Portable DIGITAL Television - Page 5

Thanks for the TVFOOL tip, Land-yacht. It cleared up a few things for me, and you are correct, the 8.4 can be programmed to look for a specific digital signal if one enters in the "real" channel as listed in a source like TVFOOL.

Reading Land-yacht's last post, it sounds like the 7 and the 8.4 are nearly identical. A few differences for sure are the location of the speakers, (they are on the back in the 8.4, the perforated panel below the screen may just be for ventilation), and the PR button brings up 6 channels.

I can detect significant differences when I adjust the Bass and Treble levels, as well as the Balance.

I don't know anything about the effects of the different settings for Closed Captioning; but for those who may wish to know, the 8.4 can be directed to select one of 8 settings for Basic Selection: CC1, CC2, CC3, CC4, Text1, Text2, Text3, and Text4. In addition, it can also be directed to select one of 6 Advanced Selection: Service1-6. These two selections can be set concurrently, as best I can tell.

The On Screen Display can be set to durate for 15, 30, 45, or 60 seconds. It has a Sleep Timer that can be set for Off, 5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes. It can be set to utilize any of the 7 time zones from Hawaiian to Atlantic. It can be set to use DST or not. In addition to the Picture Modes that Land-Yacht described, the 8.4 can be set for one of 3 Color Modes: Normal, Warm or Cool. The OSD can be set to be Transparent, but it's still too opaque to watch the picture through. The 7 character Channel Label for any channel can be changed with an extensive selection of characters (I have no clue why .)

I have not experienced the 'clicking' problem that Land-Yacht described.

I have discovered that when tuned to a digital station, the precise positioning of the antenna lead itself becomes critical. The barest movement of the lead can degrade a "good" signal to "no" signal. (As I stated in last post, I have removed the supplied telescoping single-poled antenna and connected the TV to a set of two-poled rabbit ears via a 75/300 ohm adaptor and the ears' standard antenna lead wire.

I think (along with Land-Yacht's posts) that covers all the features of the lcddigital84.

I'm quite anxious now to watch the Sleelers beat the Ravens in digital clarity.

I have noticed the 'clicking' happening on my friend's new Visio as well so I don't think it is just my TV. Probably some localized inteference. I have also hooked mine up to a free standing 12 volt battery with no difference, so that rules out interference directly through my RV's power source. It does not seem to happen during the day. It kind of sounds like it is just about to lose the signal, but doesn't.

As Zspock stated there are 6 station listed in the PR menu, not five. You cannot just scroll through the menu and pick a channel. when you scroll it changes the channel. I think the menu and functions on the 8.4 and the 7 are identical.

Besides the screen size the differences seem to be that the 8.4's antenna pulls out intentionally and that is where you plug in an external antenna through an 'f' type connector. The 7 has a 'f' type connector plug on the side with a wire that goes internally to the base of the rabbit ear antenna.

The 8.4 claims a Phillips tuner and a Panasonic screen, where the 7 makes no such claims, but I think this is marketing hype reinforced by mr's 1 post 'barbie doll' to sell the more expensive 8.4. But this is my cynical guess. I'd like to get an 8.4 plugged into my antenna and compare.

The 7 has no ventilation holes along the bottom of the unit, and the speakers are located on either side of the screen on the bottom. Although the same perforations continue up the whole side of the screen, but do not seem to ventilate.

I have very good hearing and stand by my claim that the bass and treble have little effect on my unit's speakers, but is very noticeable on a pair of externals.

The time is in 24 hour military time only so you either need to be familiar with it or be quick at subtracting 12 noon till midnight. It will not display the time on an analog channel.

It seems to be the nature of digital channels that the antenna must be pointed near exact or they don't come in unless it is a very strong signal. I am pulling in one fairly strong digital station from the back of my antenna. But it drops out during the day without a rotation.

