House defeats bill to delay digital TV transition

Source: AP

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Bucking the Obama administration, House Republicans on Wednesday defeated a bill to postpone the upcoming transition from analog to digital television broadcasting to June 12 - leaving the current Feb. 17 deadline intact for now.

The 258-168 vote failed to clear the two-thirds threshold needed for passage. It's a victory for the GOP members, who warn that postponing the transition would confuse consumers.

.......





Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TEC_DIGITAL_TV_T...

---

Since when do republicans run the house?

We've had over a decade's warning that the DTV transition was coming. No need to push it back now.

TV viewers were only known about the changeover for only one year.

I've known for far longer than that.

I guess everyone includes me too.

Everyone wishes they were me.

And I work at a friggin dairy plant of all places.

But let's assume the average viewer "only" had one year to prepare. How long does it take to order a coupon for a converter box? I placed my order in 10 minutes online. No computer? Our local library has free Internet and actual paper order forms if you prefer that route.

I think I spend more time each week writing my grocery list than it took to order my coupon. If a person can't handle that, I'm surprised they even know how to work a remote control to use their TV in the first place.

"Only" one year

I've seen ads in the paper for convert boxes for $45. The coupon gives you credit for $40 and you pay $5. I know everyone can't afford $45 or even $5 but really, is TV so necessary?

Dupe

Dupe

Some have trouble turning it on

It would be a good trick to have a poster from 2005 about the February 17 2009 digital transition deadline in your break room. The bill setting the Feb 17 2009 deadline wasn't signed into law until February 8, 2006.

I wish they had done the same thing with metric. It would have been over by now and children would not be stumbling over science translations etc. etc.

Better in the long run.

It doesn't get a full range of local stations but does snag a clear reception of "Russia Today." Probably more truthful than "Fox News."

Oh freddled gruntbuggly
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
See if I don't!

Under the deal reached Thursday, the Rockefeller bill – dubbed the DTV Delay Act - retains the June 12 turnover date, but allows stations to switch to digital signals before that date. In the event that a station does switch early, the vacant spectrum will be made available to public

Reuters has this.

with "consumers" but rather with the telco's who stand to make out quite nicely.

"…postponing the transition would confuse consumers."? No --- postponing will allow consumers that don't yet have digital an opportunity to keep in touch with the outside world. Congress is confused.

this shits gone on too long.

And it's costing TV stations money to run both analog and digital equipment.

It has cost us a fortune to build out the DTV transmitters and update equipment. The cost of running the analog transmitters alongside the digitals for years now has been crippling. It's time to move forward.

We've got the digital tuner, AND the roof antenna AND the amplifier. It's not enough.
What we don't have is the 100 FOOT TOWER we would need to maybe pick up some stations with it.

They are moving almost every station here to UHF, and UHF doesn't make it over hills or through trees.

All our clear TV signals are on low VHF. That is going away.

...unless we can get the analog transmitters shut down to clear space in the spectrum, reassign the channels to their permanent frequencies that are moving, re-task repeater and translator stations and build new ones where necessary and last but not least finish building out the transmitters to full power.

As long as stations keep dumping anywhere from $30-70k per month into operating the analog transmitters, we never will be able to finish the infrastructure needed for digital broadcast. NTSC analog has been around since 1941, it's going to take a while to get digital everywhere.

I don't know what is taking over channels 2-6, but it's not DTV.
The only digital station that will be moving onto the old analog channel is channel 7.
All the others are on their final frequencies, and running as much power as they ever will.
So we might be able to get ONE station after the changeover. Maybe.

be a thorn in their side. Let them know there are people who are not being served in your area. Aoll viewer comments and complaints go into the station's FCC public file and believe me, it does tend to motivate an ops manager when stuff like that winds up in their public file.

How many people live in your area that will be negatively impacted by the changeover?

The Bay Area got screwed. Our high VHF frequencies were taken away and given to the Central Valley
even though we have the terrain that needs those frequencies to get through.

Did the same thing happen in other liberal markets?

I'm not sure what the market by market impact is so far, but it does bear further research. If we find that there are many areas like yours, I think the govt should kick in the funds to build repeater/translator stations to get the signal to you, and waive any fees that stations would be charged for carriage on them. Since it was the govt that mandated the change, they should clean up that part of the mess that was created by the change.

Have the government build tranmitters and relays to the digital dead zones.

