Just one month left of analog NTSC (again)

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Well, I wish to register a complaint...About a week & a half ago here, we had a Tornado come thru. Or at least a funnel cloud. Depends on who you talk to. Some folks say they saw a funnel cloud, I didn't. Anyhow, the local radio stations, WRGS 1370 KC, & the FM station, they've changed their call letters again for the umpteenth time, I can't remember, I think they're WEYE, 104.3 Mc, both of them are "fully automated", & consequently, we got NOTHING as far as updates on the tornado-just the usual canned, "Blah-blah-blah" reports at the regular newstimes. Other than that, they kept pumpin' out the inane Kuntry-Lovin' hits...Kinda wish the tornado had come by & blown them away, for all the good they did..."Public Service", my ass... Next year-or even after June, if we get another tornado, we could be blown away, & if the lights get knocked out-as they usually are-how would we know if one's coming ? I still say this is about the most stupid jerkoff trick the boneheads in Warshington have ever dreamed up... An' they're masters at coming up w/jerkoff tricks...

Sandy, I did not realize how utterly useless radio is for weather warnings until I read your post. With so many stations being automated these days (there is one such station in the next town south of here, and maybe--even likely--many more in Cleveland) the chances of getting local weather information and/or warnings are slim to none--they don't ordinarily break into the automated programming for much of anything. There is a 0.5kW local station near where I grew up that changed from oldies to a fully-automated talk format about five years ago or so; I don't hear it where I live now (Fairport Harbor, Ohio, a village 33 miles east of Cleveland that isn't considered a suburb), so don't know what's going on anymore with it or its programming. But I'd think they are as bad as most other automated stations, never (well, hardly ever) breaking into the satellite programming. Heaven help them (not to mention the residents of the area) if a tornado strikes the city where they are located (Willoughby, Ohio, an eastern suburb of Cleveland); the storm might well quite literally blow them off the air, and the public would have little or no advance warning of the event.

BTW, I just looked up (on www.Radio-Locator.com) the information for the local AM/FM radio stations in your area. You were right. The local FM in Surgoinsville, Tennessee is in fact WEYE-FM, while the local AM station in Rogersville is still WRGS. I didn't realize both those stations are automated. I think your best bet will be to hope that the digital TV stations serving your area are receivable well enough to get the info you will need in an emergency situation, although given the all-or-nothing nature of DTV this could be and probably will be hit-or-miss at best--hardly acceptable in an emergency. The next tornado may well knock the local radio stations off the air; at least if you have power and access to your TV (and your cable or antenna haven't been disabled or blown down, respectively) you will get EAS (Emergency Alert System) info. If the storm knocks out your electric service, unfortunately you will be out of luck as far as TV is concerned, and radio will, again, be worthless as many of the local stations will be off the air if the tornado blows down their towers.

The FCC obviously did not do their homework when they decided to shut down analog TV on June 12 this year. This, which is not in the public interest by any means, will leave many, many people literally "in the dark" as far as emergency information goes if a tornado or other natural disaster disrupts electric power or disables the area's television stations. I agree with others here who have said it would have been an excellent idea if the FCC had put a clause in the DTV-shutdown rules that would allow one analog NTSC TV station in each major market to stay on the air to allow for emergency information if needed. The FCC's "nightlight" service provisions were supposed to have addressed this issue, but unfortunately many cities did not take advantage of them, which is why most of the U.S. is in such a mess today as far as TV in emergencies goes. The whole country probably would have been better off had the FCC kept its hands off the present NTSC analog television system, which has served this country well for nearly sixty years. At least with NTSC analog, stations can be received (albeit with snowy pictures and/or noisy sound) when the signals are extremely weak; with DTV, you either have a signal or you don't, which again is totally unacceptable in any emergency situation--in a severe rainstorm, flood condition or tornado, the signal will be unpredictable, leaving viewers either with no reception whatsoever or with an unusable picture and no sound.

Sheeeesh! The FCC really blew it this time.