Anyone watching and/or recording the death of analog?

[radiotvnut]

The only channels I could receive were WTOK-11, WMAW-14, WMDN-24, WGBC-30, and whatever call the LP religious station is on 47. Sometimes late at night and early in the morning, I could get WHLT-22 and WDAM-7, both from Hattiesburg and WLOX-13 from Biloxi.

[clydeselsor]

This is really strange for me! My late father's birthday is Feb 17 and he died on June 12 (1930-1989).

[Jonathan]

My local ABC station WNEP went off the air at 12:30PM on the 17th. An hour later they restored the signal and will be up until further notice, according to an e-mail they sent me. My NBC and CBS, WBRE and WYOU respectively, will go off the air tonight, on the 17th at 11:59PM, as well as my local PBS, WVIA. My local FOX, WOLF, seemed to have shut off some time in the past. I have W54BO, channel 54, which is a simulcast of TBN, that is low power and will stay analog for some time, I'm guessing. My local ION affiliate, WQPX, channel 64, has been digital for a long time, but I have no idea if it will shut off. I forget whether it's low power or not. Today is a day in history.

[OvenMaster]

Ten minutes ago (11:35pm), the only remaining analog full-power analog station in my area (WWLP 22 [NBC]) finished their news, and switched to running a repeating "nightlight" announcement in English and Spanish, saying they'll show only news and emergency info for the next 60 days.

The other two full-power analog stations (WGGB 40 [ABC] and WGBY 57 [PBS]) shut down their transmitters in December 2008 with zero fanfare. The CBS outlet (WSHM 67) is a low-power station that' supposedly going digital later this year, so they're still on for now.

[bgadow]

Local WMDT-47 (ABC) and WCPB-28 (PBS) both shut off their analog transmitters awhile ago. (47 was off in October as I recall) That leaves only WBOC-16 (CBS) as a full-power station on the Delmarva peninsula; they were also the first station, signing on in '54. They wanted to shut down analog tonight but according to their website the FCC would not let them. (due to being the only station left) So, I will wait until June to break out the camera. I could try checking out the DC/Baltimore stations but frankly I don't see much reason to.

[radiotvnut]

WMAW-14 (PBS) is gone. I didn't record that one, though.

[andy]

000

[Hemingray]

12:46 AM: KTEJ 19 Jonesboro, AR (PBS) has gone off. Still have our local PBS station on KEMV 6, and ABC on KAIT 8.

[Jeffhs]

All eight TV stations in Cleveland are still analog and digital. The only station in northeastern Ohio that did shut down its analog signal at just before midnight tonight was a home-shopping station on channel 67. There was no announcement of any kind, just a runner across the top of the screen saying that the station was now terminating analog broadcasting, but would still be available on its DTV channel, 47.

The rest will apparently wait until 06.12 to make "The Big Switch", as the CBS affiliate in Cleveland calls it. I guess Cleveland is one of those cities that is worried if it turns off its analog stations too early, too many people in northeastern Ohio will be without television reception, including emergency warnings. However, other major cities are going to wait until 06.12 to shut off their analog signals; those which have stations that are owned and operated by the major networks definitely will keep those stations' analog signals on the air until the new cutoff date.

Speaking of all this talk about people being without television (if they are in an area where the stations are transitioning early to digital) also being cut off from emergency information: There is always radio. Think about it. In the days before television, how did people get emergency information? Over that big console radio in the living room or smaller sets on kitchen tables, etc., of course. People were alerted to the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 by means of special radio news bulletins; same thing when WWII broke out.

I think today's radio stations could adapt if all TV nationwide were to go 100-percent digital on 02.17 (I am writing this at 1 a.m. 02.18.09). Another thing to consider is the Emergency Alert System, which broadcasts emergency alerts and warnings over both TV and radio stations. If a local or national emergency were to occur and all the local TV stations in, say, Cleveland were operating digital-only, people would still get warnings/information over the radio via the EAS.

BTW: I watched NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams tonight; not much to write home about, just the usual bad-gone-to-worse stuff the nightly news has always had. However, near the end of the broadcast, Williams gave a report on the digital transition, saying in part that "I hope most of you will be able to see us tomorrow night ... All those announcements about TV stations switching their analog broadcasting signals to digital, whatever that means ... "

Good Grief! When I heard that I was astounded. What on earth is going on here?, I wondered. Here was a professional TV newscaster, apparently as much "in the dark" about digital television as many viewers still are, actually daring to show his ignorance on national TV, in a manner darn near impossible to...well, ignore.

