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#1
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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!! Last edited by RobtWB; 06-12-2009 at 03:23 PM. Reason: content |
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#2
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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
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Collecting & restoring TVs in Los Angeles since age 10 |
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#3
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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.
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#4
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1969 23" Zenith B&W tube type console. Saw them "flip the switch" at 9 AM. RIP WTOK analog broadcast (1953-2009).
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#5
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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.
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| Audiokarma |
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#6
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Five words: converter box, cable or satellite.
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Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp |
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#7
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Quote:
A joke I hope.
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Harman Kardon Citaton I preamp, Marantz 8b amp, Klipschorns speakers, Thorens TD 124 turntable, and piles of other gear..... |
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#8
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Well, here in the city the following major analog stations have signed off:
WABC 7 CW 11 WNET 13 |
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#9
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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.
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I tolerate the present by living in the past... To see drh4683's photo page, click here To see drh4683's youtube page, click here Last edited by drh4683; 06-12-2009 at 12:43 PM. |
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#10
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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! |
| Audiokarma |
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#11
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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
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The jet pilots wailed |
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#12
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Technics SL-1200MK5 / AT-440MLa Cambridge Audio 640P Onkyo TX-SR304 Paradigm 7SE |
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#13
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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.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
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#14
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Quote:
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.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
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#15
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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... Last edited by Adam; 06-12-2009 at 03:03 PM. |
| Audiokarma |
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