During the conversion of analog to digital television signals in 2009, the US government offered $40 coupons to people who needed to purchase converter boxes to continue watching over-the-air television through their older, non-digital televisions.
Although these coupons are no longer available and the bulk buying of these boxes has since subsided, a number of these boxes are still available in retail stores and on the Internet. According to Internet resources, about 14% or more of our population still use them. This article describes the main features of the Radio Shack DTX9950 model.
Package Contents ($59.99)
- converter box
- Remote control with two batteries
- Owner’s Manual (details and information)
- Installation Guide (Illustrates five quick installation steps and instructs how to use the remote to program and use the converter box)
- RF cable (connects the box to the TV)
Component Characteristics
1. Universal remote control
This handheld remote is medium in size with easy to use buttons to control both the box and the TV. These buttons include four to control the TV itself (power on/off, TV input, volume +/-). The rest control the converter box itself, see below.
- On off
- Menu (displays all programming options on the TV screen)
- Channel selection +/-
- Volume selection +/-
- Electronic Program Guide (EPG, listing of consecutive programs by channel)
- Favorite channels (you can select only favorites)
- Previous (you can switch between two channels easily)
- Back (returns the screen to the last used menu page)
- Mute (turn off sound)
- Subtitles (works fine, if needed)
- Signal quality meter (remains on until turned off)
- Analog transfer (allows reception of still existing analog signals, not likely)
- Number 0-9 (to impute channels and numbers as needed)
- Decimal point (if necessary)
- Audio (for multitrack sound)
- Zoom (for image display mode)
- Horizontal up/down and back programming arrows (four)
- Enter/OK
two. converter box
The top of the box has three buttons (on/off and plus/minus channel selection). On its front, a green diode light indicates when the box is on, a red one – off.
The back of the box has cable-type TV-out and antenna-in connections, plus a TV channel 3 or 4 slider switch (similar to how a channel selector works on a VHS/DVD player). This side also has three red/white/yellow audio-video plug-ins for the best picture and sound quality, provided the TV in question also has them.
conclusion. This converter box works well with standard indoor antennas (rabbit ear or tabletop) and outdoor VHF/UHF combo antennas (aluminum beam with multiple tubular crossbar elements), as well as newer digital antennas. In addition, its electronic configuration incorporated Wizard it will search and set the available broadcast channels automatically.
Although the box with the accessories costs about $60 at the store, two of its basic capabilities could warrant that price, depending on how many features the owner wants and how far away the transmission towers are located.
First, the universal remote will only control both the box and the TV, a nice convenience. It also has buttons to quickly change the channel, and to acquire the EPG (know in advance what programs are coming out by channel). Second, the box has a relatively strong ability to amplify the incoming TV signal. For information on how to set up a digital to analog converter box, see this website.
