2/19/2009
TIM UNRUH
FORMOSO — Nancy Higbee misses watching cop shows on television. Her favorite stations went blank Tuesday when they switched to a solely digital signal, as mandated by federal law. Higbee and her husband, Jack, heeded the advice they’d been hearing from television stations for months and purchased special equipment to pick up the digital signal through their antenna. They purchased a converter box and had Dave Garman of Garman & Sons TV & Appliances, Courtland, install it. But no luck. “That box just does not do nothing,” Nancy Higbee said. She’s not alone. Garman has lost all but one television channel at his home near Formoso, said his wife, Deb. “We got Channel 5 at 4 this morning, but by 4:30 you couldn’t get it anymore,” she said. Tuned to KHAS, the NBC affiliate in Hastings, Neb., the Garmans’ TV screen “is just a bunch of squares of color,” like a test pattern, Deb Garman said. “We are out in the middle of the country. You cannot get cable. If you do anything, you have to have a satellite dish. Otherwise, you have no TV.” After some television stations switched to digital Tuesday, even though the federal deadline was extended to June 12, a few customers began calling Garman & Sons in Courtland, said Tim Garman, Dave’s brother.
Read more about the digital conversion in Friday's Salina Journal.