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We’ve all seen the endless crawls and FCC-mandated alerts: Digital TV conversion is on the way. Yet questions still abound, beginning with the most obvious: Q.Should I care? A.Yes, absolutely, if you are among the 15 percent of viewers in the Spokane market who get their TV over the air via antenna. You’ll probably need a digital converter box to get local stations over the air. But if you are among the 85 percent of people here who get their TV through cable or satellite – or if you own a newer digital TV – you don’t need to do anything. You won’t notice any change/Jim Kershner, SR. More here.
Question: Are you affected by the Digital TV conversion that’s coming Tuesday?
D.F. Oliveria is a columnist and blogger for The Spokesman-Review. Huckleberries Online was judged the best 2008 Idaho newspaper blog by the Idaho Press Club. And the best 2007 news blog in the Pacific Northwest by the Society for Professional Journalist. Print Huckleberries is a past winner of the Herb Caen Memorial Column contest by the National Association of Newspaper Columnists. The Readership Institute of Northwestern University cited this blog as a good example of online community journalism.
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MikeK on February 16 at 10:30 a.m.
Uh, I thought this official deadline was delayed until the summer?
JeanC on February 16 at 10:40 a.m.
Nope, we have the Dish.
Mike, a lot of smaller markets are going with the switch regardless. I for one will be happy to no longer see those &%^$%# nagging messages crawling across my screen every single night.
MikeK on February 16 at 10:45 a.m.
Ah, thanks JeanC. I didn’t know for sure what the “delay” meant, really, but I didn’t pay enough attention. Seems to me that if someone hasn’t picked up on the need to do something by now after 16.78 million advertising impressions over the last seemingly three years, what is another few months going to do for them? It’s possible they are in a vegetative state or don’t care. But hey, I’m not on that committee.
Shark on February 16 at 11:20 a.m.
Just goes to show that even in hard times our beloved congress with collectively almost the brains given a single goose, just doesn’t care what efforts in planning, scheduling, coordination and least of all dollars, all these stations and all the support companies already expended attempting to make the February turn around/conversion on time. Now they have to do it all over again.
It appears more important for congress to say they are just concerned about the people getting tv so a few won’t miss their soaps and political commercials. These are the same “viewers” that have been sitting on their behinds ignoring the word for the past how many years. I guess they were waiting for someone to do it for them.
After all the broadcasters are only going to have to spend thousands or hundreds of thousand maintaining obsolete equipment and dual broadcasting efforts for several additional months plus rescheduling all the construction effort when Congress is spending trillions.. ahh! well by comparison, I guess it’s only a drop in the bucket.
How can anyone in their right mind (perhaps there is my problem) think that 4 more months is going to make difference. Best I can recall when we picked up a converter for one of our older tv’s it only took about 5 minutes.
Hopefully Those now getting the short end of the stick will remember this come the next election.
Bent on February 16 at 11:53 a.m.
We signed up for cable a couple of weeks ago. I have only had an antenna since I moved out of Wallace in 1990.
I can’t belive the number of channels they give you — not to mention the ON Demand stuff. Now by the time I scroll through all of the channels to decide on what to watch, it’s almost over… and don’t get me started on Suvivorman. I just can’t get away from that show.
Me on February 16 at 3:42 p.m.
Yeah - I’m mad that we’re all paying for people to save money on their boxes. I know the stimulus package had 650 million dollars in it for more coupons. Haven’t seen the final bill to know if it survived. I also know we already spent a bunch on it before now too. My question is WHY???? Why do we have to help pay for it?
I have a little portable tv - we use it once in a while, so I suppose I’ll get a box for it BUT I’M NOT USING A GOVERNMENT COUPON.
Bent - I love Survivorman.
Cindy_H on February 16 at 4:07 p.m.
I don’t much like TV. My children feel quite deprived living in a cableless household. When my husband installed the converter box, they were thrilled to discover additional channels.
“We’re almost– normal, now,” said my son.
Bah.
Cis on February 16 at 4:35 p.m.
I did a post on this last week…. called We have had all the fun we can stand.
We have one more month of cable, being my husband’s job has been cut to one day a week. But we are waiting for at least 34 degrees before we attack it again. Don’t tell me it is so easy. maybe in city it is..but out here, all we are getting is 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3… rest are telling us no signal.
Nothing brings up the blood pressure than dealing with an antenna
Bent on February 16 at 4:39 p.m.
Cis, they say you need a roof antenna to get full reception. We’ve had the electronic antennas for the last 15 years or so and they worked great… not anymore though.
Cis on February 16 at 4:49 p.m.
We had one roof type that was a 1970 something we got at St. Vinnie’s for $5. And we got the 3 of channel 4. but no signal for the rest…, so we invested in to the new and fancy roof type…. and we get…………….channel 4’s group…. and no signal..for 2, 6, 28 and etc. A friend has one in Hope he gets 13 channels with his….
Cis on February 16 at 5:00 p.m.
oh, yea, with the old antenna and old system… we had channel 4 really well… and channel 2 and Fox pretty good. and 6 on a sunny day, fairly well.
JeanieSpokane on February 16 at 5:02 p.m.
I did a post on this a while back that DFO highlighted (http://jeaniespokane.blogspot.com/2009/01/analog-digital-confusion.html). It still baffles me that this is a government mandated deal that was set for February 17 but then the government moved the mandate to sometime in June. Ok, is this a *warning* to television stations that they will have this in place by such-and-such a date or something really bad will happen to them? Or, is it a *warning* to you and I that if we don’t get that gosh-darned mysterious converter box, something really bad will happen??? Why the delay? We have known about this for two years!!! And almost right up to the last weekend, the “mandate” is postponed. A mandate is like an order or a command. It’s so, well, “do-it-or-die”. It’s like my mother saying, “eat your vegetables or else.” I have never figured out what the “or else” is and since I made it alive to be an adult, I either ate all my vegetables or my mother was bluffing.
It’s an ORDER. And then it gets postponed??? It’s like a cop running out in the middle of the road as you are driving towards him, whipping out his gun and yelling “STOP” and you indeed stop and then he says, “oh, never mind – I’ll tell you to stop in two months and seven days.”
On the other hand, “they” are telling us that we now have until June at which time we all fall off the edge of the earth, or something. How is it that the stations in Spokane are going ahead with this at such-and-such a time on Tuesday, the original deadline date?
I don’t understand this at all. However, to answer your question – no, actually I really don’t care. I have cable. I have a million stations to watch and sit here on my computer, browsing blogs and every now and then making input. So – I forget. What’s on???