on Friday so we are all going out to eat. Hopefully I can find something cheap on the menu or something to take home for a later meal (or both if I'm lucky). I don't feel like cooking tonight so I will either have my last frozen dinner for lunch tomorrow or the tuna lunch kit that a co-worker gave to me. I'll cook something for next week in the crock pot this weekend. Maybe I'll actually try out my bread machine. The weather is supposed to be in the 80's finally. I don't like to cook when it's 96 degrees.

The Fall TV shows are finally starting. My favorites are Chuck and The Office. Since the writer's strike last December it feels like there haven't been any new shows for a year. I've almost forgotten what it's like to look forward to TV. Now that I am using my digital TV converter I have 6 public TV channels but 2 of them are identical to 2 others sometimes. It's strange. I like the Create channel though. There is usually a cooking or craft show to watch. The digital reception is annoying. There's always one channel that won't come in and it doesn't just get fuzzy like the analog stations, it gets little blocks on the screen and then goes black and says no signal. I'd rather have it go fuzzy, at least I could hear the dialog. Oh well, that's progress I guess.

Resisting The Digital TV Switch

I get my television stations the old fashioned way, thru an antenna. Only 6 stations come through but it's enough for me. This week, the channel I watch most disappeared and another channel has been having sound problems. I thought it might be my antenna so I hauled out the ladder and checked all of the connections. They looked good so I waited a few days. Today the station was still missing. I decided to pull out my digital-analog converter box that I bought last spring with the coupon from this site.

I hooked it up after I bought it but I didn't really like it so I put it back in the box for later. Sure, the reception is better and I get more public broadcasting stations so I can watch educational kids shows all day long but I didn't like that I needed 2 remotes, one for channels and one for volume. I also didn't like the delay when I switched channels. It has to scan for a signal for each channel. I'm a channel surfer so that is very annoying. I know, I don't have many channels to surf but I can still surf them!

After I hooked up the box I got my lost channel back. I was curious so I searched for info on the web and found this from the local news site FOXAZ.com:

A major equipment failure at the KTTU-TV transmitter has knocked out the analog TV signal for KTTU My Tucson-TV 18.

While handling the equipment failure at the transmitter the KTTU My Tucson-TV 18 signal transmission to Cox Cable provider was down for about an hour Tuesday afternoon, but currently any customers who receive their television signal from Cox, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network or the off-air digital signal will be unaffected by the analog transmitter outage.

Customers who have not yet made the transition to DTV in time for the February shutdown will experience a KTTU My Tucson-TV 18 outage for an unknown period of time.

Work is currently being done to try and salvage the damaged transmitter, but the extent of the damage and length of time to repair the damage is not yet known.

Customers who rely on the analog signal may be able to make a transition to the digital signal using a converter box. More information on the DTV transition can be found here.

I bet it got hit by lightening. Well, it's good to know I'm not crazy after all. I guess I will just have to start using my converter box a little early. I was going to hold out until the last day in February but since they've started taking my stations away I either have to convert or buy a satellite dish. You all know I'm too cheap to pay!