However, I make the broadcasts pay for them via a rental charge per year. They use our airwaves, they should pay for them.

if we want to watch TV? That government mandated switch away from transmissions most of us can receive to transmissions a significant number of us cannot (and will now have to pay for) does not make me a happy camper.

in the industry happy either. This wasn't something many of us wanted to do, it's something we were told to do. The stations and station groups have had to shell out untold millions in a big unfunded mandate on this one. The big boys are better off than the smaller stations, but the cost has been crippling and continues to be every day we're running two transmitters.

If we are mandated to continue running both tx's for very long at all, I have no doubt I will be informing some of the guys that they are laid off. That is if I'm not laid off myself before then.

I think they have woefully underestimated the impact of this.

A lot of people have the right gear, but are not getting reception.

What effect would a loss of 5-10% of your audience have?

The effect will probably be a lot greater than that on stations that serve mostly rural areas with hilly terrain.

Even with cable's lifeline service (if they don't try to upsell you first), it's still going to cost you an extra $120 a year.

Satellite is more expensive, for Dish network: $19+$7=$26x12= $326.

if you look around for it
(we even get our local stations' weather forecasts from their respective websites)

Can't afford cable or satellite, or a new television set.

Bought the converter box with the coupon, but it only catches 2 channels.

This digital coversion is furthering the divide between the "haves" & "have-nots"

is that I primarily use the TV as background while I am working on my computer. I rarely just sit and watch TV. Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to do photo restoration on a computer that is streaming TV broadcasts

I may just end up getting a DVD player for the TV I usually watch, and a subscription to Netflix (or some other low price DVD rental outfit) and give up. What I can't really miss are the local news broadcasts and the late show - but Jay Leno is leaving anyway and I can't stand Conan O'Brien.

Crime, disaster, celebrity, sport. And no real serious news about local government.

May I suggest a newspaper subscription? Even better, newspapers are also available online! They are much suprior in covering REAL Local news than the broadcast channels will.

And sat on the reader's advisory panel for that newspaper for a year. Local newspapers are not fungible with local broadcasts.

In this day and age, newspapers barely cover local stories - either online or in print. They are struggling to stay alive, and the vast majority of stories they print are pulled from the wire service because they keep laying off the local reporters.

Some of the local newscasts are of the eyewitness tabloid variety - I choose not to watch those particular stations.

we all have internet. And there is tons that we can watch any time we want to, with no commercials. If the government fails us, we just do it ourselves.





edit because of rented fingers

Because it's still either expensive or simply unavailable?

last night I dealt with a woman on the phone at my tech support job that had to set up a dialup account because she couldn't afford DSL
Heck... these days, I can barely afford broadband I need to find myself a second job.
Anyway, I do think the government needs to do a better job at getting frequencies t hat local stations can use. I still haven't gotten the converter box for my TV yet.

TV stations have not been maintaining analog equipment, with the (reasonable) expectation to shut them down after the transition.

2/3 vote is to override a veto....What the Hell happened to "simple majority"???

where a 2/3 supermajority is required to pass. I don't know if they can reconsider it under the regular rules, or if there's even time.

in short, we can do what we want, but others can drag their feet...

The only problem is that the repubs will try to lard it up with hostile amendments.

For some reason a lot of folks here don't seem to realize this is a partisan fight and are rooting for the repubs to win it.

Democrats want to give as much as assistance to lower income, elderly, and non english speaking television viewers many of whom, following instructions as publicized by the government (or at government direction), have sought financial assistance in obtaining converters only to find out that the repubs so badly administered the coupon program that they can't get the coupons now. ANd the Democrats also realize that there are going to be between 1 and 2 million calls placed to the government help line on Feb 17-18 and the repub chairman of the FCC -- a cheney acolyte -- didn't even get around to awarding the contracts to outsource the staffing for call centers until a couple of weeks ago and there is no chance that these centers are going to be fully staffed and properly trained in time.

The repubs want a train wreck. And some here are, for reasons that seem to be based on pure selfishness, cheering them on.

they damn well better get to work on funding the converter box coupon program, and yesterday!

Under what rule was this bar set?

for that you need a 2/3 vote.

Without it, the bill has to go to rules commmittee, which can't happen until next week. And the repubs will be able to offer hostile amendments

pay for the $22 million that the delay will cost them?

http://www.cantonrep.com/business/x1722732167/Digital-t...



There are local stations that are paying thousands of dollars each month because they need to transmit both analog and digital signals when they, as well as us, have been promised and told for many months that February 17th would be the end of analog for full power broadcaster. In fact, 2 of my local stations have announced they will end analog transmission by that date and I am sure that many more will follow suit. Like it or not we are going to switch to digital, the only question left will be the date when all the stations are switched.

propose the delay in the first place? I mean he's a pretty sharp guy, so there must have been a good reason.

