Today, the long-delayed switchover to digital broadcast gets underway, as over-the-air TV stations turn off their analog transmitters over the course of the day. Which means that people who use antennas to pick up a TV signal will have to have a converter box or a digital-ready TV, or they will find their televisions converted into highly effective paperweights. Despite the long warnings and preparation time, 2.8 million homes are believed unready for the switchover.
Does anyone out there rely on rabbit ears, or know anyone who does? If so, let us know how the transition is going for you and yours.
Also, let’s take a moment to pay our respects to old-fashioned rabbit-ear TV. Among the many technological things I am unable to explain to my children—why we call it “dialing” a phone, why Grandma can’t rewind her TV shows—we can add the concepts of reception and interference. My kids will never know the grainy image of “snow” on a TV screen, or experience how tuning in a tricky station could be like playing a Theremin, as you moved your body—or preferably, your younger sibling’s—about near the TV, the slightest move to the left or right being the difference between a screen of fuzz and a crystal-clear picture of Tennessee Tuxedo. Stay right there! I can see it perfectly!
What’s your oldest memory of TV? Not of a TV show, I mean, but of a physical TV set? I have a feeling the responses here are going to make me feel very old, but I asked for it.