If I want to see the world cup from home, this year I have to watch it on a 30 year old portable black and white set. The screen is barely bigger than that of a mobile phone. The players on field look like fuzzy rice grains and the ball appears about the size of a pin prick.
I started to prepare for this world cup months ago.
Where I live I can only get a ghosty dancing image on the screen of my main TV, broadcast from one free-to-air channel, SBS. That's the channel showing the world cup in Australia.The other four free-to-air channels look like an impressionist painting seen through a bowl of onion soup.I certainly couldn't see any the city's new digital channels.
Consequently, I don't watch much TV. I missed 'Lost', and 'The Wire', and 'Big Brother' and 'So you think you can Dance'.
But with the world cup getting closer I had to make some effort. So I bought new desktop boxes, two of them. to try to see programs . All that happened was the TV screen flashed a message " No Signal". I tried connecting to an indoor arial and an outdoor arial. Nothing worked.
This suburb is a bernuda triangle for rain clouds and TV signals - they just disappear.
I can't afford cable television. Besides, I didn't want to see the rest of the cable rubbish, just the world cup.I live in a flat and would be tied to a contract.
So This week I bought a new flat screen. ready for the world cup. I bought another new digital set top box, and a I bought a new arial, and a new signal booster. Yesterday I put them all together, read the instruction books (written in Chinglish). and Lo and Behold, now I can get 7 of the fourteen free-to-air channels, as crisp and clear a signal as cable itself. The only channel I can't get is SBS, the one showing the world cup. I have reinstalled three times, but still no SBS,. So far all I've missed is the opening game.
And I have spent nearly the same as a year's subscription to cable.
Today I had a brain wave. I could watch the world cup on my computer monitor.
Down at the gadget shop I got a little dongle for my computer, another set top box and another indoor arial, with signal booster. Once again, hours of plugging bits into the computer, installing a program and rebooting the computer. After searching for nearly an hour the computer locked onto a single TV channel, A Sydney community broadcast group called TVS, whose most exciting program on their schedule is ten pin bowling. Nothing else in the way of TV channels will appear on my computer monitor. No World cup.
Luckily I'd kept this old miniature black and white set. It uses a coat hanger for an arial. The sound is like the back end of a tin can. But the reception for SBS is clear and sharp, even if its a bit like watching the game from a plane flying at 20,000 ft.
Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi
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