Plus I don't totally trust the repubs who are opposing it. They just might be on the right side of this, but I just can't bring myselft to trust them.

Obama tried to extend it - perhaps that would have given the Bush admin some cover as this whole thing came down during his tenure.
Now seeing that the Repugs voted to keep the Feb date - than if anything goes wrong - they will have to shoulder the blame.

Obama will say - I told you so - I wanted to extend till June - but you voted against it. So you irate Americans that are having problems with your TV's - blame the Repugs.

June does make a bit more sense.

to everyone who requested them. Apparently the converter box coupon program is running out of money, so once the switch occurs many people may be without television service because they can't afford the box at full price.

The analog is on channel 9, which comes in pretty well.
The digital is on channel 30, which comes in not at all.
The digital is NOT moving down to channel 9 after the changeover,
and they are already running as much power as they ever will.

on ad revenue. There is no mandate to continue analog - the commercial stations are doing so because ad revenue does not currently (adequately) support digital only transmissions.

Without risking their revenue stream PBS stations can, and some have, already ceased broadcasting in analog.

for anything. They are evil and monopolistic and all I need from TV I get FOTA. I am not sure of the ups and downs of all of this but I personally have known about the digital transition for ten years. For the last two years it has been up front and anyone who hasn't heard about it probably doesn't even watch TV. Last February I got my two coupons and bought one Zenith A to D converter from Radio Shack for about twenty bucks after the coupon. No bells and whistles, no S-video output, no analog pass through. I let the other coupon expire, giving it back to the system. I also bought a low-end digital TV, Best Buy house brand Insignia 15". So a year ago I sunk about $250 into this transition. Two weeks ago I was playing around with how the Zenith signal looked on my little Sharp 9" BW. Very sharp, but ovate, B&W, and tiny. I broke down and bought a 19" Sharp for $300.

I am over $500 into this digital transition and quite impatient to get the transition overwith. We consumers can't test our digital TV until the broadcasters are forced to commit all their resources into improving the signal. Right now the local TV providers are a mixed bag of uneven compromise between loud boorish mono analog and hyper sleek stereo digital. But the digital has a disconcerting habit of going quiet, pixelating, then changing to a roving "no signal" sign. For a few more weeks I can holler and downshift to the analog equivalent and reach for the mute.

I want this transition overwith. If it will fail big let it fail big under original deadline, blame Bush (rightly so: his FCC sat on this for eight years) and FIX IT! It is my understanding that many who might have problems with the transition (like old folks in nursing homes) all have cable anyway.

I bought a Zenith model and it works great. Not only is the picture on my old 19" tv better than it has ever been I can now get twice as many channels, including 3 PBS channels. Tv stations have been gearing up for the Feb. 17th transition for months now and many have already shut off their analog signal and many will then. The date when they MUST switch could have been delayed, but that doesn't mean that they cannot switch when they are ready and save the bit cost of running two transmitters. So largely after Feb. 17th the switch to digital will be a fait accompli.

For about as long as I can remember. Pelosi should go ahead and switch parties and make it official.

Republicans don't want her either.

How exactly is this Pelosi's fault?

will not be happy with Republicans for derailing it.

There are over 2 million people waiting to get their digital converter box discount coupons, I am one of them.

We will NOT get one by Feb 17. What is wrong with people posting here at the DU who think all of us should have our TV shut off on Feb 17 because of a government mess up?

If we delay the switchover another four months those same people will wait four more months and still not be ready.

Last time I checked television was not a necessity. Read a newspaper.

They still use it for important weather information, traffic, emergency situations, and news (even if it's the tabloid eyewitness variety). The only benefit for newspapers is that they bring real hard news, and especially real local hard news. That kind of local news will never be provided by tv stations these days.

While radio will provide such information in what I mentioned above, there's little entertainment value, unless you enjoy top 25 singles from 24/7.

P.S. I bet you have cable or satellite, do you?

and I could have streamed that.

It's just not an appliance I think to switch on all that often. I am fascinated you did not mention books, games (i.e. board games & sports, not electronic game systems) and personal interaction as potentials for entertainment. Honestly, I've channel surfed from time to time and wonder why television has a reputation for entertainment-value. The alternatives are light-years better.

I suppose there's always radio, but that goes against the very vocal "WE MUST PRESS FORWARD WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY!!" crowd around here.

