Just one month left of analog NTSC (again)

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by wilkes85

I just found out that they're switching the channels to UHF when they axe analogue TV here... which is just stupid because there are no UHF channels here, and there never were. So very few, if any people here would actually own a UHF antenna.

So i guess I won't be able to use the antenna on the roof at all, after 2011. It will just be a shrine to the good ol' days when TV was once free.

Where are you located? You may not have UHF stations in your area, but it could be that your local VHF channels will be moved to UHF channels so you may still get some use out of your antenna, or you could get cable so you won't have to worry about where your local stations wind up--on VHF or UHF. The UHF stations will be downconverted to VHF channels on cable anyway. The cable system in my area near Cleveland does that with the city's UHF channels (we have six such channels, on 19, 23, 25, 43, 55 and 61, with channels 19, 25 and 43 downconverted to channels 4, 10 and six respectively. Drives me nuts trying to find the stations sometimes, but that's the way they do it, I guess). This is done on our cable system and all others in the U.S. because it is easier to transmit VHF signals over coax cables; if direct over-the-air UHF signals were transmitted over your area's cable system there would very likely be problems with signal loss in long cable runs, among other things. In other words, higher frequency signals are more difficult to carry over cables; therefore, the UHFs are downconverted to VHF so there is little or no degradation in picture quality.

[wilkes85]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

Where are you located? You may not have UHF stations in your area, but it could be that your local VHF channels will be moved to UHF channels so you may still get some use out of your antenna, or you could get cable so you won't have to worry about where your local stations wind up--on VHF or UHF. The UHF stations will be downconverted to VHF channels on cable anyway. The cable system in my area near Cleveland does that with the city's UHF channels (we have six such channels, on 19, 23, 25, 43, 55 and 61, with channels 19, 25 and 43 downconverted to channels 4, 10 and six respectively. Drives me nuts trying to find the stations sometimes, but that's the way they do it, I guess). This is done on our cable system and all others in the U.S. because it is easier to transmit VHF signals over coax cables; if direct over-the-air UHF signals were transmitted over your area's cable system there would very likely be problems with signal loss in long cable runs, among other things. In other words, higher frequency signals are more difficult to carry over cables; therefore, the UHFs are downconverted to VHF so there is little or no degradation in picture quality.

Ah, I got digital cable, but I still use the antenna in my room.
But when the digital channels will be on UHF, you'll need a UHF antenna, eh?

Or can you use a VHF antenna with the digital box, even if it says it's on UHF?

Anyway I got a UHF bowtie antenna I'm using as an AM antenna, but I doubt that will work well enough... even with a rooftop areal the TV stations are fuzzy.

[wa2ise]

Here in Seattle the local channel 5 NBC TV station just announced that it's 11 days 'til the death of NTSC...

[zenithfan1]

Yep, saw that last night on the '68 Zenith rectangular color set I've been working on. They have been counting down here too. I hate this.

[JimJ[VT]]

But if you ask me, this digital conversion is just a great big waste of time, money, and energy.
Soon this will happen to AM and FM radio.
Soon, not only that we won't get free TV anymore, but no more free radio either.

Maybe I misunderstood your post, but how is DTV not free?

And to anyone talking about emergency communications, get a VHF/UHF scanner. Find the nearest SKYWARN repeater to you - usually they're on the 2 meter band, FM. No subscription needed, all analog

2. There is no way radio can replace the modern severe weather coverage (doppler radar, etc) available on TV. A picture is truly worth 1000 words.

However, Doppler often doesn't tell you what's actually happening at ground level There's a reason local TV stations often get their reports from SKYWARN spotters on 2 meters or 440MHz...heck, during storms you can sometimes hear the tones on the repeater go off on TV

[peverett]

The average Joe knows nothing about SKYWARN and will not learn anyting about it unless the media promotes it. The average Joe does know about TV. I still maintain that comparted to he average person's alternative, a weather radio, the weather information presented on TV is worth 1000 weather radios. Knowingly reducing the reliablitlity of mainstream severe weather reporting is criminal in my opinion. (As to the proposed mobile TV spec-it is just that, proposed, the technology does not exist yet-at least in mass production).

As to being free, DTV (in good weather) is free if you have the converter boxes. I watch it quite a bit.

