DTV Blues

Last weekend my aunt asks me to take her to a department store and use her coupon for one of those HDTV converter boxes before her DTV coupon from the government expires on Sunday. So on Saturday afternoon, I gather her and her coupon up and head over to the big stores next to the industrial complex. I needed some ink cartridges for my printer too. Might even pick me up one of these converters for the old bedroom TV. I pick out a couple of fifty dollar models, find a package of both my color and black and white printer ink cartridges and head for the cashier. The cashier had not used one of these coupon cards before. We stuck it through the machine like a credit card after ringing up the boxes and it put the forty dollar discount on it right away. Hazzah! Pop in my CC for the rest of the charges and away we go. I go in and set hers up right away. It came with the cable I needed, went through the menus and auto-selected all the channels, gave her the manual and the remote and wished her good night. If only it was so. Went home and set mine up in the bedroom, did mostly the same except I made the change to use channel three instead of four and allowed it to squeeze widescreen 16x9 broadcasts into my little 4x3 format picture tube. I have a good component DTV box on the big screen in the living room, so I knew the channels pretty well, and settled in for a late baseball game. Ring, ring, ha! Aunt lets me know that some channels are not looking right. I head over and play with the antenna. Her poor little rabbit ears are kaput. We pull another set off of her back room TV and get all the channels in. Plus I make the same squeeze and channel three adjustments on hers that I did on mine. She likes it and I head out again. Next day, Ring Ring! Everything is black, no channels coming in. Oops, I head back over there and see that she has the TV on channel four like I told her the first time. Guess I didn't mention that I changed it. Showed her how to get channel three on the old remote control first, then change them with the new remote. She's happy until I ask if she has an outdoor antenna we could use. Well the cable is in the back room, so now I have to get some cable long enough to run to the front room, maybe with a few wall outlets too if I can't stick it behind the molding. Work is never done for the willing nephew...