I wonder how long before there will be a new "use" found for the radio fequencies, and then free broadcast radio will go away.....

I freely admit I have a much different perspective on the issue being someone who does not rely on the television for either information or entertainment. I can see both sides of this argument, perhaps because the entire matter is irrelevant to me.

As for the inauguration, I did have other options besides streaming it. Every single pub in town had every single television tuned to the inauguration from sun up to sun down. And that's saying something considering where I was that day. There were also several public venues in town that set up big screen televisions. Admission ranged from $1.00 - $25.00 depending upon the venue and the refreshments being offered. The local high school broadcast the inauguration free of charge to the public. And I imagine friends, family and neighbors gathered together as well.

I suppose that is another aspect about this issue that saddens me in a way. I consider television to be an isolating instrument with a tendency to foster reclusivity rather than community. Just not a big fan of the thing I'm afraid.

You weren't responding to me, but another poster.

I actually jumped in about the high-speed internet, because I think a lot of people assume that everyone has high-speed internet in their home. I'm scraping by on dial-up, and that doesn't look to change soon, if ever. And I'm well aware that I'm a second-class citizen because of it (and the fact that I can't afford cable & satellite, etc.)

But thanks for your unsolicited advice.

I wish I were kidding

http://www.betanews.com/article/House_Republicans_invok...

did that happen???

And that's been the procedure for a very very long time.

IMO the government should not be paying for these stupid converter boxes anyway. Spend the money on health care or improving the economy instead. If people with ancient TVs want to watch so badly, they need to get with the times and buy a converter, a new TV, or get cable WITH THEIR OWN MONEY like the rest of the country. Why should my tax dollars pay for this?!

DU never ceases to disappoint.

Or is this even DU? Maybe I've stumbled into FR by mistake....
Cheerleading a Republican "victory"?

It's just that some who have cable or satellite are unsympathetic about those who still use rabbit ears for their television. Especially the poor, elderly, and those who live in rural areas. Even in rural areas, cable companies refuse to service the areas.

There are some people who will not do anything when Feb 17 arrives. These people are not interested in digital television because have not given a good reason to switchover to digital television, because HD programs are still limited to primetime on broadcast networks (unless you like faux-HD channels), and subchannels are worthless weather radars and bowdlerized movies.

I thought it was conservatives who wanted to keep things the way they were, or worse regress to the "golden days".

-- both of which were badly screwed up by the repubs -- holding up progress and modernization?

4 months= hundreds of thousands of dollars per station in additional expense for continued operation of the analog transmitters, money that could be better spent adding more cabs to the digital transmitters,upgrading studio equipment and making other improvements which have been delayed due to the ongoing expense of operating two transmitters. Many of us have had to squeeze our budgets to the max for a long time just to try and see the light at the end of the Feb 17th tunnel and hit that target. If we are required to operate the analog transmitters past that date, it's going to be a real challenge to keep from having to lock the doors for some of us.

As we discussed in a prior thread, I feel your pain.

This digital transition is a burden to the little guys: the local tv stations & the poor, elderly, and rural viewers.

I don't know what the answer is...except maybe use some of those "bailout" dollars to help out the local tv stations & the disadvantaged viewers.

on edit: changed my wording a little bit.

It would be us,lol.

The funny thing is about this delay, if I'm reading it right, is it seems that it would not require stations to keep their analog transmitters on, but rather allow them to stay on past the deadline if they want to. If that's the case, the whole delay bill is kind of a moot point. I'd go out on a limb and predict somewhere between 80-90% would shut down on Feb 17, with more following on their heels very soon.

and to be clear, I don't think that the government should be allocating more money for coupons (just free up the money that was already budgeted but that's tied up because of the way its run) or even more than a little bit more to cover the continuation of public annoucements ads, etc. during the transition. There should be some money allocated to help broadcasters defray their additional costs during the extension.

The more I read about the proposed delay, the more it seems that the extension is going to be voluntary in nature rather than mandatory. In other words, cut it off if you want, stay on if you want. If that's that case, I'm going to predict a large majority of stations shutting off analog because they can't finance operations any longer.

The effect I fear is that the stations who are flush enough to stay on will do so to tout themselves as "white knights" of the industry and the rest of us as uncaring louts. I just hope before anybody boos and hisses at the stations that opt to cease analog operations that they will stop to consider why we have to do so.

