What is your set up for watching the death of analog
 

Here is mine:

The XL100 - NBC affiliate WPSD
The Zenith - ABC affiliate WSIL
The Colortrak - CBS affiliate KFVS

and the TruFlat I am sure the daughter will have on the Disney Channel for Hannah Montana!

I guess I will need to drag the 3 consoles to the curb for disposal after tonight.

Holy Cow, almost forgot to give the CCII a final taste of analog - added her to the mix!!

My plan is to have my 1952 Kaye-Halbert 20" console, my '66 Zenith roundie color set, and maybe a few portables of various ages all set up on KTLA Channel 5 (Los Angeles). I'm going to have to fool around trying to get an analog signal out here in Ventura County, and if I can't, I'll load up a few sets and go into Chatsworth (just within the city of Los Angeles) to a vacant rental house, and set up there for the 10PM news tonight. That will be the final KTLA analog broadcast, and it will be hosted by newsman Stan Chambers, who began working there when the station went on the air in '47, and is STILL working there today!

Charles

Late 70's TG&Y 12" B&W, coat hanger antenna, in my mother's apartment outside Atlanta - 25 miles from the transmitters. WAGA is coming in moderately, WSB is discernible, at least for the next 45 minutes or so.

1969 23" Zenith B&W tube type console. Saw them "flip the switch" at 9 AM. RIP WTOK analog broadcast (1953-2009).

WAGA-TV's noon newscast is dedicated to the end of analog at 12:30. The station's first chief engineer is 99 years old and will flip the switch live. He turned the station on in 1948.

Five words: converter box, cable or satellite.

A joke I hope. :no:

Well, here in the city the following major analog stations have signed off:

WABC 7
CW 11
WNET 13

WTTW-11 here in Chicago was the first station to die. I watched it go to snow at 5:59 this morning. Saw it happen on my solid state '73 Zenith 25" console. I even recorded it.

Im at work right now, I brought a portable TV to the office, me and a couple other guys just watched WLS-7 fade into the sunset about 18 minutes ago. We watched it on my '65 Admiral 12" b/w portable.

Its been nothing but non-stop DTV information on all the channels, banners running across the screen, people demonstrating how to hook up your converter boxes etc.

The rest of them go at 11:59:59 this evening. I'll make a video of multiple TV's grouped together showing the remaining channels then it'll be over for good. As an enthusiast for TV electronics and NTSC, this is a sad day. However, AM and FM radio are still analog and going strong, so hopefully the radio medium is left alone for many more years.

Bah Humbug!

Looks like I missed the CBS affiliate KFVS out of Cape Girardeau going dark on analog.

I've got the old 1963 Zenith b/w console on the ABC affiliate WSIL out of Harrisburg playing now. Think I'll leave it on for the duration - hope those old tubes last another 11 1/2 hours or so. Silly me. WTF was I thinking - those are all original Zenith tubes from 1963 - still going strong!

There should be an "Analog Nightlight" station in each market. Maybe a couple. We're doing it here in Denver on KCNC. It will only be information about the conversion and why you're not getting any other channel. But it is analog television. It will run for 30 days and then it is really over.

We're looking for an old sign-off message like we all used to play with the National Anthem and the flag. If anyone has a line on one send me a PM.

Take care,

Ed

agreed!!!

The end of analog TV in Cleveland
 

Channel 3 in Cleveland stopped analog at 10:00 this morning, along with channels 19 and 43 in the same area. I believe channels 5 and 8 signed off their analog signals at the same time as well, but it's impossible to know (unless the station announces it) since I have cable (Time Warner)--which uses direct digital feeds from the TV stations.

Channel 49, one of two PBS channels TW cable offers in my area, will switch at midnight tonight; channel 25, the local PBS affiliate in Cleveland, has already switched and in fact is broadcasting at full digital power, even as I write this (the station announced this via a screen crawl most of yesterday afternoon and into the evening).

I set my VCR last night to tape the last few hours of analog on channel 3, but again, since I have cable, I could not tell the difference on the tape when they rang down the curtain on analog NTSC, except that the picture seems quite a bit sharper and clearer now (even on my nine-year-old RCA XL100 CTC185, and probably also on my Zenith Sentry 2, which I didn't check--yet) than I can ever remember it being in analog.

Now all that's left is to get those other million-plus holdouts still using analog TVs connected directly to antennas hooked up to cable or to a DTV converter box (and the proper antenna(s), of course).

