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Plugged In: the DTV Switch

Don't wait... do it now!

Had an interesting chat from a viewer in Eastwood this afternoon who was a bit confused after last week's "In Depth" day on the DTV changeover.  (For those who didn't watch, you missed a rare opportunity to see engineers caught on camera... but don't worry, we won't recriprocate by making Carrie climb the tower!)

Anyway, the question comes down to this: how can I test my TV or converter box when the switchover from analog to digital happens next February?

Lilian, if you're reading this, thanks for calling to straighten this out.  There are a number of other folks who have wondered the same thing, and it comes down to really unfortunate phrasing on the part of the government and the broadcast industry.  February 17 isn't really a changeover or transition date... it's simply when the analog signals are shut down.  Except for channel 56, every Syracuse full power station has been transmitting a digital signal for the past few years, side by side with the analog signal.  So here's the deal in a nutshell:

Don't wait until February to install your converter box... do it now!

Why?  If having a better picture and more free channels doesn't convince you, how about this: by starting now, you find out whether your existing antenna will work acceptably.  Don't assume that because you see channel 9 well now that your antenna will work as well for the digital channels -- you very well could need an antenna that works better for UHF channels (14 and above), which is where all of Syracuse's digital signals live.  Rabbit ears, as a rule, don't work all that well once you get above channel 13.

If you haven't even applied for the $40 converter box coupons, apply now!  They will take a few weeks to arrive, and if you call now, the 90-day expiration will hit after next February -- so you have nothing to lose.

Don Marquis once wrote, "Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."  An amusing turn of phrase... but it won't be funny come February 18th if you are caught with no coupons, no converters, and no working television.  Get started... now!

-- Jeff

 

Published Monday, November 24, 2008 4:35 PM by JH Engineering

Comments

 

carlb said:

Actually, the deIONisation process has finally started; 56 was to decrease analogue at the end of September fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=651851 so that channel 56 could be taken off the top position of the tower and the channel 15 antenna could take its place. They don't want to be installing antennae in the middle of a Syracuse winter either, so they've made plans to be serving the usual recommended daily allowance of infomercials on DT15 starting on December 3rd fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/cdbs/forms/prod/getattachment_exh.cgi?exhibit_id=698516

That should be the last of the Syracuse digitals to go on-air; even lowly WSTQ should already have access to more vacant digital subchannel space than they could ever use (now that The Tube is defunct and NBC WX+ about to shutdown).

The situation is different in other markets, so anyone receiving signals from Elmira or from Canada may still have some stations left in analogue-only format for now.
November 24, 2008 5:24 PM
 

carlb said:

As for whether "it comes down to really unfortunate phrasing on the part of the government and the broadcast industry.  February 17 isn't really a changeover or transition date... it's simply when the analog signals are shut down"?

It's not so much an accidental "unfortunate phrasing" as the usual pattern of as message being created by marketers. It's easier to sell something as a "new and improved" product introduction than to admit this is primarily about turning signals off. The oversize "power switch" in the Wilmington NC trial market events followed the same odd pattern - the "off" position for analogue TV was depicted as "up", as that's exactly where one would normally expect to see "on" for a light switch.

It does seem odd, though, to see "86 days until digital... are you ready?" on WWTI-DT2. I thought that, if 50.2 displayed at all, that was supposed to mean that the newfangled digital TV was already in the parlour, warmed up and running?
November 24, 2008 5:42 PM
 

JH Engineering said:

Actually, WSTQ has been on WSTM-DT's second stream (3-2) for quite some time -- that's how the program feed gets from the studio on James Street to the transmitter, which is co-located with WOLF radio, just northwest of downtown.  Rather than using a dedicated microwave link, they just use a DTV receiver to pick up 3-2 and feed the analog audio and video to the channel 14 transmitter.

So far as running the countdown crawl on WWTI-2 goes, you're right about it seeming pointless... but one of the things we are seeing is that there are folks who have their main TV on cable or satellite while the little set in the bedroom or in the kitchen is still receiving analog off the air, so there really is some value to using every opportunity to keep the issue alive.  Also, when the FCC mandated the education requirements this past February (to take effect at the end of March!), the easiest design approach for me was to modify the existing EAS crawl insertion systems for this additional function.  Basically, I updated every station's system for the sake of consistency, and the folks managing WWTI decided that they might as well use the capability since it exists, even though there is no absolute legal requirement to do so.

I don't necessarily discount the effect of marketers on how perception is created, but in this particular instance, I am more blaming myself for carelessly using the terminology of the FCC and Congress, even though I know that the terms "changeover" and "transition", while accurate enough to describe the work I am doing at the station level, are misleading from the public's perspective.

Maybe there needs to be some catchy new phrase... "The Great American TV Snowstorm", perhaps?

-- Jeff
November 25, 2008 8:51 AM
 

carlb said:

Dunno... it looks like there's just one station which will be left behind, and that's the Ithaca station: WNYI. Its case is an odd one.

It signed on half a dozen years ago, so too recently to have been given a second channel to run a DTV simulcast, and its signal terrestrially is minuscule (26kW on UHF 52 as a Spanish-language Univisión affiliate). Even LPTV stations can be licensed for up to 150kW analogue, yet this one - on paper at least - has a full-service license and can claim officially to be Ithaca's only local television voice. How, exactly, I'm not sure... the whole operation is fed via full-ConUS free-to-air satellite from Little Rock, Arkansas leaving basically just a satellite-fed translator running on autopilot on the ground, en español, in Ithaca NY of all places. Perhaps they figured a full-service license would get them a better chance at getting onto cable somewhere?

This, however, is where it all goes wrong... they're owned by Equity Media, one of at least three unrelated station groups (others include Pappas and Tribune) currently in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They can't stay analogue because WNYI is full-service; they can't stay on 52 because it's the first channel to be out-of-core when the <s>revolution</s> digital television transition comes. They can't go out and buy whatever equipment they need to flash-cut to digital on WUTR's old channel (20) without prior approval of an Arkansas federal bankruptcy court as Equity has negative equity and no C.A.S.H.

The owners have filed DTV status reports with the FCC for stations in more than a dozen cities, including Ithaca, all of which conclude with "The station will cease analogue broadcasting on February 17, 2009, regardless of whether digital facilities are operational by that date. The station will file authority to remain silent if so required by the FCC."

Unfortunate. Hopefully everyone else is accounted for digitally?
December 30, 2008 9:35 PM
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