Some other things I've noted.
1. The remote in the photo is not what came with my TV. A big + from what I can see.
2. They supply an 90 degree 'f' type co-axial cable extension to make it easier to hook up the external antenna. This extension's location and orientation to the TV has a huge effect on reception. It can make or break a digital channel with a 'fair' signal. Or take a good down to bad or visversa. I've found that it is best for the cable to be arrow straight leading away from the TV, in line with the rest of the Co-axial 85% of the time.
3. The power cord and it's proximity to the co-axial cable also have a significant effect on reception. If they touch usually it makes it worse. On one station, it helps. I am going to try and twist the power cable about 10 turns to the foot, this might reduce interference. I will experiment with the number of twists per foot. I think the more twists the higher frequency it cancels out. Someone more knowledgeable can set me straight.

Another thing one should note is that rabbit ears really are a VHF antenna.
The loop or bowtie is designed for UHF reception. Currently, most all digital channels are broadcast in the UHF band. After the transition, some are switching back to the VHF high band(7-13).

Look on u tube for a good homemade antenna.

A lot of antennas marketed as 'HDTV' or 'digital ready' are no better than a 3 dollar bowtie from radio shack.

That's all I can think of, for now.

Thanks for info on rabbit ears being better for vhf and bowtie/loop being better for uhf, Land-Yacht. After the switch next month, if I can't find a location/orientation for the ears that supports all the major affiliates, I may look for a better antenna.

A couple things:
My remote is also different than the pic on their website----probably ours are exactly the same. I don't think we mentioned that there is a button on the remote to switch from current channel to last one viewed; handy to flip back and forth between two stations. (No picture-in-picture, of course.)
There are the four Picture Modes: Personal, Standard, Dynamic and Soft, with different settings in each mode for: Contrast, Brightness, Color, Sharpness and Tint. But, on my TV, only the settings in the Personal mode are changeable. For example, if I'm in the Standard mode and I try to adjust the Contrast, the menu screen goes off and a small slider bar comes on and lets me increase or decrease the contrast. But then if I call up the menu screen, the settings in Standard mode are the same as they always were; and the settings in the Personal mode have now become what the Standard settings always are, except the Contrast, which has become what I set the slider bar to.
The four Audio Modes: Personal, Standard, Music and Movie and their three settings: Treble, Bass and Balance work the same way-----only the Personal is adjustable on the 8.4.
(Maybe it's these pointy ears, but I can hear the response change when I adjust the tone in Personal mode, even with the speakers facing away from me .)

I just noticed that when trying to adjust either the sound or picture modes, outside of the 'personal' setting, the tv automatically switches back to personal mode, as noted by Zspock. It uses the other picture mode's settings as a starting point. The rest of the picture modes cannot be adjusted.

One other thing is that the little red power light that turns blue when the tv is on, now stays red, sometimes switching to blue. Not a big deal, but I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

I was able to remove the unshielded 90 degree cable connector and screw the co-axial cable directly into the Tv. The reception has improved slightly, analog channels seem to receive less interference, and the weak digitals are less prone to blocking or drop outs. Now the cable sticks straight out the side and is a little less ergonomic


I'm still experimenting with my antenna but am finding that the moving the ears still has an effect on the UHF channels, and the loop effects the VHF analogs, so I don't know how a purely uhf antenna will out perform a combo ears and loop with a dial style.

I do know I can pick up a lot of stations that my friend on the same property cannot, with his large rooftop antenna.

On edit, we raised his rooftop antenna up another 8 feet and I can still receive some channels he can't, but now he gets many more that I can't, and some of his vhf analogs come in as clear as a digital.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/...llphones_N.htm

By David Lieberman, USA TODAY

Millions of consumers by year's end should be able to watch free,
over-the-air television on cellphones, PDAs and other portable digital
devices as the result of initiatives that will be unveiled Thursday by
some of the nation's largest TV station owners and electronics
manufacturers.

The changes promoting on-the-go viewing are "quite significant," says
John Eck, president of the NBC TV Network and Media Works. "If we play
it right, it can be a compelling service," for example, by offering
local news, which normally isn't available from cellphone video services.

At least 63 stations in 22 cities including New York, Chicago,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington will transmit news,
entertainment and sports to portable devices this year, according to the
broadcast industry's Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC).

The initial group will include affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CW, ION
and PBS. Each city will have a different mix. Most will simulcast
regularly scheduled shows.

In conjunction with the announcement, at the Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas, manufacturers including LG, Samsung, Zenith and Kenwood
will display mobile receivers due in stores later this year.

