Yes, radio's VHF sound function will be useless now.

Just wait for the first National Disaster
 

I think this is going to be a very big deal when the first national disaster hits. Living in S. Florida, I have relied on a portable TV for important news when hurricanes strike. Obviously I won't be able to do that anymore.

Yeah, I can listen to the radio but those maps and other visuals (emergency contacts, lists of gas stations with power, etc). are very important in that time of widespread need. I haven't seen that issue addressed anywhere...

Now's the time to do some last minute analog DXing. So far I've gotten WUND from NC, KDKA and WTAE from PA.

KHQA, Hannibal MO, Quincy IL is due to switch in about 1 hour from now. 3:00 pm central time. I have a couple of my sets on to witness it.

Get an digital TV tuner for your laptop.

Having lived in Florida and Louisiana, I can confirm that there will be a LOT of people caught off-guard when the first disaster arrives. Problem with a lot of laptops is that they suck too much battery power when compared to a little 5" black/white TV. About 50-75 watts for modern laptops. Will be interesting to see how they handle this.

Dallas stations didn't give it much effort. KTVT-11 (CBS) went straight to snow without so much as an announcement. KFWD-4 (Fox) and KXAS-5 (NBC) ran a looping bilingual video about the converter boxes, looks like something the DTV people distributed. KERA-13 (PBS) ran a static text page about the mandated switchover.

WFAA-8 (ABC) was a bit classier. Had an announcer next to a running Motorola 7" "suitcase" set (the one that uses the 7JP4, can't remember the model) displaying the station's old logo card. Talked about the significance of the change and how it was history making. WFAA was on the air as another call sign (k-something) back in 1948 and the first in Dallas, 2nd in the DFW area on the air. They closed with their signoff film that ran back before the early 80's. Not sure exactly what "era" it was from, but it used their long-retired round logo, and showed shots of downtown missing buildings that I know were built in the mid-80s.

Ans so, little by little, the analog stations simply switch off in LA. No good bye's, no fanfare, no nothing. Just a click to snow. THAT, of all things is sad. No respect for the analog history of broadcasting to even have the decency to "sign off".

Alas, a bittersweet moment for myself. Everything I have spent half a lifetime to learn will be obsolete tomorrow.

Thank god I still do vintage audio. Sigh...

I'm in Detroit. I think people here, including the TV stations, are so broke that they'll just flip the switch at midnight (or whenever), and that'll be that. They may have a commentary about it on the news or something, but my guess is that, especially since they've been broadcasting a digital signal for quite a while here, no one will really do anything special to commemmorate it.

And if you haven't done anything to prepare for it yet.... well, you probably don't watch television and so it won't matter anyhow.

Well, it's time I got back to my The Girls Next Door marathon.....

Welcome to CostCo. I love you.

The NBC affiliate here has an engineer who helped bring the station online in 1953 coming in to do the "ceremonial" shutdown during the 6pm newscast. They're keeping the transmitter on for two weeks as a nightlight, but it will be the only analog broadcast in the area.

http://www.ky3.com/news/local/47918127.html

This. The price of PV panels that can charge batteries have come down significantly in price, and you can usually find AGMs that are pulls from big commercial UPSs for not a lot. 100Ah or so gives a lot of time for looking at weather maps.

An HF ham rig with the hurricane net frequencies programmed in would be my first choice, though. Those guys are really on the ball when it comes to weather reports and health & welfare traffic.

Cool. BTW, KDKA and WTAE are from here in Pittsburgh. There musth ave bee na front moving through because I was listening to FM on 92.1 in the Colorado pickup and I heard another station coming in and "walking over" the one I was listening to.

I know that feeling. I would have hoped for more of a sign off, but it doesn't seem like that will be the case.

David

:thumbsdn:Well, it's final. The end has come, again, the end of an era. At midnight, without a warning, The Tonight Show went to commercial and never came back. I got a lot of really cool pictures kind in a fateful kind of way. I took some shots of the DTV directional/informational programming that will likely set a worlds record for infomercial length. Anyway, I noticed some of the captions were kind of funny, especially being viewed on a 1956 model TV. One says, "television has not yet been upgraded to digital" (NO SH*T), and the other says, "continue watching free television." I'm going to post these for fun. If anyone has any interesting "end of an era" screen shots please post them.:thmbsp:

P.S. This is 40 minutes later. I just did the photo upload (dialup). Just four pics!!

Farewell....channel 11 and 13 here in Los Angeles just went to snow.

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/r/r...ll_antenna.jpg

Here in the Bay Area, they all just went away at midnight. Channel 11 is still on the air, though, showing DTV info.