Thursday, June 11, 2009

The End of Analog!

Tomorrow (June 12th) is the official end of analog tv broadcasting in the US. By the day's end tomorrow, all full power tv stations must stop analog broadcasting forever. This does NOT include low power stations and translators, they can continue analog operations as normal. As for what will happen in the Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin area:

In the Rochester, Austin, Mason City Market, KIMT, KAAL, and KYIN will turn off their analog broadcasts during the day. KYIN goes first, it will sign off the air at 12:01AM tomorrow morning.
KIMT will be turning off its' analog during the Noon News tomorrow.
And I do not have an exact time for KAAL, since their engineering department has not returned any of my emails.
Only thing changing in the digtial side from Rochester, is KAAL firing up DT-36 from the KXLT/KSMQ tower near Grand Meadow. People in Rochester should tune to it. (I will also post when this comes online, so people know when to run scans.)

In the La Crosse/Eau Claire market:
WXOW digital will move from channel 14 to 48 at 9AM. This is only change will happen for our neighbors in Wisconsin. It should improve their signal range greatly (I will post here tomorrow morning, when the new signal comes online!)

In the Twin Cities market:
Channel 2 (TPT, KTCA) and channel 17 (TPT KTCI) will stop analog broadcasts at 9AM.
Channels 4 and 5 (WCCO and KSTP) analogs will stay on as nightlights (a FCC program to help people with the transition)
Channels 9, 11, and 29 will leave their analogs on until the very last minute.
KSTC-DT will move from channel 44 to channel 45 at midnight, as well as KARE-DT moving from channel 35 to 11, KMSP-DT from channel 26 to 9. (29 will stay on channel 21 for a few months, before switching back to 29) KSTP-DT will move from channel 50 to 35 while it uses KARE's current DT-35 gear, until KSTP's get installed later this summer.
WCCO-DT, KTCA-DT, WFTC-DT, KTCI-DT, and KPXM-DT will not see any changes tomorrow.
KARE-DT, KSMP-DT, KSTC-DT, and KSTP-DT should see HUGE improvements in their signals at 12AM Saturday morning.

1 comment:

Old Sea Dog said...

I thought KTCI was having to switch to Channel 26 till it could get the KMSP antennae switched to channel 23