Portable digital broadcasting became practical over the last few months.
The OMVC zeroed in on an inexpensive transmission process that addresses
a serious problem in the national switch from analog to digital
television in February.

"The digital TV standard that was adopted by the Federal Communications
Commission in 1996 was optimized for high-definition pictures on fixed
sets," says LG Electronics USA's John Taylor. "But when you move around,
the signal breaks up."

That affects the few current battery-powered portable digital TVs
popular in disaster-prone areas.

Executives say that consumers with the specially equipped new receivers
can watch shows in moving cars and trains.

Stations had to be able to receive a signal from the receivers, so they
can tell advertisers how many people tune in, says ION Media Networks
CEO Brandon Burgess, who's also president of the OMVC. That could later
be used for interactive and subscription services.

Executives say that the new portable TVs can receive signals as far as
60 miles from the transmitter and can run up to about four hours before
batteries need to be recharged.

Updated 1/8/2009 8:22 AM |

By David Lieberman, USA TODAY

Millions of consumers by year's end should be able to watch free,
over-the-air television on cellphones, PDAs and other portable digital
devices as the result of initiatives that will be unveiled Thursday by
some of the nation's largest TV station owners and electronics
manufacturers.

The changes promoting on-the-go viewing are "quite significant," says
John Eck, president of the NBC TV Network and Media Works. "If we play
it right, it can be a compelling service," for example, by offering
local news, which normally isn't available from cellphone video services.

At least 63 stations in 22 cities including New York, Chicago,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston and Washington will transmit news,
entertainment and sports to portable devices this year, according to the
broadcast industry's Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC).

The initial group will include affiliates of ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CW, ION
and PBS. Each city will have a different mix. Most will simulcast
regularly scheduled shows.

In conjunction with the announcement, at the Consumer Electronics Show
in Las Vegas, manufacturers including LG, Samsung, Zenith and Kenwood
will display mobile receivers due in stores later this year.

Portable digital broadcasting became practical over the last few months.
The OMVC zeroed in on an inexpensive transmission process that addresses
a serious problem in the national switch from analog to digital
television in February.

"The digital TV standard that was adopted by the Federal Communications
Commission in 1996 was optimized for high-definition pictures on fixed
sets," says LG Electronics USA's John Taylor. "But when you move around,
the signal breaks up."

That affects the few current battery-powered portable digital TVs
popular in disaster-prone areas.

Executives say that consumers with the specially equipped new receivers
can watch shows in moving cars and trains.

Stations had to be able to receive a signal from the receivers, so they
can tell advertisers how many people tune in, says ION Media Networks
CEO Brandon Burgess, who's also president of the OMVC. That could later
be used for interactive and subscription services.

Executives say that the new portable TVs can receive signals as far as
60 miles from the transmitter and can run up to about four hours before
batteries need to be recharged.

Here is the URL for OMVC http://www.openmobilevideo.com/

In the Mobile DTV 101 area of OVMC it mentions five Mobile DTV receiving devices:

-Mobile Phone

-Portable Media Player

-Laptop Computer

-Navigation Device

-Automobile Bases

It doesn't even really mention stand alone portable digital televisions, which actually is interesting, although I am sure that there will be stand alone portable digital televisions. I suppose in the case of computers, it could easily be a USB device like out current USB tuners. As far as mobile phones, portable media players, and GPS devices I would imagine they would have to be built specifically with that capability. I would imagine that this could also give us the possibility of portable AM/FM/TV audio devices again, similar to the C Crane radio. Or even to have a device in the car allowing reception of TV audio while in motion. I have an Auto Talk unit in my pickup truck now that allows analog (NTSC) audio reception.

Does anyone have an idea of what sort of video quality we can expect? The OMVC states that it could be up to 480p in the future, which wouldn't be too bad for a small portable TV.

As my primary tv, the LCDDIGITAL ATSC 7 has been getting a heavy workout the last three weeks. I'm still happy with my reception and with the sharpness cranked up I'm satisfied with the picture quality, especially the digital channels. I used to get on the best days 9 analog channels, and now on the worst I get 25 combined digital and analog. The good days well over 40. Some days I get well over 50 disregarding the Spanish speaking ones.

