You do realize, jonsey, that your are making some of us feel awfully old? :) Well, we did have Apple IIe's when I was in school...

I would agree that frost-free has come a long way, and continues to do so. When my 1990 Signature 2000 refrigerator died my wife talked me into getting this massive Frigidaire side-by-side. I thought the electric bill would shoot up but it actually went down slightly.

You think you're old? We only had calculators in high school physics, and they wern't even ours - they were too expensive for everybody to have so the teacher loaned them to us during class.

Have i mentioned that working unrestored examples of that fridge have sold for more than $3000? And its just sitting in a back room... Im not too suprised though, as the school has a number of all tube RCA Lyceum TV's, both color and b&w, that are still in daily use, connected to DVD players. The school does have one old portable open reel VTR, that they used to videotape educational shows off of television back in the late 60's-early 70's.

info sidetrack for this thread
 

"Washington, D.C. (September 5, 2007) -- The satellite TV industry's disclosure that it may not meet the 2009 Digital TV deadline is more evidence that the transition is not proceeding smoothly.

The disclosure may also increase calls from lawmakers to push back the February 17, 2009 transition date by several months at least to ensure that no TV viewer is left behind when the nation switches from analog to digital.

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...and most Americans [are] still unaware of the Digital TV transition, which is just 17 months away -- it's hard to see how Congress won't intervene next year and push this thing back, perhaps to 2010."

How did you mean about satellite TV not being ready for the digital conversion?
As far as I know the 2009 date is only for broadcast over-the-air TV...not cable or satellite which can use any transmission scheme they choose.
Plus all Direct TV and Dish Network is already transmitted digitally and HDTV is available. The only incompatability I see would be between older satellite receivers which only have analog video/RF outputs and purely digital TV's.

I still think the amount of analog TV's still in use in 2009 which depend upon an over-the-air broadcast signal (not cable or satellite) will be very small. Everyone I know has converted to digital flat screen sets. One place I read that 40% of American homes already have HDTV's...not counting digital SD sets.

As far as Refrigerators, I have a late 1940's or early 50's GE with top freezer that works great still! The old fridges have only the compressor (no fans or defrost heaters like modern ones) and are very quiet and much more efficient.

I have a 1938 Frigidare that still works, it was the samily refrigerator during the time my mother grew up.

Had this strange thought: Someone somewheres decides to build and operate a pirate analog TV station the next day after the official analog TV shutdown, on a newly vacated TV channel. Wonder what program material he'd broadcast...

You know, that just reminded me of something...translator and low power TV stations are not required to convert to digital! they can still broadcast analog even after the 2009 conversion deadline. Seems kind of odd that they would require full power stations to be digital but allow analog low-power.
Here is some information:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/dtv/lptv.html

The converters are not vaporware. I have one. They do seem to be only available by mail order though. I purchased mine from Newegg.com.

It works ok on over-the-air signals as I am fairly close to the transmitters. As long as it does work, it is great-no snow at all. When it doesn't work it is fairly irritating as the picture pixellates or freezes and the sound stops.

One thing that I have found is that the stations HDTV signal strength varies greatly here-Austin, Texas. The lone VHF station(thanks to LBJ), Fox, has a very weak HDTV signal, but a very strong analog signal. I cannot receive their HDTV signal(As do not ever watch them, it does not matter to me). I can receive the other network stations on HDTV as well as their UHF analog signals. The suprise is PBS. I get them much better with two seperate channels on HTDV, but can barely recieve their analog UHF single channel signal.

I do not know if the stations will change their HDTV signal transmit power levels here once the analog signals are turned off.

I'm having an awful time with reception as well. The old VHF antenna still on the shingles of my roof won't work at all for UHF digital. So I hosted a UHF antenna onto a 15 foot pipe anchored to my chimney and even at that I can't get anything in the summer. After the tree leaves fall I can get most of the stations in the winter though.

I'm afraid thats about as tall as I can go with the antenna before I get into trouble with wind problems. I don't think the neighborhood will approve of a bigger tower than I have either.

I bought a LG DVD recorder with the complete digital tuner...NTSC/ATSC/QAM. It is true HD via the HDMI connector to a LG LCD with HDMI input. No HD on the component outputs.

My local Comcast passes the local over-the-air HD with varying success. Some days better than others. Not sure if they are fiber connected or just off-air themselves at the local head-end. No ESPN, HBO HD, but enough for me.

Dave A

I started 1st grade in September, 1983 and my school still had several of those 23" tube type RCA Mural TV's with all the jacks on the back. All program material was on U-Matic videotapes (machines were Sony). They finally got a VHS machine in '87 and we thought we were big time! All of this equipment was housed on roll around metal carts. Then, around '89; all the rooms were outfitted with 20" Magnavox sets connected to an elaborate CCTV system. I think the Magnavox sets are still in use. BTW, we also had a bunch of those old tube type Califone record players. I talked to a friend of mine that works for the school district and all that stuff was trashed years ago, according to him. It's a shame that they'd rather throw good old stuff away instead of offering it to someone who would enjoy it.

Note the quotes. Words were not mine. But the article noted the sat/cable companies were bitching about not having enough time to upgrade/switch their facilities from grabbing local analog channels they now carry, to their local digital equivalents.

Also, I strongly suspect that much of the lousy digital reception we now experience will go away once the analog channels are turned off and stop interfering with 8-VSB they skip in on top of during the summer. Hope so anyway.

Pete

Hope the Auction goes well !
 

For the $15 Billion or so the FCC will get, I would have gladly paid my fair share to keep things the way they are. At 300 million citizens at $50 a piece the whole auction is a scam; just so Verizon can pod er, broadcast their music videos.

I have the same fridge in my garage. It's full of my rolls of unexposed filmstock. Every year my city has a "throw anything of any size you want in a big pile on the curb and we will pick it up and dispose of it for free" Well, as you might guess, this becomes a scavenger's dream. On the way home one weekend, my wife and I spied this fridge on the sidewalk of a house at the end of our block with a "WORKS - FREE" sign taped to it. She liked the styling so much she asked me to go get it and bring it home. I took the utility dolly, walked over to the house, put the fridge on it, and wheeled it home where it sits to this day. I did splice a new cord onto it and install a new rubber gasket on the door. It never really made any noticeable difference in the power consumption of our home. I guess it's because it's a liquid, what is it ammonia? being pumped through the coils? I can hear sloshing when the motor turns on.

Anyway, the reason I came into this thread. I saw this article in the local paper today: http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_6817408?nclick_check=1