For crying out loud! Professionals in the broadcasting business aren't supposed to say things like that. Brian Williams may be in the dark about DTV, but I wish he hadn't shot his mouth off on national television as he did. I think he should have done some research before tonight's broadcast to find out just what DTV is and what the transition will mean to Americans before making that remark, which was heard in living rooms/family rooms/dens/apartments in all 50 states. I'm sure if anyone ever did anything even resembling that on any of the local TV stations in Cleveland (or anywhere else in the United States), the stations' switchboards would light up like Christmas trees and the stations would get a flood of angry and/or bewildered e-mails from viewers, wondering whether the news anchor or reporter knew what he or she was talking about.

The TV newscasts at 6, 11 and whenever else are supposed to be delivered by the anchors and their field reporters in a professional manner, which means (among other things) being absolutely certain of the facts of the issue on which they are reporting before going on the air.

One of the TV stations in Cleveland, NBC affiliate WKYC-TV channel 3, has a motto it genuinely tries to live up to every night: Report the facts. Respect the truth. This is why I've liked watching channel 3 news all these years (over 35; I was watching these newscasts when I was just 13 or 14 years old, when channel 3 was an NBC O&O [owned and operated] TV station). This station doesn't present the news with a lot of noise, fluff and other unnecessary stuff as the CBS station does on its local newscasts; for this my hat is off to channel 3's news team. Theirs is one of the better newscasts in northeastern Ohio; I hope they keep it up.

[radiotvnut]

Originally Posted by andy

Only one channel in Austin turned off the analog signal. At midnight they changed the picture to the message you see on the CTC38, but they left the sound on for about 20 minutes. Eventually they turned off the sound. At one point the picture went blank for a few seconds, but the message came back, and is still there now at 12:40.

The CTC55 is connected directly to analog cable, and continued uninterrupted.

Isn't that CTC55 one of the last RCA tube sets? I had a 19" RCA remote set from '74 that looked almost like that.

[Jonathan]

Well, I watched my local PBS (WVIA-44), and local NBC (WBRE-28) officially sign off. WBRE was in the middle of Jay Leno, showing a commercial break. At the beginning of 11:59, they showed a graphic of their station logo, then color bars with audio tone, then right to static. WVIA, was showing Charlie Rose. Power went down gradually to the familiar static and snow. For whatever reason, my local ABC (WNEP-16) is still on the air in analog, having shut off at 12:30 this afternoon, only to be turned back on until further notice.

For all of us into this wonderful TV hobby, this day will be remembered. Each of us lives in an area with our own local market. I will admit, the only local broadcaster I watch is my local PBS affiliate. I'm never interested in local news, as it's almost always bad, so I never watch any local news at all. For news I watch DW-TV via satellite, which is Germany's international broadcaster. For local weather I watch the local forecast on the Weather Channel. Even though I never watched the others local broadcasters, it's still sad to see them go.

The unfortunate thing is that the HD to SD downconversion the stations did can never be achieved with a $50 converter box. My local stations never stretched or squished the 16x9 source, though might have cropped it to loom good in 4x3. For those of you who still miss that, you can probably get the equipment from ebay to to the downconversion. I know some Sencore IRDs to HD to SD downconversion. PBS affiliates use them to downconvert the HD only source from PBS satellite feeds to SD.

[andy]

000

[Robert Grant]

Around the Detroit area three stations chose to analog business as usual at the end (11:59:59 PM) February 17, I recorded all three.

WXON-20 actually did not turn off the analog transmitter - then went to a 4-minute loop (locally produced!) about how to convert to digital (I guess this would be an example of "nightlight operation").

WGTE 30 (Toledo) shutdown the analog altogether. In the last several hours on air, they were also showing programs and PSAs about DTV (whilst the digital featured the regular PBS lineup).

WPXD 31 (Ann Arbor) suddenly shut off not only their analog transmitter, but their digital (33) as well! I presume they will be changing their digital station to actual channel 31.

[newhallone]

I was a little disappointed. Analog stayed put. They should have made the transition in the summer anyways. who want's to put up an antenna in a blizzard?

[freakaftr8]

Channels 3,6,10,13,19,29, and 31 are alive and well in Analog still here in Sacramento. Channel 40 and 58 are now digital only (until someone steals the transmitters) lol "lance armstrong missing bike scenereo" Afterall this is Sacramento, CA..
lol