DTV transition "Soft test" on 11-20-08 in Chicago

[stereocuuple]

I live near kansas city and tonight one of our local stations did a "DTV home test"

There was a big production where one of the anchors was in the control booth and explained to listeners that "the change is coming soon." She told everyone that she would be pushing a certain button, and that if reception was dropped, that you would be needing to buy a converter box or a TV with a digital tuner.
When she pushed the button, our picture remained clear,as we have a digital TV.
Just for kicks, we tuned in to the analog channel of the same station just to see what would appear to those without one.

Well, I guess you could say that "broadcasting" ended, except for the message accross the screen that said, "your TV signal will no longer be available after February 2009, call 1800 blah blah blah for your coupon.

Picture a screen full of static, with perfectly clear, advertisement-style wording in the middle of the picture.

Seems pretty weird to me....

Erin

[zenithfan1]

Originally Posted by stereocuuple

I live near kansas city and tonight one of our local stations did a "DTV home test"

There was a big production where one of the anchors was in the control booth and explained to listeners that "the change is coming soon." She told everyone that she would be pushing a certain button, and that if reception was dropped, that you would be needing to buy a converter box or a TV with a digital tuner.
When she pushed the button, our picture remained clear,as we have a digital TV.
Just for kicks, we tuned in to the analog channel of the same station just to see what would appear to those without one.

Well, I guess you could say that "broadcasting" ended, except for the message accross the screen that said, "your TV signal will no longer be available after February 2009, call 1800 blah blah blah for your coupon.

Picture a screen full of static, with perfectly clear, advertisement-style wording in the middle of the picture.

Seems pretty weird to me....

Erin

Eeesh......That IS wierd.

[peverett]

As to the comment about radio being the medium of choice in severe weather, I completely disagree. Here, when severe weather is around the local TV stations broadcast detailed radar images of where the storms are and where they are projected to be over the next hour or so. Radio cannot come close to this. The only way I would depend on radio is if I was stuck in a car or I had no way to power a TV. Even the so-called weather radios are not very good. We have one and if you allow the alarm to sound, it sounds for either a warning or a watch(should only sound for warnings, but you cannot turn the watch alarm off), like crying wolf in a crowded theater.

As a preview to how I think DTV will do in bad weather, I was at my mothers house in rural OK this last summer. Bad weather was coming in the middle of the night. She has satellite, so I turned on the TV to see where it was. Of course it kept on freezing up and crapping out. I finally was able to see that it had passed us, but if a tornado had been coming, I would have been blown away. She does not have a good outside antenna at present, so viewing analog TV was not an option.

Yet another preview (using actual DTV) occured here in the spring of this year. I was watching DTV in my workshop to see how well it works here. A line of thrunderstorms was approaching from the west. Guess what, I lost DTV completely with a frozen/screen, no sound for several(probably 10 or so) minutes. I turned on a TV receiving analog to see where the storms were-worked just fine the entire time.