I have an elderly relative to whom setting the microwave and the VCR is an act of voodoo magic. Left alone with technology, she can do dangerous things by just pushing buttons that I never thought possible.
A while ago she went off the deep end with the remote of her digital converter box and somehow actually killed the box by pushing buttons on it's remote control like a maniac. I have no idea exactly what she did, or how she did it, but now no matter what you do the box is totally unresponsive to any kind of input. Even turning it on or off by remote is no longer possible.
She now has a new box with new controller and I worry that she'll destroy this one: when she can't do what she wants like change to a particular channel, she goes nuts pushing buttons. If I hadn't seen how she had killed the first box, I wouldn't have believed that anyone could destroy a cable box just by button-pushing.
I don't suppose there's a way to fix the old one? Replacing them without the coupons aren't cheap. Or is there a way to keep her from ruining the one she has now?
A factory reset combination to get it back to normality?
An alcaholic I know manages to set his DVD unit into German and NTSC for PAL UK area, so picture totally breaks up and you cannot progress through the menus to get it back to English.
Sounds like my dad. I think he could chop your face off with the remote control craziness he can come up with. He's drunk and old. Drives me crazy sometimes having to reset everything for him.
If the remote is programmable, maybe it was accidentally set to a different code.
It's possible she somehow got into some diagnostic or setup mode on the box, which confused something.
I also assume doing a full pull-the-plug power cycle didn't help, either?
Is it a full cable box, newer DTA, or some ancient converter?
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Excellent point. I'm very good at crashing software.
I would suggest this... While the converter is turned on, pull the power cord from the wall socket. This might cause it to unlock or reset. I've seen this other devices -- a TV, LaserDisk plaer, and DVD player -- so it couldn't hurt.
My Dad got old and new technology was beyond him. Drove my Sister and I crazy. Now that he is gone I wish I had just one more day of it. Everytime I am working in my shop I feel his presence again and again. Perhaps this is Gods' way of keeping us together.
And now that I am old my children drive me crazy. Somehow my generation missed an episode. Not sure what the episode is or was either. They don't like the way I do anything. Clothes, friends, hobbies, tools - you name it. But have no trouble hitting me up for money. They have never acquired/learned any financial posture.
Oh well life goes on. Prayers and God keep me going. Wish my children had the same course in life. Bob AZ
Don't get me wrong, I love my dad to death. Actually, what really pisses me off is digital television. Most of the people I know that still even watched television via antenna are pretty freak'n old. Now he's got 12 channels instead of 5, but he can't get the main 2 channels he used to watch. So he's stuck way up in the mountains watching half assed cooking shows. Now they want to make him pay for the garbage, and show commercials every 5 minutes on top of it. And then the government helps pay to implement a shit ton of the technology using my tax money. I didn't vote on this shit. ARGH!
I'd better calm down ..... So angry. Calm blue ocean, Calm blue ocean......
You have a good point. Perhaps the problem is the remote itself. A digital camera will let you see if teh remote is actually producing an infrared signal.
Apparently you never got the memo. One of the advvantages of becoming a 'Senior Citizen' (Or as I like to say, 'Old Fart') is the right to pay back your children for some of the grief they ga
Stories like this make me laugh. Apparently you never got the memo - or threw it out as junk mail.
Becoming a 'Senior Citizen' (or as you refer to it , Old), conveys a number of opportunities.
I have few problems handling new technology. However, pretending to be confused by it does have certain advantages. The first is obvious
- it is one way to make sure the kids (and grandkids) come to see me once in a while. The second is it also allows me to pay them back for the grief they gave me while growing up!
Take the batteryies out of the remote for 15 minutes. If putting them or fresh ones back in doesn't fix things, unplug the converter box for 15 minutes. Or do these things in the opposite order.
I don't have much use for TV already, but let's face it...sometimes you just need to watch something to be informed or entertained. Analog TV may not have had high definition pictures or crystal clarity at all times, but when the signal was bad you could at least watch (or listen). And how many people kept a radio around that could at least receive VHF TV audio? (Those used to be SO handy...and with much better battery life than almost any portable TV could manage!)
I remember (!!) a time when a bad storm came rattling through town, and it cut power, telephones, Internet, everything. I guess it's a sign of the times to say that it made me (and others) feel strangely isolated, by not being able to easily know what had transpired just outside of our locale.
I am not one to be put off by such piffling details. I grabbed a 12" RCA B&W portable TV set that I'd picked up at a garage sale, put it on the tailgate of my truck, where it was somewhat sheltered under the topper and plugged it into an inverter. And it worked. (That surprised me a little to be honest. I wouldn't have thought that a cheap, well used TV set would do so well running from the noisy, somewhat nasty output of a
12 VDC >120 volt AC inverter.) Yet it did, and we could see the weather reports, as well as the news coverage of all the damage. (Surrounding areas had been a lot more severely affected than ours.)
Half the neighborhood had soon gathered around the tailgate of my truck to watch the TV news. I dare say it's been a long time since people from multiple homes gathered around a TV like that. I heard someone comment "well, if there was one person who would be able to watch TV..."*
The point is that I doubt you could do the same with today's over the air digital TV. I was receiving only what a half busted built in antenna could manage to pull in from a station 30 miles away at the time. ATSC wouldn't have worked at all.
Digital TV has caused me to just about stop watching TV altogether. Where I might have watched one or two hours a week, now I can go weeks without necessarily turning the TV on. The fact that it doesn't work as well for me as it did is the straw that broke the camel's back. Given what passes for TV programming today, along with the advertising, I just can't be bothered to fix it.
The FCC is getting ready to do it again, this time with wireless microphones. I don't have or use any of those, but I know of people who have thousands of dollars invested in such equipment and are getting ready to see it all rendered illegal to operate, making it effectively useless.
And while on the subject...I know we have digital over the air radio broadcasts now...I'm hoping that nobody ever gets the bright idea to mandate a switch there. Such a thing would really put a damper on the enjoyment of my vintage radios. It wouldn't be the same listening to them through a "converter box".
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