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Senate Passes Another Bill To Delay Digital TV Transition
An anonymous reader tips news that the US Senate has passed another bill to delay the transition to digital TV. This is the second such bill to pass the Senate; the first was narrowly defeated in the House. The new version has an important difference — it would allow the transition to take place gradually over the four-month period between the original transition date (February 17th) and the extended date (June 12th). TV stations around the country could choose when they wanted to make the change, allowing those who have already begun plans to stop analog transmission to continue their shut-down operations.
Firstly, there's a pigeonhole problem here -- in order for some stations to take up their final digital frequency assignments, other stations will have to move theirs (usually back to their analog channel). This is one of the main reasons it was to be done all at once in the first place.
Secondly, this is going to be even MORE confusing. OK, so the person living in a cave for the past few months who comes out turns on their TV on February 18 would have gotten nothing. But at least they'd have some clue that something is wrong. With a gradual transition, maybe they'll lose CBS but not NBC and Fox... then the next month they'll lose Fox but keep CBS, etc. That's not making things any simpler.
Some people took action, but didn't get one.
I was in the store in the early days of the coupon thing looking for digital tuners to compare. Best Buy and the other stores were totally out of them. If I gotten my coupons back then I might not have been able to get one because the coupons expire in 30 days.
Right now a lot of people have applied for coupons, but they are out. So although those folks took action and applied, they won't be getting one until the govt decides to print out another batch.
Uh, they've already sold off the old frequency used by the analog stations to Verizon. They aren't moving the digital stations.
Because of the analog stations still in operation and the interference issues from so many (digital AND analog) stations being on at once, some of the digital transmitters operating now are on temporary channels and WILL move again at transition time. That certainly applies to the stations using channels above 51.
Although your digital receiver probably displays a number with a decimal after it as the channel, much of the time that number is the old analog channel not the channel actually being used for the digital transmission.
With stations shifting around and a few new ones appearing, viewers will need to use the scan-channel or add channel functions to get the new/moved signals. So even those that think they're already set up have a little work left to do to see everything that their equipment can get.
"Why is everyone entitled to a coupon?"
Because the government sold a public resource, the airwaves, to private companies. The funds from that sale go to provide the money for the coupons.