jimmortensen.com

Apparently the TV woodchuck saw his shadow and there will be six more weeks of analog TV. Even the one local station that swore they were going to go completely digital today announced last night that they will hold off until midApril–even while the crawl at the bottom of the screen said the change was coming on February 17th. That means we will have another couple of months of crawls, promos and informericals–one of the latter tonight as a matter of fact.

One thing that will be nice, maybe by midApril it will be warm enough for, at least the hardier souls, to climb up on the roof to reaim their antennas. Only Congress would enact a law whereby the deadline for a change like this, which would require outside work, was scheduled to take place in the dead of winter.

Well, of the four television stations that offer over-the-air broadcasts in this area only one, the CBS affilliate, will be going completely digital as of Tuesday, midnight. Inasmuch as they’ve been warning people about this for a year, I fail to see why anyone wouldn’t know. Not being ready is one thing, not knowing is another. Aside from promos, across the screen crawls, and special informerical programs this change should have been hard to miss. Makes one wonder what in hell people look at when they watch television–I’m sure enough of the above have occurred during Entertainment Tonight and Inside Edition that even those who don’t read should know.

We’ve been ready for a while. At the cost of a couple thousand we have replace our antenna, three old, analog TV’s and a DVD recorder plus purchased a converter box with a government coupon and a inline amplifier. In addition, I have courted broken limbs, pneumonia and divorce by climbing around on the roof in an attempt to reaim the antenna to get a decent digital signal. You see, what isn’t told on those promos, crawls and informericals is that, unlike an analog signal, you either get a digital signal or not. There is no halfway, ghost signals. But, we are now ready so let ‘er rip.

I’ve just one thing to get even: On Wednesday I think I’ll call the TV station and ask what happened to my picture?