Must they Air DTV Info over the DTV Transmitter?

[John L]

I see TV stations sending scrolls at times reminding people about the DTV Conversion.  Could they just limit that to air only over their analog transmitter and NOT the DTV transmissions?  :bang:

Because I am sick and tired seeing it.  They shouldn't have to air that over their DTV signal because if people are watching off their DTV signal, that means they are upgraded already or are accessing their DTV signal!:mad:

-John L.
Muskego, WI.

[foxeng]

The FCC requires stations to provide DTV information on both analog and digital transmitters. FCC Third DTV Review.

[nick3092]

The FCC requires stations to provide DTV information on both analog and digital transmitters. FCC Third DTV Review.

That is the stupidest thing ever.  Why potentially scare someone who is not going to be affected?  Then again, no one ever said the government was intelligent.

[John L]

I finally pulled my old analog portable TV from the basement and set it up next to my large TV connected to cable and switchable to a Digital Converter Box.

I tuned it to WVTV, ch. 18.  Watching the CW Program on there, the analog TV showed a red bar across the screen scrolling info about DTV, while the one on cable did not show it at all.

I guess that means TWC is all set up and is receiving WVTV's signal via DTV on ch. 61 and downconverting it to fit the screen before converting the signal back to analog.

In fact in the past month I notice those channels that TWC used to received directly OTA via analog are coming in much sharper and brighter.  Channel 18 on TWC is sharper and brighter then it used to be and has been like that for at least a month now.

The reason my analog TV is set up so I can watch WVTV, ch. 18 and WCGV-TV, ch. 24 sign off the air the analog permanently on Monday night.  Thus Sinclair Broadcasting will surrender ch. 24's frequency to the owners of WDJT-TV, ch. 58 so that they can move WMLW-CA from ch. 41 over to ch. 24. Low Power TV stations will continue analog operations for sometime to come.  So even by next year there still be some analog TV on the TV bands, but mainly Low Power.

Channel 18's frequency will go silent for a short time between now and up until June 12th when eventually WVTV-DT moves from 61 to 18.  During those silent periods its possible to receive a distant station via tropo during good weather conditions bringing in signals from far away both TV and DT.  I have succesully received DTV stations from long distances as well.  Not sure if other channel 18s like Lafayette, Ind a CBS affiliate is continuing analog until June 12th or not, also Quad Cities has a Fox on 18, Eau Claire, WI. has an ABC, and Lansing, Mi has a Fox also on 18...its possible to get those analogs during tropo openings depending their status on their switch over. They too maybe closed analog the sametime as WVTV.  I'd have to look at the FCC list that was just released.

Yeah I think all this is great. Kind of reminds me when radio stations in the UK were changing frequencies on the Medium Wave (AM) band 20 years ago. Majority of all UK stations changed frequencies on a given day.
 

-John L.

[techguy1975]

I've seen Chs 18 & 24 sign off before, so there really isn't anything new there for me.   I kind of want to get a cheap set of rabbit ears for June 12th and watch stations like WTMJ & WISN sign off for the final time.   Actually, of all the Milwaukee stations, those are the only two I've never seen a sign on/off from

[John L]

I've seen Chs 18 & 24 sign off before, so there really isn't anything new there for me.   I kind of want to get a cheap set of rabbit ears for June 12th and watch stations like WTMJ & WISN sign off for the final time.   Actually, of all the Milwaukee stations, those are the only two I've never seen a sign on/off from

Leaving for work this morning I noticed my neighbor has a 13 inch portable analog TV set at the end of the driver for garbage pickup on Tuesday. Me thinks it probably still works but neighbor getting rid of it because he knows it will no longer be able to receive TV stations. So rather then put a DTV converter on it he decides to toss it.  Perhaps I would consider taking it if I have a real purpose for it.

I have seen WTMJ-TV do both sign on and sign off.  That was back in the 70s when I was a kid in high school.  Sometimes on Saturday mornings I get up just before 6:00 am when WTMJ-TV would have a color bar slide with ID on until 6:00am sign on with a SSB (National Anthem) film.

In those days you were probably working for them.

-John L.:blush:

[techguy1975]

Leaving for work this morning I noticed my neighbor has a 13 inch portable analog TV set at the end of the driver for garbage pickup on Tuesday. Me thinks it probably still works but neighbor getting rid of it because he knows it will no longer be able to receive TV stations. So rather then put a DTV converter on it he decides to toss it.  Perhaps I would consider taking it if I have a real purpose for it.

I have seen WTMJ-TV do both sign on and sign off.  That was back in the 70s when I was a kid in high school.  Sometimes on Saturday mornings I get up just before 6:00 am when WTMJ-TV would have a color bar slide with ID on until 6:00am sign on with a SSB (National Anthem) film.

In those days you were probably working for them.

-John L.:blush:

In those days, I was just a wee little one or not even born yet...   I was born in 1975

[MrVideo]

The FCC requires stations to provide DTV information on both analog and digital transmitters. FCC Third DTV Review.

I know it is a moot point now, but that is not true.

If a station has converted to a 100% HD-SDI plant, they take the HDTV image and center cut it and downconvert for analog broadcast.  In that case, they have no choice as they have to run the crawl over the analog broadcast and the source is HD.

Two of the stations in Madison, WMTV and WMSN have not converted to digital yet, so they were able to crawl only the analog video.  Since WMSN is the Fox affiliate, if the FCC would have required the crawl over both, they would have had to drop to SD analog upconvert and that would have sent bullets flying in the direction of the FCC.

The FCC have done a lot of stupid things, but requiring the DTV crawl over DTV was not one of them.

The local digital only stations got lots of complaints from viewers about the stupid crawl and the constant "the sky of falling" PSAs.

[foxeng]

I know it is a moot point now, but that is not true.

Actually it is. If you read in both the 3rd DTV Review and more importantly, the March 2008 DTV Education Order that superseded it on the education requirements that set the dates and types of OTA announcements, it plainly states analog AND digital.

[LoadStar]

Actually it is. If you read in both the 3rd DTV Review and more importantly, the March 2008 DTV Education Order that superseded it on the education requirements that set the dates and types of OTA announcements, it plainly states analog AND digital.

And for those who doubt it, here's the FCC order in PDF format:
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-08-56A1.pdf