Nice to see the compassion from so many here. Reminds me why I stopped coming around. But...I thought I would share my experience of the past week. My wife is a social worker whose clients are low income elderly. Some of you may end up being elderly one of these days. I hope someone has more compassion for you than you do for them.
Last week I was asked by my wife to help out a couple with Dish. Now we have all heard thousands of times in the past year that if you have cable or satellite you should be OK. So, these foolish old people believed what they have been hearing. They have Dish, they should be OK. Except, these people have had Dish for years. Since long before satellite companies started rolling out local channels. They have been getting 2 analog channels from a rooftop antenna. When they realized they had lost one of their channels, and were going to lose the others, they got a converter box. They were also told they would need a $700 antenna to go with it (old people with no money make such good targets). I went to their home to see what we could do with their existing antenna. Without going into the entire setup, they had the typical birds nest of wires and cables. I hooked it up, and my first attempt resulted in a very poor picture. After trying various combinations of connections, I realized what the problem was when one of the crimped ends fell off the cable. Great job Mr. installer. I jammed it back on, and then the first way I had it hooked up resulted in the reception of 25 channels with their old antenna. I replaced the cable, and they should be OK for the future.
Monday is my day off. As my wife visited more clients I followed her from one to another. Again, hooked up to Dish, with the same problem, locals provided from an OTA antenna. He thought his Dish box was a "converter" box, which is what the ads have been telling him for months. Of course at this point he can't get one of the coupons. Someone donated one to my wife, and she promised to put it in the mail for him. In another week, when he gets his Social Security check (yes, $10 is a big expense for some people, who don't have much more to do than watch TV), he will get the converter box and I will go back and hook it up.
The next person had gotten a digital TV, but the community OTA antenna is aimed so that it only picks up 1 digital channel. I left that connection so that he can pick up the remaining analog channels for the time being, and hooked up a set of rabbit ears he had to pick up the available digital channels.
The last person I visited that day once again had Dish, and was also connected to the community antenna and had lost at least one channel. She also thought since she had Dish she would be OK. We explained she would have to get a converter box to continue getting the channels OTA. We discussed the $5 charge to get locals through Dish, for a total of $60 a year, which would continue as long as she lived, as opposed to $50, even if she had to pay full price for the converter box. When she gets one I probably will be back to connect it. I'm concerned with the problem of the focus of the community antenna.
Yep, people have had months and months to prepare. My take on this is that many have been misled by the advertisements to believe that since they have a satellite dish they are OK, and are now finding out they aren't, with no coupons left to ask for, at least not at present. The other problem is that they are being ripped off for antennas that are not necessary (my wife has more than one client that has been told they need a $600-$700 antenna to get the digital signals). As opposed to most of us, they have arthritic fingers that don't have the strength or dexterity to change over cables on their own. I would encourage others of you to also help out your elderly neighbors. If you need the money, these hard up older citizens have all offered to pay me for my trouble. They are used to paying their own way. Personally, I don't need the money that bad.
