Digital Television may not be coming soon!

[julianburke]

I attended our local monthly broadcast engineers meet today (SBE) and the big topic of the day is the digital changeover for next month. Well, it seems that there are a lot of problems yet to be worked out. Mainly, the converters may or may not work properly. It seems if you program a particular channel in, the station will not be there or found on another channel. People who are way out say 20 miles or more may not get anything. We talked about other problems with them as well.

Also, the gov't is out of those coupon cards and you will be placed on a waiting list with no one knowing if/when they will be available again.

There seems to be an inherent problem with the Funai converters that are sold by Sams/Walmart under the Magnavox name. Funai is aware of it and this has gone all the way to congressmen. What a mess this is going to be if you are not on cable! It is very likely the date for the changeover will be pushed back again. Let's wait and see.

Also there will be one analog station in most markets called a "lighthouse" station. It will be kind of like a Civil Defense station and will also have to broadcast in spanish.

I'm not real sure what is to happen but what have some of you heard who are in broadcast?