For those viewers who have not yet purchased a converter box, Consumer Reports has upgraded their ratings on some of the available converter boxes at:
blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2008/08/ratings-of-dtv.html

Here is a quick summary of a lot of models.
www.consumerreports.org/cro/e...es-ratings.htm

While cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative.

But Off-Air FREE TV reception starts with the right antenna.

Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It’s true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they’re getting all the OTA channels they want and some of their local stations aren’t changing from VHF to UHF or UHF to VHF, than they’re good to go.

In order to know if you’ll have the right antenna or combination of antennas, viewers can look up “DTV Tentative Channel Designations for the First and Second Rounds” at
hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...-06-1082A2.pdf and “Third Round DTV Tentative Channel Designations” at hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_publi...-06-1675A2.pdf to find out from what channels local stations will be broadcasting after the transition. Or go to antennapoint.com for a quick look at a specific city.

While Antennas can’t tell the difference between analog and digital signals, they certainly can between a UHF and VHF antenna and there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.

With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs not available locally, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts (unlike cable or satellite).

And if viewers decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it doesn’t do the job.

Avoid the publicity and embarrassment -- extend the deadline for
analog shut-off until Aug. 31st 2011, the Canadian date. Then quietly
find a better way to do this. Maybe offer a tax break to electronics
mfgrs who offer and fulfill $40 off coupons on their own, without the
need for costly government involvement. Call it "economic stimulus"
for the industry. Give a bigger break to domestic mfgrs. so we're not
just subsidizing China.

And the delay gives the industry time to ensure that antenna-
dependent populations are not disenfranchised.

Do the delay while Congress is still in town. Because if it's not done
now, there will be a crisis in January with just a few days before the
shut-off date.

Do this now or live to reget it!