A New Page Has Been Turned

Interesting day today as I've now joined the ranks of those that have dropped their land line phones. I'm going to install a system that lets me hook up my cell phone to the existing house wiring, though, so I can use the phones in the house with my cell connection. I'm sure I'll have some interesting problems pop up since I still have DSL service coming in on line 1 but I'll figure out how to work around that, if it really becomes an issue.

The second thing that's new today is that I've canceled my Dish service. It's really quite far from being a necessity and I don't feel good about that money going out the door with the economy like it is today. The customer service representative asked me why I was dropping Dish and I told her that there were two reasons:

1. I don't feel that I'm getting good value for my money (like having to subsidize a gazillion shopping channels) and;

2. I contacted (in person, at their office) my local installation representative last October and told them that I was considering dropping my land line (which is also connected to the Dish receiver and is used for things like ordering pay-per-view, etc.). I asked what that might do to my billing and what my options would be. I was told that my options would be to pay an additional $5/month or drop Dish service. I said "are you sure?" and they said "yes". I just smiled and said "good luck with that business plan" and left. So that was my other reason for dropping Dish, I'm not going to pay an extra $5 when I just dropped my land line to save money.

Interestingly enough, Adrianna, the Dish Customer Service representative handling my cancellation order, then told me that, due to the large number of customers that were switching to cell phone only they added a billing option to allow for individuals that no longer had a land line to *not* be billed the extra $5. Of course, too late for me as my mind was made up and also, the hodge podge of junk channels that I felt I was also paying for was not being addressed at all. And don't get me wrong, I knew that I could have set up my own channel list to "just have" the channels in it that I wanted, but that doesn't change the fact that I feel I am subsidizing them and if I could just pick a 10 or 15 channel satellite dish "package" (which does not exist) then I could get something useful for about $20/month. That would have been very nice. Apparently, that's never going to happen. And so I did my part by parting company, which leads to the next interesting development.

Adrianna then told me that I'd be receiving some shipping boxes and labels at my service (home) address in the next 5-7 days. I would then need to follow the (enclosed with the packaging) instructions to remove and pack up the dish antenna and bracket as well as the satellite receiver and associated connection material. So I said, "well, why don't you just have the installers come out and 'uninstall' it all?" ... to which idea she was very cold and simply said that that wasn't how it was done. So I said "OK, so what if I uninstall it and then drop it off at the local Dish installer that put it in?" She said that I "could" do that but that I should beware because it had to be received "somewhere" by Dish within 30 days or they'd "charge it back to the customer". I couldn't help myself as I broke out laughing right there. I said "well, you could do that but it wouldn't be a very good PR thing and, of course, I would make sure I had receipts for the equipment I delivered, so you could "charge" me all you wanted to ... I would have legal paperwork showing I did what was required and then you'd just have to 'go after your installers' that hijacked or resold that equipment." Dead silence from the other end. So I ended the call with a smile and a laugh and said "you're just proving that I'm doing the right thing by canceling Dish and I'll follow your desired procedure of shipping everything back by UPS ... thank you and goodbye."

Whew! Was I glad that was over. So last night was spent reprogramming my Harmony One universal remote to drop all usages of the Echostar Dish receiver and revert back to my good old antenna (only) for the HD TV. After that I put the converter box on my second (analog, 27") TV and then I reconnected my house cable wiring to pick up the antenna from a splitter and feed all the cable jacks in the house. Everything works fine.

Finally, a recommendation to all those folks that have been given the scare treatment (accidentally or, in most cases, I think, on purpose) by cable and satellite signal providers that they "may not" be able to watch their TV anymore unless they get (you guessed it) cable or satellite service ... just don't do it. In most cases, you'll be able to pick up a good digital signal, although I know there will be some folks in fringe reception areas when a snowy analog reception can be had but no digital signal can be found at all (this will be the exception, I think). So just get a converter box and hook it up (or have a relative, friend or neighbor do it for you). The money you save by *not* paying the cable/satellite companies will soon (less than a year, typically) allow you to buy at least a small High Definition Television, complete with its digital (ATSC) tuner and then you can even get rid of the converter box. You'll be glad you did ... and just in time for those stations that switch their broadcast signal to digital only tomorrow (although not all stations are doing that).

I have a recommended antenna if you've been wondering what to try. This antenna has both tuned elements for UHF channels 14-69 and a dipole antenna ("rabbit ears") for VHF channels 2-13. It's amplified (i.e., it needs a place to plug in power as well) and I've found that I can just leave the rabbit ears neatly folded and get all the HD signals in my area by pointing it in the appropriate direction. The model is the Terk Amplified HDTVa Indoor Antenna and it's available at Best Buy for around $75. A bit pricey but it really works well. I've also recently seen it available on Amazon for under $50, if you can wait for the shipping time. This is not to say that I've tested out a lot of antennas ... but this one works very well for the HD broadcasts I receive in the 20-30 mile range. I also recommend that you log on to www.antennaweb.org to find out where the broadcast signals are in your area. This will help you pick an optimal pointing direction for whatever antenna you choose. One drawback I've seen lately is that this antenna, being indoors, does not have very good capability for picking up the lower (below channel 9) VHF stations. So if you have an HD transmitter broadcasting on channels 2-8, it may not work unless you are quite close to the VHF tower ... and in this case, the rabbit ears would definitely need to be extended.

In the archery department, I need to get my bow draw weight adjusted up a bit as I get stronger from shooting and I'll be doing more of that after joining the local archery club Wednesday evening. It's all fun and I'm going to organize my thoughts on what I've learned about being a first time compound bow purchaser and post them here sometime soon.