[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by RVonse

I agree completely with this.

Selling off the spectrum to private interests will mean our government will no longer have the vehical to easily communicate to the public over the air. There are still many families not hooked up to satelite or cable. Digital technology is great but if there are no more VHF channels left its not going to travel any kind of distance over UHF. In case of national emergency there will be significant areas not covered by UHF and that means the public at large will not get proper instruction from our federal government.

The VHF spectrum needs to be kept in the public domain IMO.

True although we still have the AM band for this. I think the point is that we are selling off a very limited resource because of the "Wal*Mart mentality" in order to make a buck. I'm not against making a buck but there are times that the public interests should be above that. I just think that we should have both systems going at once and for once let the people decide. If at some point NTSC goes away, well, that could happen or if HDTV never catches on, well, I think the FCC should set aside some channels and let the people decide. I hear HDTV sales are not doing as well so who knows, maybe 2009, NTSC will still be around beyond the shutoff date.