Q: We live in Monument and subscribe to Dish Network. We use rabbit ears to get the local Denver stations. Can we use a converter box to continue that without hurting the Dish reception?— Sue McGhee, Monument
A: After a telephone call, I now know you use the rabbit ears on a different television set than the Dish Network connection.
That makes a bigger difference in the setup than the issue of reception.
There are a couple of issues worth considering here, the most important being the antenna. Set-top rabbit ears won’t do you much good without the UHF loop, though a couple of the television stations will revert to their old analog frequency — specifically channels 7 and 9 — and the ears might pick it up, if your view to Lookout Mountain is unimpeded.
You can test the loop on channels 2 or 4, which already are transmitting digitally on full power on UHF 34 and 35, respectively. Your box will likely show them as 2.1 and 4.1.
If the reception is poor, consider a good UHF-VHF high-gain antenna, perhaps one with a signal booster since Monument is nearly at the fringe of the new digital patterns from Lookout Mountain, where the antenna should point.
Since your converter box is connected to a television different from the one using Dish Network, there’s no interference from one to the other. If it were the same set, you’d have to shut the transmitter for one in order to use the other.
The FCC maps indicate you might actually pick up three or four stations in the digital transition, so peruse the dial when Feb. 17 rolls around.
David Migoya wants to get the answers to your consumer questions. E-mail consumertips@ denverpost.com or write to Consumer Shopping Bag, The Denver Post, 101 W. Colfax Ave. Suite 600, Denver, CO 80202