As to AM/FM, they are pushing so-called HD radio here quite a bit, but I am not sure it is catching on. There is no law in this case and the problem with retrofitting the hundreds of millions of AM/FM radios in automobiles is almost insurmountable. I expect AM/FM to be around for a long time.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by peverett

As to AM/FM, they are pushing so-called HD radio here quite a bit, but I am not sure it is catching on. There is no law in this case and the problem with retrofitting the hundreds of millions of AM/FM radios in automobiles is almost insurmountable. I expect AM/FM to be around for a long time.

HD radio is being promoted to death here in northeastern Ohio (and the rest of the US) as well. An ad heard over Clear Channel O&O (owned and operated) stations these days (actually for the last couple of years) states, in no uncertain terms, that "It's time to upgrade!" but I don't know how well this is being received (pardon the pun) by the public.

I agree with you that AM and FM radio will likely be around for years and decades to come. However, many AM stations today are going silent as the companies that own them are finding that they cannot afford to maintain them and their companion FM station(s) as well. This happened to a 1kW daytime station about 25 miles south of here about five years ago. The station's owner, which already owns an FM station about 50 miles from here in the next county, sent its AM station's license back to the FCC for cancellation when the company (Music Express Broadcasting) discovered the AM station's transmitter and towers were so antiquated and in such bad shape (at least one of the towers was not anchored to the ground properly and could blow over in a strong wind--didn't necessarily have to be a tornado; those towers were so poorly anchored that one good 50-60 MPH wind gust could have probably toppled them in no time flat) that it would cost much more to update them than they wanted to spend at the time. Therefore, the AM station, which by this time had had no fewer than four formats during its 35-year existence, all of them (the last being a satellite feed from the Sporting News Radio network) failing miserably to draw sufficient numbers of listeners to keep it on the air, had no choice but to pull the plug at the end of its broadcast day on Memorial Day 2004, IIRC. The station was never heard from again.

FM radio as we know it on 88-108 MHz will probably, even likely be around for years/decades to come and will do well if only because, as you mentioned, there are so many (read millions) of FM receivers still in use in cars, home stereos, and combo FM/mp3 players, etc. To retrofit these millions of radios for HD would not necessarily be impossible, but from a cost standpoint it would not be practical.

The idea of using HD (hybrid digital) subchannels is FM's equivalent of DTV's subchannel arrangements. FM stations using HD subchannels can play several different formats at the same time by using multicasting technology, without having to put more actual full-power stations on the air. One station here in northeastern Ohio, for example, plays classic hits on its main signal (105.7 MHz), 1950s-'60s oldies on one of its HD subchannels, and '60s-'70s oldies on the second. Another station here plays '80s-'90s hits on its primary frequency (106.5 MHz) and has all comedy programming (labeled, at least on RadioStationWorld.com, as LaughLaugh) on an HD subchannel. Not to be outdone, the CC O&O country-western station in Cleveland has an HD subchannel that carries all classic country, while the main signal at 99.5 is current country music.....and the list goes on.

[Hemingray]

only 9 days left...

[radiotvnut]

It's official. Our local ABC affiliate will discontinue analog broadcasting @ 9 AM on 6/12/09. Also at 9 AM, their digital signal will move from channel 49 back down to channel 11 (the old analog spot). This station went on the air in 1953 and I will record it's analog send-off.

[MRX37]

ABC here cut their analog transmitting power...

[Spinning Head]

Is the cutoff time 12 noon or Friday night at midnight ?

[Jeffhs]

Three days left until the end of analog TV (actually it will be two at midnight; I'm writing this at 9:43 p.m. EST Tuesday, June 9).

There is a "talkback" forum on our local FOX TV station during the six and ten p.m. news that had a message tonight (during the 6 p.m. newscast) from a viewer who seemed somewhat less than enthusiastic about the switch to digital on June 12. "Once you guys go digital on Friday, I AM GONE!", the message began. I don't remember the rest of the message, but from the looks of it it seemed like this gentleman was ready to quit watching TV entirely after channel 8 (WJW-TV, the FOX station in Cleveland) turns off its analog signal in just over two days. At least two other stations in this area will pull the plug on analog on 06.12 at 10 a.m.: WKYC-TV, the NBC station in Cleveland, and WUAB-TV, the MyTV affiliate here, will stop analog at the same time. WOIO-TV 19, the CBS station in our area, will end analog roughly the same time as WUAB, probably because both stations are operated by the same company, Raycom Media.