The version I read (the version I believe the Senate passed) simply provided that stations could shut off their analog signals pursuant to the same procedures that have been in place since 2007 for stations that want to petition the FCC for the right to shut off early. Even assuming that the standard for shutting off early is relaxed, the procedures the FCC has in place -- and that are arguably incorporated by reference in the legislation -- require stations to give 90 days notice to the FCC, and 60 days notice to viewers (by putting on daily ads announcing the early transition plan). So for most stations, it would still be May before they could shut down the analog if I'm reading the law correctly. I would imagine that a lot of broadcasters aren't going to be the first one to shut down if it means that they may be giving up a portion of their audience to their competition for a few months. I suspect those that shut down early won't be the big four network affiliates in most markets but may be smaller indpendent stations and, maybe, PBS stations.

I had not had time to look up and read the exact bill yet. As far as giving up a portion of the audience, with ad rates in the toilet like they are now versus operating costs, that may be a no-brainer considering how small the remaining analog-only audience is. The repugs really screwed this whole thing up bad from the get-go and now we're stuck with the aftermath. I really don't want to see anybody else get laid off, but if we get stuck running it for another 3 months, I bet we'll lose some more people, at least temporarily. I just hope we can get them back when things pick up after the shutdown.

making broadcasts free and available to the general public over the airways.

This transition will deprive many - particularly the rural poor - of access to free broadcasts. Digital simply does not reach as far as analog - a shortcoming that people are finally beginning to realize as people install the boxes, get set top antennas with amplifiers, and even go to the effort to get rooftop antenna and still cannot get access.

It's not about keeping things the way they are - it is about forcing a change to a broadcast technology that diminishes the ability of many who are among the least likely to be able to afford it to receive free, over the air, transmissions.

And if we're going to be good liberals in the midst of this transition, we need to write our representatives and urge them to not only expand and extend the converter box program, but to also kick down some money to the stations and station groups so we can keep operating as well as to build out more infrastructure (transmitter improvements and translator stations) to extend the range and provide stable signals to more viewers. So far, we've done the best we can with this unfunded mandate, but a lot more could be done with the government's help.

If we'd just gone ahead and *did it* we'd be on par with the rest of the modern world.

They only way to fight inertia sometimes is to just go ahead and make the change.

There are very specific reasons for the delay, tied to mismanagement by the repubs in two areas:'

First, the repubs mismanaged the converter box coupon program so that it ended up,despite having been budgeted for the redemption of 33 million coupons, running out of money after 20 million were redeemed, leaving requests for over 3 million coupons currently on a waiting list.

Second, the government has known for some time that on the day of/day after the transition between 1 and 2 million people are likely to call the call center numbers that the government set up as help lines, but the repub chairman of the fcc didn't award the contracts for staffing those call centers until a couple of weeks ago, leaving indadequate time to hire and train people to staff them.

This is nothing like what took place with regard to metric.

necessity is the mother of getting off one's lazy ass.

And the people who are going to call the hotlines set up by the government for information and end up getting a busy signal or bad information because the government didn't set them up soon enough are the ones sitting on their lazy asses?

Wow. Just wow.

Am I living in a Bizzaro world???

Those of us who are struggling with transition, for whatever reason, are "deadbeats" holding up the glorious future of the ones who can afford cable, satellite, digital television sets or are blessed with great digital reception on their converter boxes.

Its a procedural maneuver that allows a bill to be taken up more quickly and limits the ability of the repubs to offer amendments to muck things up.

Its nothing new.

the Republicans try to insert?

Generally, members want leadership to protect them from having to make hard votes. If the bill had been open to amendment, the repubs would've tried putting in amendments aimed at cutting the amount of money for the transition just so they could use the vote in a future elections.

Personally, I think the Democrats made a mistake in trying the motion to suspend tactic. There are parliamentary procedures that could've been used, through the Rules Committee, to limit amendments and debate. That ultimately is what I think will happen when the bill goes to the rules committee on Tuesday and gets passed on Wednesday (unless, there is a special rules committee session on Monday, allowing the bill to pass on Tuesday.) THere is a time crunch here. The House is out of session today and Friday while the repubs have a "retreat". It will be out of session next Thurs and Friday while the Democrat hold their "retreat". They may have some pro forma sessions or come back to work on the stimulus bill if it clears the Senate, but there isn't going to be time for much else.

It may be another example of Obama's style to get the other side to take the heat for something Obama may have wanted anyway. If the result is fewer viewers, the corporate powers won't be that pleased either.

