Remember the old joke about a disappointing restaurant? The food was so bad -- and in such small portions.

Complaints about converter boxes that are supposed to carry old TVs into the digital age sound about the same: You can't find them anywhere -- and they don't work.

On Feb. 17, the airwaves are to be swept clean of the old, analog broadcast signals to make way for new, digital signals so clear that viewers who have high-definition TVs will spot freckles on their favorite broadcaster's face. Viewers connected to cable or satellite service aren't affected by the switch. But an estimated 13 million to 19 million U.S. households -- not counting lake cabins and fish houses -- that get their signals over the air will need converter boxes.

For some Minnesotans who have tried to convert ahead of the crowd, it's not going well.

"If cable were in my budget, this definitely would drive me to it," said Steve Lyon of south Minneapolis, whose through-the-converter-box picture sometimes breaks up, stalls or disappears altogether, along with the sound.

For now, the problems have driven him from the small screen to the even-smaller screen: He watches TV on his computer.

Star Tribune, Star Tribune
“If cable were in my budget, this [difficulty with digital] definitely would drive me to it,” south Minneapolis resident Steve Lyon said.

At least Lyon got a box. Pete Pittel looked for months in electronics stores near his home in Brandon, about 140 miles northwest of the Twin Cities. He hoped to buy two, using the $40 coupons offered by the government to every U.S. household. Then he noticed that his coupons had 90-day expiration dates -- now past -- so he will have to pay full price for the boxes that usually run between $50 and $60.

"If they're not even available, what's the point of the coupons?" Pittel wondered.

Federal officials said the coupon program works fine, if people just read all the rules upfront. And technicians say everything can work out, eventually. But getting there could mean a lot more than the box -- possibly $150 to $200 more for a new antenna, an amplifier, a rotor and a new connector cable.

"It'll take some work to adjust," said Les Schwartz, an instructor in telecommunications engineering at Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Wadena. "It's not going to be as easy as hooking in the converter box and, voilà, you've got it."

After Pittel's failed search close to home, he expanded it to the Twin Cities, but the Best Buy store he visited had no converter boxes either, he said. Calls by the Star Tribune to random Best Buys and Wal-Mart stores in the metro area indicate what shoppers are up against: One of six Wal-Marts had the boxes; one of five Best Buys did. Contacted for comment, a Best Buy Co. Inc. spokesperson said Friday that all the company's local stores currently have a "sufficient supply."

Pittel said his father-in-law encountered a different problem: He wanted to return a converter box that didn't work well for him, and the store refused to refund the value of the coupon.

Capitalism works - sort of

At the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the government office set up to run the box coupon program, spokesman Bart Forbes said all its limitations -- including expiration dates and a no-refund policy -- are spelled out in the papers that come with the coupon and on the program's website at www.dtv2009.gov. Asked about the program's news release that promised participating retailers "will have converter boxes for sale ... will have employees trained ... and will be prepared to redeem coupons," Forbes said, "That's what the stores told us. We're not Soviet Russia. We can't dictate inventory."

Shoppers can also order boxes by phone or online, he said.

But the NTIA website shows that lots of coupons expired before being used -- nearly one in six of the 18.4 million coupons sent out -- some probably because people decided to buy new televisions instead, and some because, like Pittel, they ran out of time. Pittel also complained that his calls to a toll-free number usually end with a recording asking him to go to the NTIA website or call back later. A furniture restorer by trade, Pittel has no computer. "I deal in antiques. I'm on the oxcart trail next to the information superhighway."

Some Minnesotans, including Lyon in south Minneapolis, have complaints about the reception with their converter boxes. Schwartz said their problem is most likely not the box, but other hardware. Most digital channels are higher frequency than typical analogs -- UHF vs. VHF -- and the higher frequencies don't travel as far, he said. Picture problems could mean someone needs a bigger antenna or an amplifier on the one they have.

Schwartz suggested that suspicious shoppers -- say, if a salesclerk recommends only the most expensive antenna in the store -- can find help at www.antennaweb.org. Created by the Consumer Electronics Association, an industry group, the site carries general antenna advice, including: outdoors is better, higher is better and bigger is better. But visitors to the site can also type in their addresses, and the site will tell them how far they are from each station and in what direction, and accordingly recommend a type and size of antenna, said Dave Wilson, the association's director of technology and standards.

There's one exception to this entire conversion process that could affect those lake cabins Minnesotans so love, Schwartz said. Very small stations, or distant stations that reach the rural expanse through closer "translator" towers, may continue to broadcast in analog signals. So TV owners there may not need converter boxes, and if they buy one, they should get one that's "analog pass-through," to be able to get all those stations, he said.

H.J. Cummins • 612-673-4671