Upon installing the antenna, I was amazed that our high definition channels actually looked better than they did with cable, and the pixelization effect that often occurred through our cable provider had disappeared. Funny, they told us it was our television that caused that to happen.
“Oh look dear! Every time Clark Kent turns his head, it gets all boxy and looks like he’s turning into Bizarro!”
So everything looked great, the setup seemed to work out fantastic, it was just that our fifty inch DLP* widescreen television now had a very large set of bunny ears on it. Out of the twenty five channel lineup we now had, we regularly only use six channels, and three of those are from our local PBS** stations, OPB***. Oh my, all these acronyms, and here I am a member of the AAAA****!
Well, as luck would have it, everything was going too well, because a couple weeks after we threw away the packaging and the receipt, we started seeing green semi-transparent boxes all over the screen, which only showed up on the antenna, and not the Blu-Ray or Wii. This made me assume we got a crappy antenna and it needed to be returned for an exchange, until my internet research led me to believe there was something going on with the TV. When we bought our television, we had read that you want to buy the extended warranty for DLPs because of the light bulb replacement, which can be costly. So we got a four year warranty, figuring that if it never gets used, at least we had it. Of course, within a year, the mirror-box, aka, the thing that makes this type of television a television, was dying. Cost of new mirror-box? $1600. Cost with warranty? $0. Success! Warranty already paid for itself, and everything was fine, until right after the antenna installation, which happened to be one month before the warranty was to expire. My partner quickly called the company which had taken over the warranty since the store we purchase the TV at had gone out of business thanks to our wonderful economic situation we’ve been in for some time now, and set up a date to have a repairman come out to look at it and diagnose the problem. In the mean time, suddenly the Blu-Ray started acting up too, but not in the same way, and so did the Wii in yet another way. All three of these devices, the antenna, Blu-Ray and Wii are connected to the TV via different cables, and when the repairman looked at it, he knew right away, it was the box that all these devices connect to that was the culprit… and the bulb was on its way out, so he’d order one of those too while it was still under warranty! By the time the repairman returned to install the replacement parts three weeks later, the TVs green boxes had expanded to all colors of the rainbow and it was quite psychedelic. Anyway, long story short, it wasn’t the antenna, just our TV.
Okay, let me get back to where I was going with this. We have never been a member of OPB, but talk about it often, since we watch and listen to more programming on its stations, either on TV or radio, than any other, especially now that we don’t have cable. As many people know, pubic broadcasting relies on donations from viewers for a majority of its funding, and a few times each year, they have membership drives to support this effort. During the last drive, I thought to myself about donating something, as I do get a majority of my entertainment from OPB, but the thing about me is I have terrible follow-through. Last night, and I kid you not, as I was prepared to write something completely different this morning for the second part of yesterday’s blog, we were watching History Detectives, they finished one story and went to the familiar membership drive with a host or two and a bunch of people in the background waiting to take phone calls, and my partner says, “We should become members.” I agreed, and he pulled out his phone, called the number on the screen, and donated right then and there.
So, I guess the point I am trying to get across is, are you getting your money’s worth out of the cable programming you are watching, or is a majority of it wasted? If you are, that’s great, as it is working for you, but if you aren’t, why continue to pay for it? There is so much programming from our local channels for free, and maybe that money could go to a better use. For us, we’ve been putting the money we’re saving back to our church, and recently, to the stations of OPB.
*DLP: Digital Light Processing
**PBS: Public Broadcasting Service
***OPB: Oregon Public Broadcasting
****AAAA: Anti-Acronym Association of America
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