Digital TV reception with antenna is usually good or nonexistent

Q: What do you do if you live out in the country and the (digital) converter box doesn’t give you a good connection? I live north of Gainesville. Could distance be the problem?

ADELE KUSHNER

A: Sure, distance can be a great problem. With old analog signals, if you are too far from the transmitter site you get a fuzzy picture. With digital signals it is pretty much pass/fail. You get a good picture or none at all.

The only cure is to put the antenna higher, or to get a taller antenna. Some folks would need to go to a big antenna with a rotor to zero in on each station.

The site www.antennaweb.org/aw/Welcome.aspx tells you what you need based on where you live.

Click on the “choose antenna” link and fill in the information. It will tell you how far you are from the stations and what kind of an antenna you need. It is free and doesn’t try to sell you anything.

Q: What do you think of online systems like Carbonite as an alternative (to external hard drives as backups)?

JERRY BENSI

A: I’m a believer. If your house burns down, an external drive would vanish with the main machine. And if an external drive goes bad at the same time as the one on your computer, you’re sunk.

Couldn’t happen? Sure it could. If a lightning strike took out your PC and if the external drive was connected to it electrically … bye-bye both.

Q: I am considering buying a 50-inch plasma (HDTV) for my living room and wonder if I really need 1080i resolution? I have Time Warner cable and don’t think they send more than a 720 signal but may upgrade in a couple of years. Thoughts?

KURT WESTON

A: You’ll get a better picture with 1080. The usual rule of thumb is that it would be hard to tell the difference between 720 and 1080 on sets 32 inches or smaller. Obviously you’re going well past that size.

So you’ll have to factor in costs, your budget and the fact that — a few years from now — you might be tempted to upgrade. At that screen size your eyes probably will see the difference.

Help from a reader

I recently wrote about ways to tweak HDTV settings for the most pleasing picture. Ken Damian had a nice additional tip:

“Once you get the settings the way you want them (it took me about two weeks when I did mine), take a picture of the screen showing the settings. If something causes the settings to change or default, you can set them back right away, without more trial and error.”

It’s a fine idea and a method I use often on other projects. If I take a device apart, I use digital photos to document the process. That makes it more likely that I’ll put the danged thing back together correctly. So whether you’re dismantling a lawn mower or fixing a computer, use a digital camera to backstop your memory.