I belong to POSTPOINTS and found the following in my email this morning from the Techy guy of the Washington POST.
The scheduled end of most analog-TV broadcasts--they’ll vanish from the airwaves next Feb. 17--has many home viewers confused. Let me try again to summarize what you need to do, depending on how you watch TV today.
First: If you have a cable or satellite box, or if you already have a digital TV, you don’t need to do anything. (Not sure if you own a “DTV”? Its remote should have a dash or a period button by the numbers to let you select digital-only sub-channels like WJLA’s 7.2, a weather/news update.)
Second: If you have a “cable-ready” TV that gets cable without a cable box, you may someday need to get a box to watch more than the local networks--you need to ask your cable company about this.
Third: If you have an analog TV connected to an antenna, you’ll need to add a digital-TV converter box. These sell for $50 or so, but the government is providing $40 coupons towards their purchase, which you can request at dtv2009.gov or by calling 888-388-2009.
-- Rob Pegoraro, Consumer Technology Columnist