Not surprisingly the remote's cheesy buttons are cracking (Channel up and down, volume up and down). The volume up button today stuck in the on position. I had to razor off the whole raised part of the button. There are no screws to disassemble the remote. It looks like a press fit click that gets all messed up when one needs to insert a took to pry it open.

I took a thin cork floor protector self adhesive one might put on the bottom of furniture to protect the floor. I cut out a 7.5 mm square piece of tin foil and placed this in the center of the 10 cm2 piece I cutout and placed it over the volume up key. Now it works fine again, but I foresee the whole remote covered with cork homemade buttons and having to replace them bi monthly. At least I could cut out different shapes and be able to find the numeral digits without the light on. It is pretty much impossible to dial 50.1 without a light on.

Sometimes during an Auto Scan or an AS add channel, it suffers a brain fart and reverts to the last channel watched with no update to the channel list.

Some other times when flipping through the channels a weak analog channel will not receive any sound, then the next analog channel even with a perfect picture will not have any sound. If I switch to a digital channel and back to an analog, the sound returns. Turning the power off and on again works too.

My power indicator lamp does not work properly. When brand new this would be red if power was available and blue when the TV was on(manual states green). Now it pretty much stays red the whole time, occasionally flickering to blue, sometimes showing a very dull red.
This is somewhat annoying because when turning the tv on with the remote you don't know if you were successful or not because there is about a 3 second delay.

I'll see if LCD Digital cares to replace the failed remote and update again in the future.

On edit: LCD digital replied to my e-mail wanting my name and address so they can mail out a replacement.

2nd edit. Have received new remote from LCDDIGITAL.

Has anyone here purchased and tested the Axion AXN-8701 model that is available on Amazon? The reviews over there are pretty favorable and I'm thinking about picking one up.

I'd be interested to hear what you find out as well. I've been looking at both the Axion and the Haier HLT71 7 inch portable LCD TV, and haven't quite decided on which to get, though I admit I'm leaning more towards the Haier model at the moment. (See my other separate thread on this.)

DGK

It's pretty typical to have these settings. Generally, for English language users, you want to choose CC1 and Service1 only. The CC1 and Service1 allow you to get analog-style and advanced captions in the primary language used by the station. Nothing may be broadcast on the other settings.

Is it possible to customize the size and/or color of the advanced captions? That's the main reason for having advanced captioning, though another feature can be whether the background is solid, transparent or translucent. How legible are the captions? Some manufacturers do a poor job of selecting fonts and other caption features, and they can be really hard to read against certain backgrounds.

Other people with different TVs have commented on seeing a delay with the captions. There shouldn't be one unless there's a live program, in which case there's a human real-time captioner listening to the words and then generating the text, which obviously is going to cause a delay. If there's a delay with the captions for non-live, pre-recorded programs, then there's a problem somewhere, which may be with how the station's equipment is processing caption data or maybe there's a delay caused by the TV itself.

It's really nice to see a lot of people commenting here on whether the TVs have closed captioning. Because deaf and severely hard of hearing people can't use the radio, many would benefit from getting a portable TV that has built-in closed captioning and having it handy for emergencies like hurricanes and other disasters.

Thanks, all!

Dana

It is not possible to do this on the lcddigital7 and I assume the 8.4 I have only seen the CC work when set on CC1 and service one, but have not tested on every channel.

There is a delay on the live broadcasts as expected, but regular programming it seems to be pretty well timed. I have watched some programs on another TV when the lines came up before the words were spoken and found this to be extremely annoying.

The font seems pretty readable, though a little pixellated. It is white text over a solid black background.

Sometimes I think the live texts are transcribed by poorly educated monkees using their tails.

There is a feature that turns on the CC when on set on mute.

Is anyone willing to post pictures of the portable digital TVs they've purchased? Last year we had an ice storm that took out power for 5 days. It was my ancient casio pocket TV that kept us informed and sane for the duration. with no more analog broadcasts in my area the Casio has been demoted to security camera monitor. It gracefully used AA batteries which I could still find available (D's and C's had been bought out the first day of the storm).

