Printer-friendly version

The following is a copy of a comment I posted to Switchover Scenarios: Tracking The DTV Transition: 421 Stations Transition, A Nation Yawns

In Rochester, Minnesota, the only two local stations, KTTC (NBC) and KXLT (FOX), stopped analog broadcasting on the 17th. I noticed KXLT was airing an analog nightlight service last night: a looped message alternating between English and Spanish, produced by the National Association of Broadcasters. (Ironically, I've been the only solitary myspace friend the NAB has attracted to their myspace page since they started it a year and a half ago to raise awareness of the DTV transition.)

Local viewers can, with a good antenna, pick up analog stations further out, including KIMT in Mason City, Iowa. I think it was KIMT that mentioned people would indeed be able to adjust their outdoor antennas on their slippery snow-covered roofs in February, but they'd have to pay $600 to rent a boom truck. KIMT decided to keep their analog broadcast signal going a bit longer, until when temperatures are warmer, which seems sensible. It was almost exactly 50-years-ago-to-the-day that KIMT itself was probably first to announce the tragic weather-related deaths near Mason City immortalized in Don Mclean's famous line: "the day the music died".

The reader commentary in the online edition of the Rocester Post-Bulletin has been overwhelmingly disparaging of those who weren't ready for the transition. While I created the page mentioned as an example in Bob's earlier post "Voices in Opposition", I haven't updated it in over a year--mainly because I got discouraged by some negative comments I received from senior people on ARS Technica. I was told I was a "FUD spouter", that these issues had all been gone over before, and therefore I essentially wasn't worth talking to. I know I had a few factual errors on that page I was seeking input to correct, but I was hoping for a civil and constructive dialogue. I give Bob a lot of credit for staying with this project and providing a good historical record. He was also gracious in his earlier correspondence with me.

A local news anchor from KTTC made an appearance in a spoof newscast in the following YouTube comedy video, where she says, "Over the last several months, we have continually, over and over, and time and time again, told you about the switch to digital television. That day is finally here...":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNP-ovDR9FE

Another comedy more widely circulated on YouTube shows an elderly woman trying to hook up her converter box and rabbit ears with an actual FCC instructional audio running in parallel.

A feature article today in the Post-Bulletin quoted local seniors who went through the great depression: "People listened to the radio for entertainment, that is, if the batteries worked or they had electricity, which they didn't always."

As I imagine people gathered around the radio back in the depression era, I think of the squeals, pops and static they must of heard coming from their old radios. Did those artifacts add anything to the experience? Some might argue that they did. I still remember listening to WLS from Chicago late at night on AM radio when I was young, the slow fading and static rush of the shifting atmosphere giving a sense of distance and perhaps made the universe seem just a bit larger. I remember my grandpa, God rest his soul, carefully adjusting the rabbit ears on his old TV. I was just a kid then, but if I close my eyes and try to remember I can still almost see the TV's snow and the occasionally rolling frames. Don't get me wrong, I like my HDTV. Yet I can't help but feel a bit sad for a part of history that is no more.