End of and era....

[Jeffhs]

The first stations to switch last night were channels 3, 19 and 43 in Cleveland, although I did not see the actual cutoff of the analog signal since I have cable (Time Warner, the cable operator in my area, uses direct digital feeds from the TV stations, not over-the-air signals picked up via antennas). I had no choice but to see the event on cable, as the OTA signals in this area are too weak to have been seen in analog with an antenna, and channel 3 (the NBC station serving northeastern Ohio) does not even reach here OTA.

The other six local stations (5, 8, 23, 25, 55, 61) waited until midnight to ring down the curtain. A PBS station 60 miles southwest of here (WEAO-TV 49), which is carried on Time Warner Cable in my area, shut down its analog signal at 12:01 this morning. That station must have had some problems with its digital signal immediately after the transition, as I watched part of a Charlie Rose interview program at midnight and found the video and audio terribly out of sync. I found it weird, to say the least, to see Rose's guest on my TV screen and hearing the sound about 30 seconds later. Fortunately, as of 1 a.m. EST or so, however, the problem was corrected and the show ran to completion without further incidents.

The commercial TV stations in this area did not have any issues whatsoever with digital freezeups, video/audio synchronization problems, or anything else--their transition was seamless and transparent, at least to those of us watching on cable. I do not know whether any of those stations made an announcement, ran a crawl, or gave any sort of warning that their analog signal was about to disappear forever, although I remember a home-shopping station on channel 67 in a town near where channel 49 is located switched to digital early (about six months ago, IIRC) and did show a screen crawl announcing the end of their analog transmissions.

Channel 3 is remaining on the air in analog as a "nightlight" station for the next 30 days, running DTV conversion info and emergency information as necessary.

Perhaps every Cleveland TV station did run a crawl last night, moments before cutting their analog signals, but if so, I didn't see it as the cable carries only the stations' digital signals these days (TW cable, the entire NE Ohio/NW Pennsylvania system, was converted to 100-percent digital about a year or so ago).

R. I. P. analog TV in northeastern Ohio

1947 - 2009

[compucat]

The stations here in Hampton Roads Virginia just went off. WTKR channel 3 switched off right before Letterman was to begin. None of the stations did a sign off. They just disappeared with no reverence for a system that brought us information and entertainment our entire lives. We are in the digital age now whether we like it or not.


(Sing to the tune of the NBC chimes) We Are Screwed.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Ghoulardi

I know you guys are talking TV but I'll throw this in. Back in about 1973 or so, one of the radio stations in the Cleveland area was switching to a "Brand New Country Music Format".To mark the event, they played Jerry Reed's "When You're Hot,You're Hot" for 24 hours straight. They would speed it up, slow it down, and drop in all kinds of strange noises and audio clips. If you could stay with it for awhile, it really became quite hilarious.

I remember that, and yes, I did "stay with it" for quite some time, as it was something no one had ever done before on radio in Cleveland--and it caught (and held) my interest. I was 17 years old and living in a Cleveland suburb at the time, and the radio station was, IIRC, WELW-FM, 107.9 (it's now urban contemporary WENZ-Z107.9 after several callsign and format changes, and who in the Cleveland area can ever forget their fabulous 140kW ERP signal, which they finally had to throttle back to 16kW ERP in the '80s because of new stations having gone on the air on 107.9 in Pittsburgh and Toronto?). That 24-hour Jerry Reed stunt was the darndest thing I've ever heard on radio in my entire life. As you said, they would do all kinds of crazy things with the song: play it backward, play two copies at once, run it at 78 RPM rather than 33 1/3 ... anything they could think of.

As I said, this was a stunt no one had ever pulled on radio in Cleveland before, and may never do again. In fact, in this age of most radio stations being automated and programmed from central studios hundreds or thousands of miles away, it would seem to me that a stunt like that would be almost impossible to pull off, unless some daredevil engineer at the central computer reprogrammed the system to play one or two songs over and over again. I doubt if either of the big media conglomerates (Clear Channel and CBS Radio, the latter formerly known as Infinity) that own and operate 90 percent of the radio stations in the United States would stand for that although, considering the noise masquerading as music a lot of those stations play all day, every day, I don't see the harm in doing a stunt like the Jerry Reed marathon again. Today's teenagers probably wouldn't notice the difference; after all, to that generation, rock and roll is rock and roll, the louder the better. They couldn't care less if the same song(s) repeat over and over again, as long as it's loud enough to rattle the windows. They don't worry about the loudness or what it will eventually do to their hearing, which is too darn bad. I am reminded of the story of two middle-aged men watching a motorcycle race in which the engines were deafeningly loud. The first gentleman said to his friend, "I tell ya, Joe, at this rate these kids will be deaf before they are 25 years old." His friend answered, "Nonsense! I been riding these things for years and I'm still alive!" The second man had thought his friend had said "dead" rather than "deaf", almost certainly because the second man's hearing had been adversely affected by loud noise (probably ear-pounding rock music through headphones with the volume run up to maximum) when he was a teenager. I live on the main street of a small village here in northeastern Ohio and often hear loud rap and other types of "music" blaring from cars passing by my apartment. The cars' windows are almost always closed as the vehicles zoom by. If their "music" is so loud it can be heard on the street and even inside buildings through the car's closed windows, I shudder to think how loud the same stuff must be inside the car. I bet those young men and women will go deaf within a very short time if they keep this up.

[ha1156w]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I remember that, and yes, I did "stay with it" for quite some time, as it was something no one had ever done before on radio in Cleveland--and it caught (and held) my interest. I was 17 years old and living in a Cleveland suburb at the time, and the radio station was, IIRC, WELW-FM, 107.9 (it's now urban contemporary WENZ-Z107.9 after several callsign and format changes, and who in the Cleveland area can ever forget their fabulous 140kW ERP signal, which they finally had to throttle back to 16kW ERP in the '80s because of new stations having gone on the air on 107.9 in Pittsburgh and Toronto?). That 24-hour Jerry Reed stunt was the darndest thing I've ever heard on radio in my entire life. As you said, they would do all kinds of crazy things with the song: play it backward, play two copies at once, run it at 78 RPM rather than 33 1/3 ... anything they could think of.

There was a station here in Dallas that when Clear Channel bought them, the whole staff was fired all at once to bring in the "corporate music" zombies. To protest, the old staff put on a CD of "Macarena" on "repeat" and secured the studio such that it couldn't be changed. This went on for like two days....amusing.

[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!

[Chucklbunny]

it is a sad day...analog is no more.


I swear I miss the old test pattern of days gone by......no more national anthem at 1am......that warm fuzzy feeling of watching your favourite show in B/W at nite is gone.

[Boobtubeman]

Yep... Those 5am sign ons and spending the next hour aligning my tv sets..

Steve

[yagosaga]

Hello,

in these days too, the last German analogue television transmitter of the public teleivison service was switched off. See a video from the last regular PAL colour tv transmission in Germany:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8PM4qR3uUg

Kind regards,
Eckhard