As many of you know, I haven’t had cable service for a couple of years; it got too expensive for my viewing habits and level of service to justify. We’ve been subsisting on a set of rabbit ears and a big DVD collection ever since.

Now, in February ’09, the government’s mandated that conventional analog broadcast signals are going to stop, in favor of digital. After that time, you need a special piece of hardware to catch the over the air signal. These boxes cost anywhere from 50-80 bucks. Luckily, the government is offering special rebate coupons to knock the price down by 40 bucks for those of us that need these things.

Well, coupons came in the mail this week, and I picked up a Zenith DTT901 at Radio Shack.

Let me say: Rabbit Ears + Digital Converter Box = WIN!!!!

With the analog signal, we got maybe five snowy channels in, barely enough to get by (thankfully, PBS came in reasonably clean). After setting up the box, we get 13 channels, all pretty much crystal clear; including all the local affiliates’ digital sub-channels; which, here in the Richmond metro is basically 24 hour weather info, though PBS includes a channel of international news and programming, which looks really promising. It’s not the 300 channels that satellite TV or high-end cable gets you, but it’s free, and nobody watches all those channels anyway (or, in any case, needs to).

Additionally, the box automatically outputs a 16:9 signal at 480i; not high definition, sadly (my monitor is HD “ready”, which means it doesn’t have an HD tuner in it, and those cost way too much for me right now). but looks really damned good on my screen.

So, for 20 bucks investment and five minutes’ setup, I’ve got really great TV without having to throw money at Comcast. Just in time for the presidential debates and the new season of Heroes.