Digital is so many digits away

[Gregg Lengling]

Television stations haven't wanted to spend millions to upgrade their analog antennas but now the Federal Communications Commission says they must.


By Andrew Kantor
 981-3384
The Roanoke Times
 

By June 30, the four major networks' television stations will have spent millions to upgrade their transmitters to deliver the highest power digital signal allowed by law. And it won't be too long before most are going to have to do it again.

The Federal Communication Commission's full-power, July 1 deadline has television stations pouring money and effort into setting up new facilities - sort of a high-tech, government-mandated land grab. That may not be what they'd call it, but that's how it plays out.

Because if a station's digital signal doesn't reach the entire market served by its analog signal on July 1, it stands to lose part of that market. As Randy Smith, general manager of WSET (Channel 13) said, "The footprint you're covering by July 1 will determine your market."

Stations can apply for an extension, as both WFXR (Channel 27) and WSET have. Others, such as PBS stations, have at least an extra year.

The extra signal strength doesn't mean a better picture. As WDBJ (Channel 7) general manager Bob Lee put it, "In the digital system there are only two picture states: perfect or non-existent."

So transmitting at full power allows some people to pick up stations over the air that they couldn't before because they were out of range of the weaker signal.

For WSET, it means spending $1.2 million on a digital transmitter that will reach all its current viewers, even though only a small fraction of them own digital TVs and get their signal over the air.

And in a few years, it will have to do it again because some time in the next decade or so, WSET and the other television stations will have to move to their final frequency home, and have to spend the money for yet another transmitter.

It's all part of the nation's years-long conversion to digital television.

Viewers like digital television because of the better picture quality. The FCC likes digital television because it wants to give all that analog "airspace" to other users. And television stations like digital because they can offer more programming in the same amount of "space."

For example, WDBJ's digital signal includes a copy of its analog programming, a separate high definition or HDTV signal, and a 24-hour weather broadcast.

But no one would make the first move.

Consumers are still buying analog televisions in droves because they're so much less expensive than digital sets, and their cable and satellite companies' converter boxes let them receive the digital programming.

Television stations haven't been anxious to spend the millions to deploy digital-broadcast antennas when only a fraction of their audience was pulling in the digital signal over the air.

So the government stepped in and mandated the digital conversion. Sort of.

Several years ago, the FCC set some deadlines. The major networks' TV stations had until April 30, 2002, to be transmitting a digital signal (even a low-power one), and had to be at full power by July 1, 2005 - that is, at the power that would cover the same area as their analog signal.

Only WDBJ went to full power right away, spending about $1.8 million for new equipment and its installation. The others opted to go with a low-power option first.

All this means is that, since 2002, TV stations have broadcast two signals: an analog one and a separate digital one on a different frequency.

In the long run, having two channels per station is a tremendous waste of bandwidth - bandwidth the FCC would like to put to use for other kinds of technology.

Which leads to the third deadline: the date when that analog signal is turned off, and each station broadcasts in digital only. (Don't worry. Even when that happens your existing TV will work just fine. Cable and satellite boxes will convert the digital signal to analog; if you get it over the air you'll be able to get a separate converter as well.)

Trouble is, no one knows when that deadline will be, because it's determined by when at least 85 percent of a station's viewers have digital TVs. So depending on how good the sales are at Lee Hartman & Sons or Best Buy, that could be 2007, 2010 or even later.

But when it comes, it means another change for most broadcasters. WSET, for example, today broadcasts its analog signal on VHF channel 13 and its digital signal on UHF channel 34. It will have to drop its analog signal and move its digital transmission to channel 13.

Because it's going from UHF to VHF, it needs a whole new antenna, and gets to send the old equipment to the scrap heap. "It will be unplugged and become a boat anchor somewhere," said Randy Smith.

Bob King, operations manager at WSLS (Channel 10), said that the station is in the process of spending about $1.5 million to install equipment and upgrade its facility on Poor Mountain to handle the new load.

And, like WSET, it's only temporary. When the station has to make its final switch, it's back to the mountain because, as with WSET and WDBJ, it will eventually go from a UHF digital broadcast to a VHF one.

Only WFXR gets to dodge the two-antenna bullet because it's staying strictly UHF - channels 21 and 27 for analog and channels 20 and 17 for digital. Even so, WFXR manager Dave Bunnell doesn't think the impending changes are a big deal.

"Every station in the country has got to do this," he said, "so lets get on with it."