Tag Archives: analog

The Clock Is Ticking

High-power analog television has but a week of life left in the States. And with analog on the ropes, and most of the locals already gone, I’ve been watching for some things I couldn’t have seen otherwise.

One thing that really surprises me is just how often there are openings going on. With casual checking, I’ve found stations coming in from somewhere almost every other day. And Tu Canal from Mexico is in about every third day on channel 2. With us having stations on channel 2, 4 and 5, I had no idea any of this was going on. It’s been fun to see, but come Friday, the domestic stations will be gone, leaving me with Canada, Mexico and Cuba as the likely analog stations I’ll still see from time to time.

I’m still not quite sure how I’ll figure out when there’s domestic E-skip taking place that I could leverage for DTV. An exercise for the writer, I guess. 🙂

Tonight, the airwaves held a surprise. Since the mass shutdown on June 12th, I’ve seen plenty of activity on channels 2, 3 and 4. Tonight though, I got a quick glimpse on channel 6 of KOCT-TV from Carlsbad NM. Tu Canal had been in for an hour or two, so I knew things were hopping down that direction, but to see the MUF climb up to channel 6 was pretty cool. I’ve only seen anything that high here once before. A few years ago, we had some kind of opening — probably Es — that allowed us to watch a bunch of stuff from up around Rapid City SD. This was nowhere near as long lived.

However, my huzzahs go to KOCT — they identified with a long duration slide that allowed me plenty of time to catch it at its peak. Many of nightlight stations seem to identify pretty rarely — probably like they did in real life at twice an hour. I’ve had a channel 2 from somewhere in New England in twice over the last week with Norm from This Old House talking about DTV and have yet to see an id on the station. That’ll make ya happy. 🙁

In any case, with one week of domestics left, I’ll be paying attention as I can, and seeing if I can get anything new in the log. Once Friday rolls by, I’ll put my list of stations up. Hopefully, our local channel 5 will go off the air, and I’ll find some station(s) still on before they shutdown too.

Digital Transition

Last night, the transition from analog to all-digital television began. Becky and I watched it until the gory end. We watched our PBS station on channel 9 drop off, and within a couple of minutes, all the locals (except channel 5) disappear. Channel 5 appears to be acting as a “night light” station, broadcasting DTV transition information. I have no idea how long that’ll last.

However, there were still a lot of stations on the air. Some were broadcasting DTV transition info, and others were still transmitting regular programming. With the St. Louis stations out of the way, I was able to see some stations that I ordinarily couldn’t have because of the locals. It was nice to see some of those before they disappeared.

It’s been my theory that once the US analog stations were gone, it would clear the path to seeing analog stations from both Mexico and Canada with greater ease. I could have been more right. Within a few minutes of the local channel 2 switching their analog signal off, I started seeing XEPM out of Mexico (near Las Cruces). Cool.

I stayed up until about 2.15am, spinning the antenna, looking for fresh signals.

This morning, there were still quite a few analog stations up and running, much to my surprise. And this morning, I was treated to another opening, this time to the Atlantic coast — Charleston, Daytona Beach and Charlotte. Once again, if the locals had been on, I would never have seen any of it. For all I know, signals have always been like this, I just couldn’t see ’em. I even saw some signals from Canada this morning.

Tonight — in theory, the last night of analog broadcasting — almost every station is gone. I’ve seen a few signals from Mexico, and a couple of locals, but most of the analog signals are gone. However, there’s still one stubborn station, WSIL, sitting on channel 3, running normal broadcasting. I’m a little surprised at that, and am wondering when they’ll turn out the lights.

Transition has been fun, and if the signals from Mexico and Canada have been any indication, there could some real fun to come!