End of week quiet time

The house is empty and I'm left alone to do my blogging.

Finally!

I cherish these alone times. (I've already written about that, so no more elaborating here.)

Yes, I know. The Senate voted to move the mandatory analog TV switch-off date to June. Then the House defeated the measure. Now it's headed back through the Senate. (Kinda reminds me of that old Schoolhouse Rock piece "I'm just a bill, yes I'm only a bill...")

Sure enough, it's on You Tube.

Back to the subject at hand. Even if a delay is agreed upon by Congress, the buzz around the media boards is that most stations will still switch as scheduled on 2/17, mainly for the reasons enumerated in my post here. Since I posted that entry I've heard, just as an example, that KAET-TV, the Phoenix area's public TV station has to pay an additional $10,000 per month to the local electric utility to power the extra transmitter.

It should get very interesting in the next few weeks. Speaking of which, my Eye TV hybrid USB TV stick arrived earlier this week. I haven't used it yet since there's no over-the-air to be had around here. Therefore I'll take a drive either Saturday or Sunday and take a gander at broadcast TV in both analog and digital. Who knows, I might even pick up a hi-def program.

I could rant about the lack of signals here at my casa but I won't. Face it, I can drive an hour in almost any direction and pick up something with the laptop. Come to think of it, I can go not very far and have my choice of stations. That's something many folks don't have the luxury of doing. I remember back to when I lived in Houston as a young lad. Seems you could drive quite a while and still be in the Houston TV DMA. Same with Albuquerque and Phoenix. At least out here I get variety in exchange for an hour's drive.

I hope the device works as it should. I'll certainly post my results here. Maybe even include some screen captures if I understand the software.