Milwaukee TV stations band together for analog shutoff test
We know it must be terrifying, Milwaukee, to think of all those poor television viewers you may end up leaving in the dark, but at least you've seen other cities come before you and survive. Hot on the heels of Wilmington, NC killing the analog beams for realz, in flies word that a dozen Milwaukee, Wisconsin stations will be having a test of the digital TV conversion at around 5:10PM (local time) on September 15th. Obviously, viewers in the area will be warned beforehand, but we're sure a select few will choose to ignore the flashing hazard lights and suffer through a few agonizing minutes of fuzz. It's better they learn now, though.[Image courtesy of CCAuthority, thanks John]
Filed under: Industry, Regulatory
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
antennaguy @ Sep 10th 2008 5:30PM
For those viewers who have not yet purchased a converter box, Consumer Reports has just upgraded their ratings on some of the available converter boxes at:
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2008/08/ratings-of-dtv.html
While cable and satellite program providers will continue to serve the great majority of homes as the primary signal source, missing HD local reception, compression issues, higher costs, billing add-ons, service outages, contact difficulties, in-home service waits and no shows have left many of these subscribers looking to OTA antennas as a good, alternative and Off-Air viewers happy with their free programming.
But TV reception starts with the right antenna and Off-Air TV is FREE.
Viewers should certainly try their old antenna first. It’s true that any of these older antennas will pick up some signals, maybe all the broadcast signals a viewer wants to receive, depending on their location. If they’re getting all the OTA channels they want, than they’re good to go.
While Antennas can’t tell the difference between analog and digital signals, there are definitely certain models which have higher DTV batting averages than others. Not all antennas are equally suited for DTV. A percentage of viewers will require something a little more tailored for DTV reception.
With one of the newer and smaller OTA antennas, with greatly improved performance, power and aesthetics, viewers may also be able to receive out-of-town channels, carrying blacked out sports programs not available locally, several additional sub-channels or network broadcasts. And for those with an HDTV, almost completely uncompressed HD broadcasts (unlike cable or satellite).
OTA viewers can go to antennapoint.com to see quickly what stations are available to them, the distance, and compass heading to help in choosing and aiming their antenna. And if they decide to buy a newer antenna, they should buy it from a source that will completely refund their purchase price, no questions asked, if it doesn’t do the job.
Grant @ Nov 10th 2008 2:55PM
I'm in a suburb of Milwaukee and I've connected my analog TVs to a Tivax STB-T9 converter box
with Philips indoor antennas. I've found that Channel 10 which is very low power requires an amplified antenna. I'm using an MANT310. The amplified antenna definitely gives me a much stronger signal and keeps the pictures steady on all channels. I'm confused by the charts that show the digital channel numbers as being generally different than the channels I'm now receiving them on. Will the stations change to these new numbers on Feb. 17th?