Stations are losing money by holding on to analog. Those who havent bought a converter box, tough shit. You shoulda bought one a LONG TIME ago. It wont kill you to be without a tv in the time you can save up 60 bucks. Obama's a sharp guy but I dont agree with him on this issue.

particularly those that were stupid enough to believe the government when they said that there would be coupons avaialble for 33 million boxes when everyone should've know the coupon program would run aground after only 20 million were redeemed, leaving 3 million requests on a waiting list six weeks before the transition.

Sure it was the government's fuck up. But we don't believe in fixing government fuck ups here at DU, do we.

If many of us (the stations) lose any more money in this big clusterfuck of an unfunded mandate, we'll have to lock the doors and go home.

Digitel HD is better. Just like the old crank phone gave way to the rotary dial and then that gave way to the pushbutton telephone and then on to cell phones and onto I-phones and Blue tooth change is inevitable. You cannot hold it back.
For those of you having problems with over the air reception please try out this website. It may help you.

http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx

http://www.tvfool.com

Information is power!

I have both, and can't pick up even that one.

Is your antenna just a VHF? Becouse DHTV is usually broadcast over the UHF. Also, can you adjust your antenna's direction? Sometimes it has to be pointed in a particular direction for it to work. How High is it mounted? Are there obstructions? If you could get UHF before the transition, you should still be able to recieve the signal. It is possible that your area stations are not at full power yet. Everyone should flip the switch to full power this coming month.

good luck...remember that old adage...there are no problems...only solutions.

Analog UHF signals don't really make it here. I could get a very snowy picture by putting an antenna 50' up in a tree.
High VHF analog is weak with a lot of multipath, but watchable.
All the good signals are on the low end of the VHF band, which gets through trees and over hills much better than higher frequencies do.

it is very hard for me to feel sympathy for someone who lives in a Redwood Forest.

I'm not asking for sympathy, but I would appreciate not being called stupid, lazy, or a technophobe.

I have been HD-ready for over three years!

Haven't they checked their roster since the election?

I'm thinking maybe I can just put some tinfoil on my head and hope for a good picture in my mind.

than to simply believe they are all stupid or unable to ask for help about this. I have seen phone numbers constantly on tv both nationally and locally offering help to anyone who needs it concerning this switch to digital. Any local tv station would be more than happy to answer any questions and I have seen stories on my local news about the switch and giving numbers to call with lots of local people manning the phones to help. If they had questions about the converter box or how to get a coupon those questions were being answered months ago.

So let's have enough talking down about the poor and the elderly because they are neither stupid or ignorant, but they probably have as many procrastinators as the rest of the population. Some people will never be ready regardless of whether they are poor or old, rich or young. Plus there never has been a guarantee in this country that 100% of the population will always and forever be able to get and receive the same channels they always have gotten, but there is help and advice for those situations also if people are willing to listen and try.

Myself and the guys who work for me here at the station have spent our own time, money and gasoline to go out and help a lot of people get set up when they have called. We have all volunteered as DTV speakers giving demonstrations to various groups in the community and we have manned the phone banks answering questions during the recent DTV soft tests also.

I realize it is the Liberal thing to throw out the elderly, the poor, or the disabled as an excuse for not being ready for the switch, but give these people some credit and respect because as groups they are not stupid, ignorant, or completely helpless.

I helped set a neighbor up last week, he's 87 years old. I gave him the converter box I got with my DTV speaker's kit since I won't be able to do any more speaking engagements between now and the cutoff date. He has a sweet old RCA XL-100 25" console from the early '70s that still works like a charm.

I set the box on top of his TV. He looked at the back of it, puttered off into the garage and when he came back,he handed me a 300 ohm to 75 ohm adaptor and said "you're gonna need this 300 to 75 converter".

We hooked it up to his existing rooftop antenna, scanned and got 22 digital channels. It looked really nice on that old vintage set.

because it meant that some people would pay a penalty if they didn't sign up in time and were supporting an extension of the deadline, we were just being patronizing?

Who knew?

when its allocated to give more space for police/fire transmissions.

Everybody wants to talk about poor old grandma, how about the improvement for EVERYBODY by the police, fire, and EMT people having a much improved infrastructure for them to talk to each other.

DOESN'T WORK!

The answer to our questions about what to do about it is, "Wait and see if it will work."

Real helpful....

We did everything "right", we got our coupon & box last summer. But we get two channels. We're told, well it should work after the big date. But nobody seems to have a lot of answers about what to do if it still doesn't work after that, other the antenna, which is more money that we can't afford....

and what market are you in?