With two exceptions, low-power TV stations may choose to stay on the air in analog format for the coming future, eventually they will switch over too. And a few full power stations will be allowed to continue. These so called “Nightlight stations” will be able to broadcast for 14 to 30 days after June 12th but only broadcast “non-programing material” (This is to assure if there is an emergency at least a few stations will still be on)
Full-power Analog stations “lose their license” at 11:59 PM (local time) on Friday night. The FCC says they can switch off at any time during the day or evening on Friday. They have to file with the FCC for a shut off time. It could be such as “Morning noon or late afternoon etc.”
Channels 52 - 69 will be taken from TV and given to other service like cell phones and wireless Internet.
PSIP (part of digital broadcasting) will allow “virtual channels” so that (for example) WGN-TV which broadcasts on Channel 19 will still have their old analog number Channel 9.
Stations currently broadcasting their digital channel on Channels 52 thru 69, will have to move. For example, in Chicago, WLS-TV is now broadcasting on Channel 52 (UHF). Because that channel will be taken away, they are moving back to Channel 7 their old analog channel.
So in this case you’ll have to rescan your DTV AFTER June 12th.
Hmmm I wonder how all this will go over? Well we’ll see
IIRC, something like 86% of homes have satellite or cable, and as our cable company keeps reminding us, they won’t be affected at all, except maybe for that old TV in the basement that isn’t hooked up.
As for the other 1 out of 7, I have a friend who works at a PBS station in a rural area. He says they’ve had hundreds of calls from viewers who set up their converter boxes and…nothing. Since the stations in his area are located in different cities, viewers have to raise their antennas AND get an antenna rotor and retune it every time they change channels. Because all the DTV signals are now UHF in his area, some viewers at the outside edges can’t get a signal at all.
For a lot of others the “all or nothing” nature of digital reception is causing problems, ranging from irritating to unacceptable. My guess is that maybe 1 out 10 viewers are going to wind up with fewer stations to choose from when the switch is complete.
More than 61% of the viewers in my market are on cable and won’t be affected.
Looking around here…
the CBS station signed off it’s analog early this month and never looked back.
The Fox station will sign on analog Friday morning at sign it off at 8:00 a.m. (they’ll do the morning show and go).
The ABC and NBC stations will sign off the analog xmtr at noon-thirty, so they’ll leave with their noon news programs.
The Entravision stations (Spanish language Univision and TeleFutura) sign off their analogs Thursday night. Apparantly all Entravision stations from Boston to San Diego will do this.
The last kid on our block will be Big Bird. They’ll sign off analog before midnight and sign on just the digital rig Saturday morning.
I remember hearing that once the change-over is complete, those who have had trouble getting stations on their boxes will have better signals. Since stations are still broadcasting both analogue and digital, the digital signal isn’t as strong as it needs to be.
I can’t get PBS on mine, either, if we’re keeping track.
I will be very glad when it’s all over, mostly because I’m looking forward to the end of the endless announcements about the switch to DTV (especially given that I have cable and it doesn’t affect me).
Bunches of technical reasons for this, ranging from how many total watts they’re licensed to push out, to how much power a given transmitter tower can safely carry.
I live in Chicago on the NW side, 3 miles from Sears Tower (where the transmitters are) and I went from 16 analog to ZERO digital channels. I had to get cable.
Building and such are very problematic in large cities. You won’t really know what the signals will be like till after the transition.
This is due to a lot of things.
For instance, the FCC said if a station stays on it’s digital channel, it’s protected. This means that it has #1 priority. For instance, in Chicago, WGN-TV stayed on Channel 19 and PSIP will give it a virtual channel of 9.
WLS-TV Channel 7, in Chicago, had it’s digital channel on 52. Channels 52 through 69 are being taken away from TV. So WLS had to go back to Channel 7. BUT since WLS didn’t stay on it’s digital channel. It has NO protection. That means any other station who’s digital channel is 7 has priority if there are signal overlaps and WLS has to alter it’s antenna.
Because of this you will see weird directional signals. This is especially true in the area from Washington DC and northeast to Boston.
The analog stations had basically a non-directional signal (By in large with some exceptions). But digital ones are more likely to have directional signals.
Also remember Digital TV is NOT Digital Cable and no in anyway related to it. The FCC has mandated for a few more years that cable companies carry an analog tier. The cable companies will simply convert digtial to analog. An exception exists if the cable company is willing to offer one free converter box to each house. Then they may offer only digital cable.
Lastly remember all High Def TV (HDTV) is digtal, but not all digtial TV is high def. And if you’re buying a new TV also remember tests show that if you buy a screen less than 30" almost no one can tell difference between HDTV and plain old digtal. The screen isn’t big enough to notice. So if you’re getting a smaller TV or a computer screen, if it’s less than 30" save your money.
I just hooked up my converter (which has been sitting there next to the TV for about a year, believe it or not … I have a problem with procrastination, but I’ll get around to dealing with it one of these years). Much, much better pic on the big 3 plus Fox, which is UHF in Philly (and thus a channel I watch only infrequently) – but no PBS (“weak signal”)
I’m surprised that I didn’t hear people complaining about this at work today; quite a few people there still have nothing but aerial or rabbit ear antennas.
[del]I’ve been getting digital reception for a couple of years now. I just rescanned because of channels moving around, and I’ve got six channels from three stations. I used to have 30 or so channels.
Didn’t see that one coming.[/del]
My bad. I had the wrong antenna hooked up (I was using the good one to check out the public service broadcasts running on some of the analog channels.)
My local CBS station vanished. The station has announced that they’re only running at half-power until about July 1. Still, that doesn’t explain why I did receive their digital signal before, but not now.