I'd love to find a small boxy ATSC TV. It should use a 4.3" AMOLED screen. It should run on D cells or C cells or A cells, and even charge Nimh or better rechargable cells. It would include FM, weather, and maybe even shortwave radios, an LED flash light/flashing light, be waterproof, have a great antenna but also support external antenna input. It should warm a mug of hot chocolate or coffee, and charge itself anytime it is exposed to sunlight.

I'm quite surprised you are willing to even use batteries--shouldn't it have some sort of self-contained fusion power source? What about a DVR?



Actually, with a crank power source (as opposed to the crank quoted above, LOL ), like some emergency radios have, you might be able to self power and charge...

Although somewhat pricey right now, Dell is slated to release a netbook with a built-in ATSC tuner. The advantage over previous suggestions of using a laptop is that netbooks, with a 6-9 cell battery, can run for 4-7 hours depending on what you're doing with it.

Of course the same issue remains, what do you do when the battery runs down? I suppose you could charge it off a car...

Mine no longer looks like it did out of the box. I took a black sharpie to all the silver/ grey surfaces. The pictures on their website pretty much show it all.

As to the rest of the requirements to your future portable atsc tv, well they remind me why I could never be in any service industry.

That's what I'm assuming I'll do if the power's out and I have to recharge my portable TV. It comes with a car adapter.

BTW I decided on the Haier 7in. when I saw the price drop this morning on Amazon...I got it for less than $120, and free shipping as well. We shall see how well it works...it should be here next week sometime probably.

DGK

There a few other threads with related topics. I invite you to check them out:

What are motorhome users doing?
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1122199

CNET Article on Winegard's RCDT09A is the first battery-powered DTV converter box
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1071961

Artec T3A Pro NTIA CECB
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...1013420&page=5

Thanks for the links, rabbit73. I'd forgotten about the Winegard box. Now that I've finally gotten a new portable TV, I'll have to look into it more.

DGK

Your new portable Has a digital tuner, why would you look into a converter box? Or did that sarcasm go flying over my head?

On my LCD DIGITAL ATSC 7: I have edited one of my earliest posts/ reviews but here is the additional info for those interested and not willing to search for it.

I Have done some experimenting with the supplied battery box. I have 10 old rechargeable AA'a, all different ages and makes, the oldest 7 years old. There apparently is a dc to dc converter inside the battery box that steps up the charging voltage. With input voltages of 12 volts there will be charging voltages up to 14.48 which will indeed top off the batteries nicely, even if it takes 10 hours to do it. I don't think there is really a danger of overcharging at this slow rate. The batteries only get slightly warm when full.
If you plug in the battery box to a power cord, it will charge the batteries and allow you to watch TV at the same time. Some other brands will not allow this. If you disconnect the charging cord you must flip the switch from charge to power to watch TV on battery power. Charging dead AA batteries and watching TV draws almost 1.1 amps per hour. This tapers off as the batteries get replenished. The TV alone .6 to .7 amps at 12.6 volts.

After fully charging my old, decrepit and mismatched AA NI-mh's batteries, they powered the tv for 2 hours and 38 minutes before the screen went dark. The sound still worked, but I did not see for how much longer.
No doubt the newer, higher capacity 2650mah AA NI-MH batteries would last significantly longer than the 1800 or 1900 mah batteries I used.
It is interesting that the Old NI-MHs lasted longer that Duracells.

It says on the battery box that it takes 10 1.2 volt rechargeable AA batteries.
Alkaline batteries are rated 1.5 volts, and are actually ~1.62v when new. Fully charged NI-MH's are ~ 1.48 volts. The Manual doesn't say anything about not using Alkaline Batte, but it would be expensive.

I doubt I'll ever use the battery box to power the TV, but I will use it to slow charge the quality AA NI-MH batteries I use in my Digital Camera. I have a 1 hour charger that runs off 12 volts DC but it is better to slow charge batteries. They'll last longer in the short and long run.

It would be nice to read an in depth review of the Haier and others out there.

