Re: Final Evening of Analog TV?

phil-news-nospam@xxxxxxxx wrote:

| But there are also stations with the "digital" antenna mounted on the
| side of the tower while the analog is on the top. They can't get full
| coverage with their digital signal until they remove the analog antenna.
| So do they wait until after February 17? February is in the middle of
| winter and major work on a tower may be impossible for stations located
| in the north or in mountainous country. The FCC has asked for comments
| on this issue and I wonder if some of these stations may ask to shut off
| their analog channel before winter kicks in so they can put the digital
| signal antenna on top of the tower.

And I believe the FCC will likely grant these where no conflicts exist
with other stations not electing to do the same.


| As you point out, the complicated parts are for stations that have to
| move their digital channel, but have to wait until another station moves
| their digital channel to free up the slot for them.

Some will be moving the digital channel back to the analog frequency.
This is certainly more complicated than just switching off the analog.
How much testing of the new transmitter will they be able to do before
this date? There will be a LOT of transmitter engineers busy that
night ... those working for the stations and those working for the
manufacturers.


| The key requirement in the Congressional bill is that all full power
| stations must shut down their analog transmission by midnight (I'm not
| sure of the exact wording) on February 17, 2009 and that UHF 52 to 69
| must be cleared by that date. The details are up to the FCC.

Can we have a ball dropping celebration in Times Square?

Is that midnight local time? People living on time zone boundaries
could have some fun. And if there are allocation conflicts that
cross the time zone boundaries, maybe even more fun.


| There are already a few stations that are digital only. My bet is that
| we will see a small but increasing number shut down their analog signal
| weeks or months in advance of 2/17/2009 to clear the way for moving
| their antennas or clear the spectrum for other stations that have to
| move their digital channel to the remaining core channels 2 to 51.
| | The idea of a multiple day window for stations makes sense. Turning
| things off at midnight right in the middle of Letterman or Leno doesn't,
| so I would think most stations would do this during the daytime or at 4
| AM local time. Play the national anthem with stock footage of the
| American flag, go to a test pattern, and then post a goodbye NTSC
| message before shutting down the analog transmitter.

I want the "Indian Test Pattern". Afterall, it is how analog TV started.

Email the station engineers at your local stations. One or more of
them may like the suggestion.

For those who are interested in some of the details on the impending
shutdown, the FCC posted "Third Periodic Review of the Commission's
Rules and Policies Affecting the Conversion to Digital Television." back
on May 18, 2007 which can be found at http://www.fcc.gov/dtv/ as a Word
or PDF document. It is 93 pages with a zillion footnotes, but it does
contain insight on what many of the issues are with how to do this
transition.

Interestingly, the law does not state which time zone applies. It
simply states:

"(1) to terminate all licenses for full-power television stations in
the analog television service, and to require the cessation of
broadcasting by full-power stations in the analog television service, by
February 18, 2009; and

(2) to require by February 18, 2009, that all broadcasting by Class A
stations, whether in the analog television service or digital television
service, and all broadcasting by full-power stations in the digital
television service, occur only on channels between channels 2 and 36,
inclusive, or 38 and 51, inclusive (between frequencies 54 and 698
megahertz, inclusive)."

Stations could do a rolling shutdown across the US with Hawaii or
Guam? the last to go dark, I guess.

In terms of the breakdown of stations for the transition:

"In the proposed new DTV Table, 1,812 stations received proposed
post-transition DTV channels. Of these, 1,178 stations received the DTV
channel on which they are currently authorized, 517 stations received
the NTSC channel on which they are currently authorized, and 117
stations received a different channel from which they are currently
authorized."

There are still a few stations in play on their final digital channel
selection, so those numbers are not final, but close enough to get a
handle for how many stations will have to do a digital channel switch.
517 are going to their current NTSC channel, so they have to shut down
their analog signal first. This group can broken into two parts, those
with an out of core digital channel who have to switch to their NTSC
channel by Feb 18 and those who have in core DT channels & might have
time to move later. The 117 going to another digital channel are the
ones facing a complicated situation. I assume most of these will have to
wait for another station to vacate the final channel because they would
be on their final DT channel if it was available.

Going to a busy time for the staff at the FCC.

Alan F




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