The travails of receiving digital TV broadcasts

Until recently, my interest in the upcoming demise of most analog over-the-air (OTA) TV signals was purely academic. I get cable where I live and have zippo TV reception otherwise. Thus, I'm unaffected by the switch to digital-only broadcasts--as is anyone who gets their signals from a cable company or from a satellite. However, I knew that I'd be visiting my dad who lives on the Maine Midcoast and he does get his TV (all four channels of it) over the airwaves from Bangor (the nearest city of any size) using an old analog TV set. So I figured that it made sense to get a Converter Box coupon, purchase the box (which converts digital transmissions to analog), and generally get things setup and figure out if there were any issues. There were. Getting the converter box was easy enough. It actually seems a sensibly-administered... [read full story]