I wonder how many other people will actually kick the TV habit for good after June 12 rather than get cable/satellite or a converter box, or a new TV. Needless to say, if a huge number of viewers give up on TV after the transition (the same, the very same worst-case scenario conjured up several years ago when digital TV was just in its infancy), it won't be good for the stations, the networks or their advertisers. I also wonder how many stations will go dark because of lost ad revenue after 06.12. Hmmm.

[radiotvnut]

On this evening before the digital changeover, the local station hosted a brief viewer call in Q&A session concerning the DTV transition tomorrow. The very first caller was asking what she could do to continue using her battery operated portable TV's in the event of bad weather, etc. The answer was that her TV's would be rendered useless since the converter boxes were not battery operated. They suggested that she buy a new portable TV that would receive a digital signal.

They are saying that a few minutes before 9 AM, they will make one final announcement as to what's going on and then they will flip the switch. Needless to say, I will be recording the event.

[Jeffhs]

There is one TV station (formerly a home-shopping channel) on analog channel 67 in Canton, Ohio, 60 miles southwest of here, that made the switch early to digital (a couple months ago), but did not make a big Hollywood production of it; it just scrolled a message across the top of the screen at 11:57 p.m. EST or so, saying that it would be terminating its analog signal at midnight. The message was repeated a few times, then, at one minute after midnight....poof, no more analog. I didn't notice the difference as I have cable (Time Warner), so the picture remained after midnight (though it seemed clearer, to me anyway, in digital than it had been in analog), but I'm sure other viewers with antennas connected directly to their TVs (no converter box) noticed it immediately after the station signed off its analog signal. Since this station is currently (and has been for some time) showing nothing much other than infomercials, however, I don't think very many folks will miss it.

One other station in the same area, a religious station on channel 17, will actually sign off the air permanently, either at 12:01 a.m. or early in the morning of 06.12, so that the NBC television network affiliate in Cleveland, WKYC-TV, can move to that channel from its current digital channel position, channel 2. I don't honestly believe that WKYC-TV will make a big to-do about pulling its analog signal off the air either; it may very well do the same as the infomercial station in Canton did, just putting a scrolling crawler either at the top or bottom of the screen announcing that it will end analog transmissions at 10:01 a.m. EST June 12, and reminding viewers with converter boxes to rescan them so as to find the station on its new digital channel, channel 17.

As far as WOIO, analog 19, the CBS station in Cleveland, and WEWS, analog 5, the ABC affiliate in the same area (not to mention the PBS, FOX and CW affiliates--one of two PBS stations we get here on cable has been operating in digital for some time already, and the other just recently, as in a couple days ago, announced via a screen crawl that it is now operating at full digital power), are concerned, however, I don't know where they will wind up on northeastern Ohio viewers' converter boxes or ATSC tuners. I expect they will be on UHF channels. There has been an announcement on the ABC station, however, to the effect that, immediately after the digital transition, viewers in fringe or outlying areas may receive the station poorly or not at all over the air. The reason for this is that the station's engineers are still doing work on the new digital transmitter and antenna, as well as still having to remove the old analog antenna so that the digital one can be mounted in its place. This should resolve any reception problems viewers in fringe areas might have once the digital antenna is at the top of the tower, although the station has made a point of reminding viewers that this work will not be completed until some time in July.

Time-Warner Cable is currently advertising a special on basic cable service (broadcast channels only) for $9.95 per month, locked in for 12 months. I guess they are just as concerned as anyone that some people may lose their TV reception after 06.12, and they don't want that to happen. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if other U.S. cable operators are following suit as well.

[radiotvnut]

That's the way the other channels around here did in February. A crawler explaining what was going to happen, analog one minute, snow the next. I recorded the event; but, ended up using the tape for something else since the turn-off was nothing exciting and those stations were fairly new in comparison to the ABC affiliate. WTOK was, I believe, Meridian's first TV station and has been on the air since '53. So, I want to document their analog turn off.