Well my nice new digital portable TV won't pick up anything with the cheap-o antenna that was included with it. NADA. Even my old Sony Watchman would get 1 or 2 channels with its cheaper and less powerful antenna, so I can't figure out what's going on. (The local TV station that it would/should pick up has delayed going all digital until June, BTW.)

Maybe all I need is a better external antenna with more power...which I will try next.

I don't even know if getting the battery-operated converter box would help the situation. Will it?

My whole reason for even buying the portable TV was to have something for emergencies or when the power goes out...but if I can't get in any TV channels when there's no power, it's not going to do any good.

DGK

I'm not sure but I think your Haier has and analog(ntsc) tuner as well as the Digital(atsc), so you should get at least the stations your sony did, Unless the TV's tuner itself has no sensitivity. Then you might benefit from a more sensitive converter box, but then you have to power that as well defeating the point of a portable TV.

Since your stations are still analog, do a side by side comparison with your Sony.

Also go Here:http://www.tvfool.com/index.php?opti...pper&Itemid=29

And type in your address and read the FAQ sections.

It will tell you which stations are available in your area and which direction to aim your antenna. Also it tells you which frequency (rf channel number) the digital stations are actually broadcasting their signals on now, and after the June 12 transition is complete.
4.1 in my area is actually rf channel 36. If I type in 4.1 without doing an auto scan beforehand nothing happens. If I type in 36, it then goes to 4.1 even without an autoscan. Most all new digital tv's work like this because the frequency assignment is usually different from what the channel calls itself.

I recommend going outside to the highest point around, aiming the rabbit ear at a tower and doing an autoscan. After it has found what is available, take the unit inside and try to find a place where it picks up the station you autoscanned outside. 2 feet can make or break a station, especially digital ones.

For an external antenna, I found that a Phillips mant 210 type f or g, available at Rite Aid for 18$ is a very good antenna for the money.

I'd stay away from the amplified antennas because they need a power source which you will not have in an emergency.

Good luck, let us know how you make out.

Well I wasn't really worried about portability, but rather just something I could use in bad weather or when the power goes out -- so that's why I was thinking about the Winegard converter box with the battery pack to power it.

Re: antennas, I'm not able to get an outdoor rooftop antenna, so have been looking at indoor-only models instead. Would either of these work at all?

http://www.jr.com/terk/pe/TRK_HDTVI/
OR
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/produ...uct_id=9906712

I've yet to experiment using the info I got from TV Fool's site, but it looks like there's really only 2 or 3 stations that might come in using an indoor antenna...still that's better than nothing. Will try later today to see if I can get reception by aiming the TV's antenna in the right direction.

EDIT: I just tried aiming the antenna in the proper direction, from inside, and I WAS able to pull in the closest local station to me, after all. It's not totally clear -- just a bit of static -- but it does come in at least. With a better (i.e. stronger?) antenna maybe reception would improve?

Thanks in advance,
DGK

I just, today, bought a NEW GPX 5" portable battery powered analog TV off of amazon.com for $12.99 plus shipping for a total of less than$19. It has an A/V input and an external antenna input. I already have a Winegard battery powered converter box, and have found that I can get at least one digital station with regular VHF/UHF unpowered rabbit ears. After the transition and our locals go to mazimized power, there is no doubt in my mind that I will be able to get all locals with the rabbit ears, but I may install a dedicated antenna in the attic for emergency use anyway.
Since 2005, we have gone through hurricanes Rita, Humberto, and Ike, along with tropical storm Gustav. I wanted functionality without costing a bunch. $19 for the TV and $20 for the battery powered converter box. I am good to go for hurricane season this year and hopefully for a few years to come.

I did not look at the antenna's you posted, but anything is better than the single stock rabbit ear. Before you get an antenna you need to figure out the Rf frequencies in your area for before and after the Switchover.

Print up pages for before and after the transition from TVfool. Most but not all digital stations will be in the UHF band. A Uhf antenna looks a lot different than a VHF antenna. Though rabbit ears will pick up Uhf stations, they are more designed for VHF stations. A Uhf antenna looks more like a bowtie or loop. A lot of the indoor antennas combine both into one.

http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Philips%...nna:1991627299

I've had real good luck with this antenna. I've tried other similar designed ones and could not get half the stations this one did. There are some amplified antennas out there, but garbage in = amplified garbage out. Amplifiers are best suited when the co-axial cable run is long and subject to signal loss.

