[bgadow]

Thought I should chime in, if a little late. Friday was a very busy day for me, but I really wanted to do something with the switchover. I had a few minutes in the morning so I pulled out the old set I keep in the office-a 12" bw Philco from the 60s. Bought that thing at a yard sale 15 years ago for a dollar. It gets drug out every few years-I watched the Clinton/Lewinsky testimony on it, I watched 911 unfold. So Friday morning I watched a couple minutes of daytime TV and snapped a few pictures-this was of the only local station left on analog. (also the only thing you can pick up here with a set-top antenna)

It wasn't until about 9:30 that night that I had time to switch a TV back on. (Well, my wife was in the back watching digital) Much to my dismay, the local station (WBOC) had already flipped the switch! (this is the one which I had earlier mentioned, with an online schedule which continued on into Saturday) So, I quickly switched over to my outdoor antenna to find: nothing left from Baltimore; 3 DC stations were coming in. Pioneer broadcasters WRC-4 & WTTG-5 (the former being NBC owned, the latter being an old DuMont flagship) were running the same DTV endless-loop. The Maryland Public Broadcasting station from Annapolis had it, too. I found only one station airing "real" programming-the Spanish language station from DC. They even had a countdown clock, and were talking about it on the 11pm news.

I could almost pick up WGAL-8 from Lancaster-I kept tweaking the antenna but just couldn't get a watchable signal. It looked like, from what I could see, they were airing something besides the same old continous loop.

At that point I was tired and just said the heck with it. WRC & WTTG will be running the loop for another month, so I'll tune in again then. Otherwise, it wasn't worth my time to stay up until midnight. Sandy G said it-with a whimper, not a bang.

One other thing: Saturday I was talking to a TV repairman I know. He said he was swamped Friday, installing converter boxes. Hooked 'em up as fast as he could all day. He charged $50 labor for each service call. Good for him!