may have been posted before, but since Ive been hearing reports of 'omg they really did it!' all day...thought it appropriate

Was that today? Finally!

The Luddites must be going crazy

Apparently, you just need cable not a cable box. My 20 year old kitchen TV still works. :D

Correct. The change affects ONLY over-the-air broadcast television.

Specifically, over-the-air ANALOG broadcast; there is now over-the-air DIGITAL broadcasting (which is what needs to be used now). One CAN still get free TV.

Actually it was delayed, I recall Obama signing something to give people more time. It would appear they ran out of coupons for the converter boxes. Gary has a new converter box though so we were ready, at least we can watch Lost. Although last week reception was so bad we waited until the next day and watched it online. I hope we can watch it tonight!

We have coupons, but can't find anywhere actually selling the boxes.

I got mine at Best Buy. They had quite a few, in a couple different models.

I got it just in case my cable goes out for an extended time, but my power is on (which happened for 2-3 weeks post K - actually if you just look at power, it was over a month, but I didn't come back until the water was potable.)

It was delayed on a voluntary basis. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of stations went ahead and crossed over to digital on the 17th.

I read that production of the boxes was greatly slowed after the coupons ran out and the Bush administration indicated that they would not request further funding. After the Obama administration got new funding, production was ramped back up but it will be mid April before you see supplies reappear in the stores.

I've opened a thread elsewhere about digital broadcasting, partly because I had questions about it, and partly because I want to see more cute animals on this cute animals thread.