I think, however, there are going to be a sizable number of viewers who still refuse to believe they need a converter or cable ahead of their old set. The old saying "seeing is believing", however, applies here in spades; when these people turn on their old (or not so old) analog TVs tomorrow morning and see their favorite TV shows gone, replaced by nothing but snow on every channel, they will then, hopefully anyway, take the bull by the horns and get a box or subscribe to at least basic cable. However, there are people who will think their TV is broken, and will immediately put it out for the trash....even if the set worked perfectly well when all TV was analog.

I can't help wondering how many old (these days meaning mostly '80s-'90s black-plastic cube offshore-manufactured CRT receivers, including flat panels that conk out after only a year or after the warranty expires, whichever comes first) TVs we will be seeing on curbs and treelawns from this day forward, having been replaced by HDTV flat panels. There may also be folks who will decide that television isn't worth the bother anymore, that TV is a dreadful waste of time, or both, and will not replace their old set(s) when the transition is finally, fully complete at 12:01 a.m. 06.13.09. The digital transition only improves television signals from a behind-the-scenes technical standpoint which will go unnoticed by the average person; it will not and does not (unfortunately) improve the quality of the television shows broadcast over those signals.

Garbage on television is garbage, whether it is viewed on a 19" screen or a 50" one. I bet more people will subscribe to DVD rental services such as Netflix or Blockbuster, or purchase their own DVDs from Amazon.com, et al. after the transition, as much of today's junk that passes for programming on broadcast television (including those afternoon talk shows that replaced the afternoon movies and old off-network reruns on daytime TV several decades ago) won't look any better in digital HD than it presently looks (or looked, until the transition) in NTSC analog.

Analog television is already history for the most part, and will be for sure at midnight tonight. I do not think those analog "nightlight" stations count (even though, as you mentioned, they are still analog television signals), as all one will see on those for the next 30 days are messages explaining what viewers must do to continue to get TV reception, plus emergency information when and if needed. That's all. The "nightlight" stations are not intended to and will not show any other kind of programming in most cases, although I read (in the latest issue of Broadcasting&Cable's newsletter) that WWME-TV channel 23 in Chicago will in fact rebroadcast the newscasts of that city's NBC-TV affiliate. The same newsletter mentioned that WFLD-TV will be the analog nightlight station for the Chicago metropolitan area. The nightlight station here in northeastern Ohio is the NBC affiliate, WKYC-TV on analog 3 and digital 2 (for now; the station intends, however, to switch its digital broadcasts to channel 17 once an independent broadcaster on that channel in another town near Cleveland signs off the air).


I honestly do not know, either, why TV and radio stations no longer play the U.S. National Anthem at sign on and sign off, as they used to. I have definite and very strong opinions on this subject; however, since we cannot discuss political issues in these forums (even the "off-topic" ones), I guess I'll have to keep my opinions to myself.

I wasn't going to do anything special at first. But I stacked some working b/w sets on top of my 3 color consoles and fired them all up. I had to split the antenna so many times that some of the sets aren't getting that great of reception. They are all either tuned to ch 2 or 4 whichever came in better, showing the message they keep repeating about dtv converters. I don't have any method here of recording video, so I just took a picture.

http://www.audiokarma.org/gallery/sh...=5544&size=big

....

In the picture the reception on the RCA 8-PT-7014 stinks, and the brightness is too high on the Mercury, and too low on the Hoffman - the other sets look good. Maybe I'll take another pic later...

Perhaps I'll get lucky and be able to DX canadian stations that are still on the air. Perhaps I can alteast be able to DX something analog on the TV.

KAIT 8 went blank at 7:00 AM. I'm fiddling with the rabbit ears and the rooftop antenna to get the Memphis stations in a little better. I'm using a early 70's Zenith 15" B/W set in the spare bedroom, connected to a '79 G.E. 2-piece docking VCR which is recording as the channels go to snow.

Had to work today, not enough time noe energy to bear witness to the death of Analog.

Maybe tomorrow I'll power up a TV and scan for anything that might be left (Canadian stations probably)

Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, all of the NTSC stations are still on the air as of 5:30 PM, though one of them is showing an infomercial-type program about getting DTV set up. I am checking out the signals on a 1977 Panasonic 5" B&W TV I bought last weekend for US$5. It needs its yoke repostioned but otherwise works fine.

