Stateside with Rosalea: Thar She Blows!

A pictorial history of the transition to digital television in the SF Bay Area, June 12-13, 2009.

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11:30pm

I haven’t been able to receive analog NBC very well for years now, ever since it moved its transmission to the South Bay, behind San Bruno Mountain (and have never been able to get its digital signal). NBC may have switched off its analog signal well ahead of the midnight cut-off time. It is one of the stations in the Bay Area that is allowed to keep a “nightlight” analog transmission going, so even after the cut-off it’s airing a program loop about DTV.

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11:40pm

The last analog program to air on the CW was the Simpsons. There was a scrolling graphic at the top of the screen saying it would shift to DTV at 12:30am. In fact, the switch happened at midnight, same as everybody else’s switch, but there was no DTV signal until later in the morning.

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11:50pm

KMTP’s analog transmission carries mainly Asian-language programming. There was a great deal of outreach to the Asian community--particularly the elderly—in order to help them with the transition.

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12:05am

So it’s surprising that the five digital channels that KMTP operates all had the messages above and below in English.

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12:05am

An inauspicious start! However, some stations either aren’t up to full power or are waiting to move their transmission equipment to a different position on San Francisco’s Sutro Tower.

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12:10am

Two analog channels are still broadcasting. The photo above shows the Classic TV western that was airing after midnight on the low-power UHF Channel 28. The other channel still airing analog is on channel 40, and seems to consist of all Spanish-language music videos. (The reception is this bad because my rabbit ears are connected to the DTV converter, not the analog TV.)

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12:15am

This is my TV’s blue funk after Channel 2 switched off its analog signal. When I rescanned for digital channels after midnight, I’d lost 2’s two DTV signals as well, along with all three Channel 7 (ABC) digital stations. Channel 5 (CBS) went to black.

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10:30am

The good old MHZ Channel, which I could only ever get via digital, soldiered on with its mix of news reports from around the world. Maybe you recognize this guy being interviewed on France 24.

I’ve had a DTV converter box for a couple of years, and haven’t watched analog much since getting it. Before the transition, I could get 31 digital channels. However, when I rescanned again this morning, I could receive only 22. Channel 2 had returned, as had programming on Channel 5 (CBS), but Channel 7 (ABC) is seemingly gone forever.

ABC had been airing information before the transition saying that from 7am to 7pm it would be transmitting only on low power while it moves its broadcast equipment. However, even after 7pm, I cannot get what were once the three strongest DTV signals I received.

Now that the spectrum that was taken up with analog signals has been freed up, mobile phone companies are rushing in to use it for transmitting television straight to people’s phones and handheld devices. It’s as if a dinosaur (broadcast television) has changed its diet way too late, and at a huge cost, only to have the pasture it has fertilized be grazed more efficiently by a new species that will eventually overpower it.

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Where it analog TV began for the US: Philo Farnsworth’s Green Street Lab in San Francisco. The first patents for the Farnsworth television system were filed January 1927. For a look further back into the mists of time, see here.

rosalea.barker@gmail.com

--PEACE--

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