More recently I made my own version of the antenna in this link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWQhlmJTMzw

I added 2 more bow ties and some rabbitt ears to the top of the mast and I now get every single station there is.

If you use a cable extender make sure it is a quality quad shielded RG-6 co- axial cable not the cheaper thinner RG-59. Use gold plated couplers as well They're cheap and worth it.

Thanks landyacht318! I'll have to look around and see what I can find. I could always try one out and if it doesn't work, return it... (If I can find someone local who has something, that is. Now that CCity's out of business, I'm stuck with Radio Shack, Best Buy, and whatever else that places like WalMart have...)

DGK

You are so welcome. I evacuated for Rita and Ike, but was here for Humberto and TS Gustav.
I went to bed at 10:30 before Humberto with the latest infor being that it would be a minimal Tropical Storm with winds of around 40 MPH. At about 3 AM I woke up thinking that wow, the winds sure are blowing hard for 40 MPH. Just after the lights went out, I got my old 5" B/W TV off the shelf and was shocked to find out that there was a cat. 1 HURRICANE raging outside my window with 85 MPH sustained winds and 105 MPH gusts. I was able to see the radar, even in B/W, and still be able to tell where the worst rain bands were, so I know not to venture out to go work.
It came in handy during Gustav also.
I had been searching for a functional solution to the loss of analog broadcasts, and after getting the Winegard battery powered converter box, I was able to come up with something that will serve me well into future hurricane seasons.
Good luck with your set-up, and I hope it serves you well also.
BTW, the last time I checked, Wal-Mart had some non amplified regular rabbit ears for around $10. If you live close enough to the transmitters of your local stations, this may do in an emergency.
The one station that I can get at this time with an non amplified antenna that has news and weather is broadcasting 74 KW Effective Radiated Power on UHF channel 21. I am 15 miles from the transmitter.

And once again, your quite welcome.

I do not know the difference in time for an old analog as opposed to a new digital TV as to how long batteries will last. I do know that the Winegard digital converter box claims to be able to run for 18 hours on 6 D-cell alkaline batteries (9Volts). That is continuous use. maybe if you look elsewhere on this forum, you can find more difinitive answers about battery usage for digital TVs.

I was able to use my old 5" battery powered TV over the course of about 24 hours (not all the time you understand) when I needed it until I could get my generator down to my house after Humberto.

I would check the radar and the updates every so often, and then use the radio in the interim. It worked out well.
Every spring, I go to Sam's and buy a bunch of batteries in all configurations for my hurricane preparedness kit. I may buy them over a course of a couple of months, but when hurricane season gets here, I am well stocked with batteries.
As a side note, I did find on the internet battery holders for 8 "D" cell batteries that could be used to power an amplified rabbit eared antenna to help bring in stations. I did order some, and I did put one together temporarily to see if it would drive my amplified indoor antenna, and it did work. I was then able to get two news/weather stations that way. It will take some soldering to make a permenant hook up, and I guess I need to go ahead and do that before hurricane season. But since it is 12 Volts, it woudl take even more batteries... ( 8 for the TV, 6 for the converter box, and 8more for the amplified antenna). But it can be done if you want to.

Make sure you have a "loop" on your old rabbit ear antenna for getting the UHF channels. If it is just a "V" configuration, then you may not be able to get any stations that are on the UHF band even though they are displaying a virtual VHF channel number (2-13).

Heads up for those like me who might be interested in picking up a Winegard box (the RC-DT09A model that uses battery backup). I cannot find them on the Winegard Direct site anymore. They still have the battery backup pack for the box, though. I did find the box still for sale on Amazon and will probably just get it from them...they've got a cheaper price, anyway.

DGK

A 12 volt converter box.

http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...odlist=frooglehttp://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...odlist=froogle

Use 12 volt batteries for whatever you can, when they go dead you can charge them from your car.

Google 12 volt cigarette light receptacle, and hook it up to a nice 12 amp hour sealed lead acid battery which costs around 35 dollars. Keep the Duracells out of the landfills.

I live off of 12 volts.