Wednesday, February 11, 2009

DTV transition delayed by Congress, but local stations may still cease analog as early as Feb 17, 2009

Though the House did pass a bill delaying the Digital TV transition to June 12, 2009, your local TV stations have the option of cutting off their analog signals any time after February 17, 2009. Several West Virginia TV stations will no longer be broadcasting in analog as of that date.

It is not clear whether the digital TV signals will be stronger than the digital signals they are broadcasting now. But if you are already using your digital converter box you will definitely have to rescan after February 17 because many stations will be broadcasting on a different digital channel than they are now. For example, WBOY in Clarksburg says on their website after February 17 you need to rescan and remove the reference to channel 12.1, the digital channel they are currently broadcasting on, and add the new digital channel 12 which they will use after February 17.

You can get information about coverage areas and the type of antenna that may best suit you at www.antennaweb.org.

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