Turn off time?

[genlock]

When is the turn off time for analog transmitters?

[Dave Loudin]

11:59:59 tonight? Shutdown is happening in waves in DC. WUSA and WJLA will yank analog "this morning" while everyone else will shutdown "tonight." I'm anxious to see if hi-VHF DTV works as well as the UHF signals have.

[genlock]

I was hoping to DX some tv myself.
So it will be tomorrow, not today.
I hope we do not have too many "night-light" stations to contend with.

[cgarison]

In Philly, 12:30pm today (6-12-2009) is the time the power is being yanked on all stations in this market.

One engineer could pull the power on every broadcaster's analog transmitter in this area in less than an hour as all the towers are lined up along Ridge Avenue.

[Mr. Jones]

I don't know about exact times, but here's the full list, including which stations will be the nightlight (NL). WVAH is the one for Huntington-Charleston.

http://dtv.gov/FULL_POWER_STATIONS_LIST.xls

[Bob Campbell]

What happened to my tv? Where's the picture? It's all gone dark.
Oh. Sorry, my tv's not on. My bad.

[AC Carter]

FOR THE LAST TIME, MY NAME IS NOT DAVE!!!!!!!!!

[fearpeddler]

i'm almost willing to hook my antenna back up out of sheer curiosity

[Hoosier Daddy]

There's something so End of The World about turning on an analog TV and only finding one "nightlight" station from 2 to 83 (or 2 to 70).

[genlock]

Test

[lastone]

So tonight at 12:01 we turn off all the radio transmitters and become an Ipod/Sat receiver nation!

No, wait. We did that....didn't we?

[genlock]

WSAZ analog seems to be off already.

[radiofan]

At 11:35PM WOAY shut off their analog xmitter. Before I was receiving wswp on 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 and woay on 50.1 on 2 dtv boxes in the house, now after all the analogs are off i no longer receive any signals on my dtv converter boxes. Seems kinda weird it would work before the analog shutoff and not after. I even did a channel rescan and nothing. Any suggestions?

[rfhertz]

I turned off my channel 3 transmitter early Friday morning. We terminated our channel 11 analog operation early Friday as well. Shut the Harris Platinum down, converted it to digital, and had it back up about 90 minutes later. That was the last two for me, all of the others switched over months ago.

[genlock]

Without a doubt, a relief for engineers countrywide.
Aging transmitters without much maintenance over the last years are off.
Half the work gone. Now to rid the xmtr shack of the dead carcass.
Anybody have transmitters that use 3xc1500/8877 tubes?

[rfhertz]

I now have two retired 20kw Harris Platinums, one on CH 2 and the other on CH 3. While they can be converted to digital, I don't foresee anyone doing that. They will gather dust for now. We converted the third 20kw Platinum (CH 11) to digital. I bought two digital cabinets, so I now have two digital Platinums. Either one can produce 300% of our current post-transition power.
I have a retired RCA-TTG30 on CH 8 with spare tubes. (9007 and 8977)

[Arp2]

I was hoping to DX some tv myself.

Succeed?

When I was a kid, my parents had a tall tower at their house....well, seemed awfully tall to me. I think it was about 45 feet with a 10-12 ft antenna on top. I found myself wanting something like that yesterday....aim it west-ish and click the dial around like crazy as the clock rolled. As it was, with only rabbit ears and a whip, I didn't get a single interesting thing.

[Bob Campbell]

I'm not sure about this, but isn't there something about digital that will eliminate dxing? I read something a couple years ago about it for radio. I remember it only vaguely, but you techies may know. Is there something about a digital signal that precludes the old atmosphere bounces and stuff that allow you to pick up somebody from an extreme distance?

[genlock]

Only extreme mutipath that exceeds BER limits would stop DXing.

[genlock]

Was any reason ever given to allow translators, lptv and maybe class a
tv stations continue with analog transmission. I haven't kept up with FCC.