Are All US TV Stations Now Broadcasting All-Digital?

[frank1492]

Assuming the answer is yes, but just checking. Thanks. Frank

[hallerb]

no some low power stations arent, and wouldnt be required to for a couple years, although i am unsure of the date

[E Z Peaces]

What's all-digital? I imagine most are transmitting both analog and digital. When they drop analog, I imagine a station may have the resources to increase the coverage of its digital broadcast and increase the number of programs it broadcasts.

[dpb]

No, the transition "drop-dead" date isn't until 17 Feb. The ones here will turn off analog at midnight the 17th and switch over at 00:00+ the

18th.

Some (but not all) of these are presently simul-casting a low-power digital signal, but even those will change the channel on which they are currently broadcasting and boost the power at the bewitching time.

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[---MIKE---]

There is a lot of mis-information about digital. In my area, all the stations are broadcasting full power digital in addition to analog. On Feb. 18th they plan to shut off the analog and shift the digital to their permanent channel. For example, channel 3 (Burlington, Vt.) is broadcasting the digital on channel 53 right now but will switch to 22 on Feb. 18th. The engineer tells me that they will slightly REDUCE power at that time as required by law. I am fortunate that at my location I get all the channels on digital plus two that I don't receive on analog at all (5 and 44). I have a friend that only receives one channel on digital. He has a good roof antenna but there must be some obstructions in the way such as trees.

---MIKE---

[Dean Hoffman]

The government website is here:

And a lot of information/discussion about the boxes here: Antenna information here: Someone else mentioned there might be a delay of a few months. Our Congresscritters are thinking of adding money to the converter box program.

Dean

[Jim Yanik]

frank1492 wrote in news: [e-mail]:

no,just the major stations. low power TV stations do not have to make the change for another year,IIRC.

Those LPTVs would be your local independent channels.

[StepfanKing]

They are going digital so they can spy on you while you're watching TV.

[trader4]

AFAIK, it's like any similar transition, say from analog cellular to CDMA, or from B/W TV to color. The sost of the new eqpt was paid for by the service providers as a part of doing business. In the case of the digital transition, it gives broadcasters bandwith for additional channels and HD which their customers want.

[Mark Lloyd]

There's a CW station around here that plans to stay all-analog until Feb 17,

[Sam E]

and putting things off is what the government does.

[Dean Hoffman]

It looks like the delay will happen:

Dean