Cable TV & Digital Broadcasts

[Mike]

> Carol, who intends to apply for a coupon and buy a converter box
> just in case cable becomes an unaffordable luxury

Mike:
Well, I braved the phone and called my cable provider. The nice lady 
explained that though the over-the-air broadcasts *must* switch to 
digital broadcast, there's no such restriction on the signal sent 
through the cable. So they will continue to transmit the analog 
signal as well as the digital signal, just like they're doing now. 
Which makes sense for them.

So, if you have cable, then you're good to go whether or not you use 
a cable box.

BTW, I used to have just the cable internet and was using the Dish 
for my TV. When I packaged my ISP, TV, and phone together, I got 
cable TV with more channels than I was getting with the Dish and got 
unlimited phone calling (land line) for the same cost as I was paying 
for just my internet and the Dish. So essentially I got unlimited 
calling for free. 

Then I negotiated with cable and got HBO and Cinemax thrown in for 
free. I highly recommend this. Get on the phone and haggle with them 
and they'll usually throw something in for you for free.

So for me, cable is the most affordable luxury and my lifeline to the 
internet. I can't think what I'd do for an ISP if I didn't have it.

Kemper, the over-the-air signal is in the electro-magnetic 
spectrum. "Radio waves" isn't really a designation, but I s'pose 
they would be the part of that spectrum that the radio uses. 

Radio and TV frequencies overlap just a bit. When I was a kid and 
there weren't near as many signals out there, we could tune in a 
local radio station on our TV. And when I used to drive across 
Canada, not so long ago, I could pick up the audio of what I think is 
called TV-2 on the lower end of my FM band. It was rather fun to 
listen to the audio and try to picture the action the TV watchers 
were seeing.

Mike, who had tapes of the old "Shadow" radio program for long drives 
that feuled my imagination as well as reading books and can easily 
understand the mystique that surrounded those programs. They were 
wonderful mind candy and I listened to them over and over like I 
reread my HP books