Same here. However, here in the Pittsburgh area, we can get Johnstown's Channel 6, WJAC, we can receive (or used to) the station here. Sometimes I listen to it via the car radio, it was nice during things like the Olympics and so on to monitor them as I drive around. I tuned the radio in my 2008 Chevy Colorado worktruck while on deliveries to 87.7 Mc and I heard WJAC doing nothing but chucking carriers. If they had something on the screen, I don't know.

I've got my 1975 RCA Sportable running, it's sensitive enough to work with it's rabbit ears.

At this time KCOP 13, KTTV 11 and KTLA 5 are still on the air broadcasting normal programing. CBS and NBC are showing and endless loop about how to convert to digital, everyone else seems to be gone.

It is just after 11pm in Chicago, and the only NTSC VHF signal left is WGN channel 9. I've got it turned in on a 19" B/W Zenith tube portable from about '67. I'm going to watch till the bitter end.

No more analog TV in Cleveland
 

I'm writing this at 1:22 a.m. 06.13.09. No analog TV to be found, at least on cable. Every full-power TV station in my area near Cleveland has now switched to digital and signed off their analog signal, with WEAO-TV 49, a PBS station some 60 miles southwest of here, being the last one to do so, at midnight EST--one hour 22 minutes ago. They must be having problems with their digital signal, though, as the audio and video on the Charlie Rose interview program (at just past midnight) were terribly out of sync. I found it weird, to say the least, to see Rose's male guest on my screen, while hearing a female reporter's voice coming from my TV's speaker. I hope this was just an unfortunate post-transition glitch. Has anyone else noticed this on PBS or other channels immediately after midnight local time (when the DTV transition was to have been completed)?

It is almost 11 PM here in the Bay Area, and all the NTSC stations are still on the air (except the two that switched in February, 20 and 36). 2,4,5,7,9,11,14,26,38,32,40 (from Sacramento),42,44,48,54,65, and 66 are all still going. Only channel 11 (NBC) has switched off "real" programming and has the DTV information loop going. I am not going to be awake at midnight to see what happens then.

Well, I did go ahead and fix the Panasonic TR-555 while I still had easy signals available.

Well, it happened. I was still awake, and when I came back from brushing my teeth I heard static from the TV. Every NTSC signal is gone, except channel 11 with that DTV information.

It's 17 minutes after midnight in Seattle, so NTSC is history except in Alaska and Hawaii and Guam. And those nightlight stations and LPTV and translators.

Channels 2 and 4 are still broadcasting an Analog signal here. It's just a looped program instructing people on how to make the switch to DTV.

Damn shame to completely lose Analog, if only because the signal is more robust.

Caught that on a '58 Zenith portable with a camcorder, I was waiting for them to announce it like the others when they just disappeared.:tears:
I caught all the others on a wide variety of sets from '49 to my newest set from '86. About 30 in all, I tried to have one for every channel available. I could have set up more but ran out of room and power, breakers were blowing and getting very warm. In fact, the vertical was creeping in on several sets and the lights were dimmed. I cringe to open the next electric bill but I'll be damned if I was gonna miss it! As the day went on, some sets got put away as the stations were fewer and fewer, then I noticed about ten sets on the same channel because so many were gone. I caught most of them dying either on the digital video camera or the camcorder, I'll edit all the pieces together on a rainy day. It was a sad day for us tv enthusiasts, that's for sure.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m...n12-2009_1.jpg

Charles

Well, analog ended without even a whimper here.

The ABC affiliate on channel 3 simply went to snow.
The NBC affiliate out of Paducah, WPSD, had a bit more class. They at least played a 1990 vintage sign off with the Star Spangld Banner followed by a short color bar screen, then snow.

On a happier note, I had that old 63 Zenith b/w console on channel 3 for 14 straight hours, connected to a set of bunny ears. PERFECT reception the entire time. There is a store that sells those refurbished maggy/sylvania/emerson vcr/dvd combos for 40$. Think I'll get one and hook it up to this old girl to watch vintage b/w movies on. Not much else to do with her now.

Why would you not use a digital tuner box? Any place that has "perfect" reception on channel 3 should be able to tune in at least some high-VHF or UHF digital channels as well.

Watched tapes of the shutdown of analog in the Knoxville and Chattanooga markets on all our old Roundies. Watched Channel 8's shutdown on our working CT-100 with our neighbours gathered and their children live. All these sets have converter boxes installed. We have many spares in reserve!