I brought up the issue of the shift to digital TV stations last month, and the impact it might have on the WOSU-TV  to W31AA Newark translator on channel 31.

The Columbus Dispatch ran a couple of interesting articles in today's (Jan 13) paper on page 2 of the 'Insight' section.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/insight/index.html

Some of you might be interested.

• 
  
• Move to digital in '09 might hurt low-power TV stations

• Local stations hope to convert once FCC OKs it

Newark would come under the "Translator" regulations.

The Hubbell home TV reception system is still an 'antique' off-air affair, but I use an outside antenna,  amplifier and distribute inside the house to all but the bedrooms. (I dream enough about TV as it is!)
We recently bought a new TV receiver with a built-in DVD/CD player - just digital, no HDTV.
Interesting!
Still gets old fashioned analog channels, of course, including some of those low powered signals mentioned in the news articles.
The digital offerings intrigue me: Columbus channels 4 and 6 air two DT channel options, and channel 34 has 3. The engineer part of me was curious about how people would know where to tune for the DT channel, as they are never given in the TV listings. The transmitters are scattered throughout the high VHF and UHF spectrum. Well, the TV tuner automatically takes care of it, and the actual carrier channel doesn't appear on our TV. It uses the analog channel number, plus DT and a number. WOSU-DT-02 carries the "Ohio" network, for example. Channel 34 runs 3 digital channels on the one carrier (magic!) and often has a different program on the regular PBS channel 34. Nice! Four selections -all Channel 34.

From what little info I can glean on the FCC web sites, the DT channel assignments may still shift some in 2009. Apparently will not matter to the public, but will keep the broadcasters scratching their heads.

And to think that I once owned a Motorola TV with a 7 inch screen that still included Channel 1 on the tuner! Dan, that  had an electronic deflection CRT, not a mag deflection system. Just like an oscilloscope with a P4 screen. Got good pictures, though. I donated it to the Historical society. Have no idea what they did with it.  

After WGSF shut down and the translator unit was installed, I found that some communities had a license to broadcast some local programs on a part-time basis over a local translator.  . .  . Couldn't help but wonder "What if????"  What if we had been able to replace that cranky antique transmitter with the new technology, and still had local input, a la WGSF? Some of the stuff we put out on the edu cable switched to the translator. Alas, twas never to be.
But it was quite a ride while it lasted, was it not?

Mr H