Only the deadline for changing, not illegal to change now. The station has invested in equipment, etc. and probably feel that they might as well do it now.

The deadline was pushed, but many stations are going digital today, as planned:

"A total of 641 TV stations, representing about 36 percent of the nearly 1,800 full-power TV stations in the U.S., will terminate regular analog operations on or before today, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ."

Here is a link that might be useful: 641 TV Stations Go Digital on Deadline

Stations had the option of going digital today or not simply by contacting the FCC. In some markets, a few stations will keep broadcasting in analog for another approx. 50 days or until the June deadline.

I've got the converter boxes and will give those a try in a day or so. But fortunately our Public Broadcasting and CBS affiliate are staying with analog for now. Really, I'm just waiting for the snow to melt so I can get hooked up to cable and the cable guy won't kill himself up on a ladder. If the converter box doesn't live up to expectations, I'll survive diminished TV choices until cable.

Our local channels are mostly changing over today. Heaven knows everyone's had enough notice it was happening. They started those darned banners and PSA's way over a year ago and I'll be glad when they stop. To me it's as irritating as those campaign ads.

Our PBS is changing over because they can't afford not to. They'd run out of money before June, they say. Since they depend on donations, I believe them.

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, my NBC affiliate, originally coming in on a good signal but not doing so well after I installed the converter box, isn't coming in at all today. I emailed one of the station's engineers to see if he has any advice for me.

I surprised at how many people use antennas. We live in a very mountainous area, and of course with mountains come valleys, so we have always had cable. Since I was little kid....nearly 50 years ago...but cable then was just a couple of Pittsburgh stations! At our present home if we did not have cable or a satellite we would be lucky to get our local NBC station.

I'm with you Patti, the notifications are very annoying. I hope you get yours straightened away, Alisande.

It's very unfortunate, that from the start they didn't make it clear that most people need both a converter box AND a new, upgraded antenna to get the new signal.

I feel that's deceptive advertising, frankly, and while I have cable on one TV, if and when the signals go out on my other 6-7 TV's, I just won't bother to watch. I think a lot of folks are going to find that they have better things to do that sit glued to the TV, and this change, coming during these rough economic times, is going to have exactly the opposite of the desired effect. I think fewer people will be willing to pay to watch their own TVs, and the cable companies, satellite companies, TV manufacturers, etc will end up losing money, instead of getting the huge windfall they're counting on.

Yes, the TV engineer's voice mail said everyone using a converter box needs a UHF/VHF antenna. Fortunately, I was already using one of those--atop a tower high above my house.

I think you may be right about the end result, Azzalea, although my experience htells me that many people are highly addicted to television. As for myself, I'm much more addicted to my computer. :-)

I don't see how anything was deceptive about telling people they might need to do something. Around here it was very clear that you may need a new antenna or you may need to aim your antenna differently after the changeover. There's also websites set up talking about different antennas. The stations don't financially benefit from the change realistically. In some ways it's a penalty to them too. But I'm annoyed that they pushed back the changeover fearing that someone in South Togo might miss 15 minutes of Another World.

I do get a kick out of the local PBS ads suggesting people go help neighbors and the old people hook up the converters and aim the antennas! It's kind of interesting.

"Our PBS is changing over because they can't afford not to. They'd run out of money before June, they say. Since they depend on donations, I believe them."
I don't understand this at all. Except that after the analog shut off of course they'd be off the air if they didn't change! How will the digital signal, and early, financially benefit them? Unless they're expecting a windfall from adding an extra channel or two, but I don't think that could be it. It won't affect their cable/satellite income so that couldn't be it. I don't understand this comment at all. Would you explain?

I do agree, we've put up with these ads long enough. Pull the dang bandaid off the scab and let's move on. Now there's more commercials. And actually, that's costing the commercial stations in lost ad time.

I too do not get the "crystal clear" reception touted as an advantage to it. I'm waiting until the conversion is complete and then try different antennas and aiming and see if that helps. But in meantime, it works and I'm not a fanatic on having a perfect picture anyway. Even with satellite and cable I didn't have perfect picture all the time. Now that would annoy me when I had to pay over $50 for a snowy picture!

This doesn't have anything to do with a windfall.

There is only so much capacity in the broadcast spectrum, and it's being used up by television. The analog signals are being freed up for emergency police, fire and rescue communications.

You know, communications technology is advancing so rapidly I don't think it's a do-it-yourself thing anymore. At least not in our house. The boxes, the set itself, hooking it up to a DVD player ...it's becoming increasingly more complicated. We don't have an antennae but I imagine that adds another layer of compatibility.

Everytime we change one component, we have a service technician come out and hook everything up. Otherwise we'd never get it to work. LOL!

I think the financial issue with switching over now instead of June is that perhaps they don't want to have broadcast in both analog and digital.

I've also read that it costs the station more to broadcast in analog - the power costs are much higher. And then there's also the potential repair & maintenance issue. No one wants to have to buy parts for equipment that will become obsolete in 4 months.