Excerpts of Commissioner Adelstein's comments on 12/2/08. See the link for full details.

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-287163A1.pdf


Rather than giving us a false sense of complacency, Wilmington should force us to jumpstart the Commission’s lackluster efforts...

The issues viewers experienced in Wilmington at first glance seem modest. It was manageable since it amounted to 2,272 calls in the first couple of weeks. But Wilmington is a small town, and this is a big country. A fuller picture emerges when you consider that only 7 percent of Wilmington viewers receive their TV over the air, versus 12 percent nationwide. And Wilmington is flat as a board, in contrast to the hills, valleys, waterways and buildings that impact broadcasting which are found in so many parts of America.

While in Wilmington only 14,000 households rely exclusively on over-the-air TV reception, 13.6 million do so nationwide. That means we should expect calls from at least 2.2 million households nationwide seeking help in the first days after the national transition deadline. And that’s the optimistic scenario.

In the months before this test, the FCC probably spent more resources in Wilmington than in the rest of the country combined. For months, at least five high-ranking staffers were on the ground in every county, at every blueberry festival. We even paid firefighters to go into homes to help those who needed it. If today we shut down the FCC and sent every employee across the country, it wouldn’t touch the impact we had in Wilmington. And yet, even after all of that, we got thousands of calls.

In retrospect, the FCC should have phased in the digital conversion by geographic areas, instead of doing the entire country at once.

In retrospect, the FCC should have phased in the digital conversion by geographic areas, instead of doing the entire country at once.

Bingo.

Some markets are easier to flash than others. Some could go earlier than others.

Markets where there are signal problems with the digitals that simply cannot be resolved before the transition (see Denver, Roanoke) should be allowed to keep their analogs until such time as all the signals are on the same page.

- Trip

I thint everything will be fine. The people that paid attention to the thousands of announcements will be just fine. The remaining OTA viewers will be out of TV until they get to a store to buy a converter box... probably sans coupon unless they want to wait for several weeks extra.

This is the same thing that happened 20 years ago when every family only had one TV andf it went on the fritz.

Rick R

If you think everything will be fine, you're not paying attention. I've found plenty of people who got a box and now don't get anything at all because they don't have the right equipment, and don't know what to do about it until someone knowledgeable like myself helps them out.

- Trip

This is the same thing that happened 20 years ago when every family only had one TV andf it went on the fritz.


Millions of TV's going on the "fritz" at the same time will be a different story.

With about 75% of the 500,000 OTA LA area homes completely unready for the transition, I can't see this being smooth, especially when some people realize they need to replace their 25+ year old (broken, falling apart, corroded and mis-directed) antennas and twin-lead cabling. How many local stores sell real antennas in any quantities (other than Fry's).

This is the same thing that happened 20 years ago when every family only had one TV andf it went on the fritz.
20 years ago plenty of people had more than one TV. There was a time when every household only had one TV, but that was a long time ago.

Millions of TV's going on the "fritz" at the same time will be a different story.

With about 75% of the 500,000 OTA LA area homes completely unready for the transition, I can't see this being smooth, especially when some people realize they need to replace their 25+ year old (broken, falling apart, corroded and mis-directed) antennas and twin-lead cabling. How many local stores sell real antennas in any quantities (other than Fry's).
I saw a good 1/2 hr. program about the DTV Transition, the other night, on our local CW hosted by local CBS newspeople, and it was actually just about totally accurate and clear, AFAIK. The problem is they didn't mention that one's antenna may not be sufficient. Therefore, one should get the CECB early and test the system, in case a new antenna is needed. I can see plenty of people who do get the box, and are without TV until a new antenna is installed; those installers probably will have a waiting list come mid-Feb.;)

I can tell you that I have guided 3 people to getting Zenith converter boxes. All have gotten more channels than before. The antenna they used for analog will work just fine for digital. If it didn't work for analog it of course will work poorly for digital.

The only issue was my borther who got 3 channels analog, got 6 digital, but one of the 3 analog was not one of the 6 digital. This was because that channel was very low power digital because they were going to a new channel on 18 February 2009. However a cheap antenna amp solved that problem.

Rick R