TV RECEPTION, IF NOT PROGRAMMING, HAS IMPROVED (6-2003)

When I was a kid, and all the way until the time I 
graduated college, we could watch one of only four TV 
stations at our house. We could receive the signals from 
channels 4, 6, 8, and if we were lucky, 13. 

Shortly thereafter, a couple of weaker UHF stations came on 
the air, including PBS channel 20, and mostly religious 
channel 40.

We had an antenna mounted to the house (remember those) 
that we occasionally had to go outside and swivel so that 
it pointed to the station we were watching. Later, we added 
a motorized antenna rotor to do the job.

Some of the pictures we received were adequately sharp, but 
most of the time they were a little fuzzy or shadowy. And 
the sound, which was all mono, came through a small speaker 
on the front of the set. We didn’t know it could get any 
better than it was.

For most of my childhood we watched TV in black and white. 
But finally we got our first color set. And after I became 
an adult and moved to a different town for awhile, I 
discovered the concept of cable television.

With cable, I could get at least double the number of 
channels, including one premium movie channel called HBO. 
Imagine - I could now select from at least 8 or 10 channels 
in full color video!

A few years later, TV stations started to introduce better 
sound quality. Many programs were starting to be broadcast 
in stereo. And some TV sets had audio outputs so you could 
hook your TV up to your hi-fi system for really enhanced 
sound.

Cable systems started carrying more and more stations, most 
of which were made for cable. I could select from 40 or 50 
stations - ten times more than what I could choose from as 
a kid.

Now, many cable companies have switched to digital cable, 
using fiber optic delivery systems. The pictures are all 
clear and crisp and most of the programming is in stereo or 
Dolby surround sound. Unfortunately, the cable company that 
supplies service to Edinburgh has lagged behind the rest of 
the county in offering such service.

That is why the satellite dishes from the two major direct 
broadcast satellite companies, DISH Network and DirecTV are 
starting to pop up all over town. People are tired of 
substandard cable TV when they can get a lot more channels 
with a lot better quality from satellite, including local 
channels now. 

Digital cable systems can even offer high-speed Internet 
access. One satellite company can offer the same thing and 
the other has plans to offer broadband Internet access 
soon.

Although still quite expensive, the next generation in 
television reception will be the digital High Definition 
Televisions, or HDTV. These are the wide-screen TVs that 
look like a miniature movie screen. They have crisp, high-
resolution pictures with digital surround sound. 

Television reception, if not programming, has certainly 
come a long way over the past 40 years or so. What was once 
a small box that sat in the corner of your living room and 
offered a grainy black and white moving picture with tinny 
sound has evolved into a device that can offer wide-screen 
movie-like color pictures and digital surround sound with 
low-frequency special effects. 

Television has truly turned into home theater. The quality 
of the picture and sound is superior. It’s too bad the 
programming couldn’t keep pace with the technology. With 
all those satellite and cable channels filled with digital 
color pictures and surround sound, there’s really nothing 
much to watch.