The digital TV transition has come and gone, and almost everyone who needed to make the switch has done so. But there are some lingering problems, which we'll deal with in a moment.
First, the numbers. According to Nielsen fewer than six million homes were unprepared for DTV as of Feb. 1. Now that number stands at 2.4 million homes, a reduction of 60 percent.
Locally, KMBC got about 150 phone calls on June 12, the day Kansas City stations shut down their analog signals. Now, however, “they've diminished to next to nothing,” said C. Wayne Godsey, the station's general manager. “We had a department-heads meeting on Tuesday and it didn't even come up as an issue.”
While it's true that a lot of older Americans have called into the DTV hotlines with problems, on the whole they were the best-prepared bunch. Only about 1 percent of viewers over the age of 55 have not made the switch, according to Nielsen. Reception issues led the list of problems for all groups (if this includes you, read on).
For most of us, reception isn't a problem because we have cable or satellite TV. But you may be having issues if you've heard about these extra digital channels -- like KCPT2 and NBC Weather Plus and KMBC's weather channel -- and discovered your satellite service doesn't carry them.
“I thought cable and satellite companies were required to carry the local broadcast stations under the old system,” writes Shawn Saving of Kansas City, a DirecTV subscriber.“Does it only apply to the station's 'main' broadcast signal?”
Under the government's “must carry” rules, cable and satellite operators must offer local stations to their customers (though of course they can charge for the privilege). That's still true in the DTV age, but only for the main channels. Secondary offerings like KCPT2 are purely optional.
Guess what? Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and SureWest carry most of those optional channels. It might be time to think about ditching the dish.
Finally, here's a question emailed by Michael K., a Time Warner customer. “I noticed while channel surfing on Time Warner that channels 4 and 5 on the cable system are free of the interference that made them basically unwatchable. Are there any plans for TWC to do something more worthwhile with these channels?”
That interference, known as ingress, resulted from the fact that Fox 4's and KCTV-5's broadcast signals were on the same frequency as Time Warner's Channels 4 and 5. Which is why KCTV-5 has been at Channel 3 and Fox 4 has been at Channel 6 all these years.
I always thought that if Time Warner was ever able to solve the ingress problem, it should move all the local channels to their cable assignments: 4 on 4, 5 on 5, 9 on 9, all the way up to 62 on 62. That's the way Time Warner does it in New York City and other markets.
But not here -- not now. “At this time, we have no plans of changing our channel lineup with respect to broadcast channels numbers corresponding to cable channels,” said Time Warner's Damon Porter.
Tuning tips for the rabbit-eared
If you're having persistent problems with reception on your DTV set or while using a converter box, the first piece of advice any broadcast engineer in town will give you is this: Find the channel-scan feature on their converter box or DTV and re-scan. Apparently digital signals can pop up all over the spectrum, unlike their analog ancestors. No, I was never told this, either.
And you may have to re-scan a few times as local stations in town will be tinkering with their digital signals this summer.
Still not getting everything? Make sure you are using a UHF (loop/bowtie) antenna, not a VHF (rabbit ears). Every station in Kansas City is now broadcasting on UHF, even the ones that kept their old VHF channel numbers, like 4, 5 and 9.
You might look into getting an attic antenna. Yeah, I know antennaweb.org recommends sticking one on your roof, but that makes them susceptible to lightning strikes. “I tell people if they are 20 miles from a transmitter site, buy a 40-mile antenna and put it in your attic,” one local station engineer told me.
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