Who uses TV antennas anymore?

[Jeffhs]

I think the government is worrying over nothing as far as people losing TV reception after the DTV transition is concerned; sheeesh, they have more important things to worry about at this time anyhow. Who uses regular television antennas these days, anyway? Most people have either cable or satellite now, and let's face it, some folks live in areas where cable is not available. Case in point: I live in an area of northeastern Ohio, 33 miles east of Cleveland and 610 feet above sea level, where the TV reception with an antenna is terrible. One station (the NBC affiliate) doesn't reach here at all; seven others (three of which are UHF stations) are fair to poor at best. The only station that comes in here on an antenna with a picture good enough to watch is channel 19. From this, it is or should be clear that in this area, as well as in many other towns across the country, antennas do not work very well, so cable is really the only way people around here (and in other small towns) can get decent reception from local channels. For people who cannot afford expanded basic cable (as Time Warner refers to it) or digital, most cable operators, I'm sure, offer a basic level of service that offers only local channels, which costs much less than the other services; I think TW's basic cable is only something in the neighborhood of $12 a month or so, after the initial installation charge. I know someone with TW basic cable who pays only about $5 a month for the service (why this person's rate is so low, I don't know ), so cable service just to get an area's local TV channels shouldn't be a strain on anyone's budget.

Cable and satellite are a large part of the future of TV in the 21st century; antennas are rapidly becoming obsolete. Most homes in this small town in which I live do not have rooftop antennas anymore, with a few having Dish Network satellite service and most having TW cable. There are only two places in this village (that I am aware of, anyway) that still have outside TV antennas; that's the bowling alley down the street from my apartment, and a house currently for sale on the next street over from me. (The new owners of the latter may well eventually take down that antenna, as it is falling apart [elements loose or having been broken off in high winds] and is so loose on its mast that it swings around every time there's a good wind.)

I sometimes wonder if the government, the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) and others involved with the DTV transition are blowing this whole thing far out of proportion. As I said at the beginning of this post, the US government has far more important things to worry about than whether or not people are going to have TV reception after June 12. The argument that people will not get emergency information if they do not have TV doesn't hold water either. The Emergency Alert System (EAS) broadcasts over the radio as well as over television, so anyone with a radio capable of receiving their area's local stations can get the information they need that way. Who will be watching television in the middle of a tornado, hurricane, terrorist attack, etc. anyway?

Another question. What did people do to get emergency information before television was invented and even after that, when sets were too expensive for most people to afford? They heard emergency warnings and the like....yup, you guessed it, over the radio. (I don't mean to "dumb down" this post with that statement; I'm just trying to make a point, and am fed up with the government's worrying that people won't hear emergency information if their TV reception is cut off after June 12.) There were at least two predecessors to today's EAS--Conelrad in the '50s-'60s, and the Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) in the '70s through the mid-nineties. Today's Emergency Alert System does a much better job of disseminating emergency information than Conelrad did, as emergency bulletins and such are broadcast over all stations in the affected area; Conelrad required all stations, except the designated Conelrad alert station on 640 or 1240 kHz, in the warning area to shut down until further notice. With the EAS, as long as listeners are within range of a local radio station, they will hear the emergency info they need right on the spot. Conelrad's major fault, IMO, was that listeners had to be within broadcast range of the local alert station; these stations, as I understand it, operated at extremely low power levels and, therefore, had very limited range. If a warning, alert, etc. were broadcast over the Conelrad emergency alert station in your area and you could hear it, great. If not (because you were out of range of the station or if you could not find the Conelrad station on your radio, as some sets didn't have CD markings on their tuning dials even during the Conelrad era), you were out of luck. The latter is a situation no one can afford to be in during an emergency.