The DTV converter or set-top box program has been challenged by a much larger than expected demand for $40 coupons.  Until some previously issued coupons expire, no more money is available to fund more coupons.  Applicants are being told they will be put in queue to await more funds.  If Congress decides to make funding available, the bottleneck may disappear.  We should know fairly soon if the U.S. Congress is going to allocate more money to the digital transition.  Also, it appears a bill to extend the analog cutoff to June 12 may pass. This date will be optional, so many stations will choose to cut off analog in February as operational cost for two transmitters can be high.  As has been reported, many translators and other low-power TV stations were not required to cease operation on Feb 17 and most will continue for some time. . .

On January 20, KSKC held a well-attended public meeting to discuss the transition, set top boxes and where things stand at this point.  Steve Fite of the Blacktail TV District told the audience that all of the translators for that system would remain analog.  The district secured digital converters so that they can pick up the new digital origination signals but continue to broadcast in analog.  The big issue for most translators is that in order to transmit in digital, sophisticated and expensive transcoders or encoders are required and some translators would have to be replaced, dependent on the age of the equipment.  Blacktail is looking at a multiple site microwave system to deliver signals around the valleys but lack funding at this point to do anything other than what they have in place at this time.  Steve was particularly vocal about the Federal DTV Education Program that uses a TV set with rabbit ears as a logo.  For a discussion of this issue, read on.

Leo Cirbo of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also attended the meeting and encouraged viewers to apply for coupons if they needed them as he felt the current coupon issue would be resolved quickly.  Leo is a DTV Outreach Coordinator from the Denver office of the FCC.

Greg McDonald, Executive Director of the Montana Broadcasters Association spoke about the conversion and his experience assisting television stations that converted early.  This includes stations in Helena.  The Helena NBC affiliate converted in October because of difficulties accessing their transmitter site in the dead of winter.  A great tutorial on converter boxes is available on their web site  www.beartoothnbc.com.  Greg also mentioned that their experience has shown that the converter boxes vary in features and quality.  Their best experience has been with Zenith brand, and they have seen sensitivity issues with RCA brand boxes.

At the meeting, Frank Tyro, Director of KSKC set up a demonstration using a brand new Magnavox set top box and an amplified indoor antenna as well as a traditional outdoor antenna set up inside a college building on the campus of SKC in Pablo.  With an indoor amplified antenna that cost $30, the set top box was able to only receive one digital signal.  With the outdoor antenna set up inside the building, reception of all four digital signals available from TV Mountain above Missoula was achieved.  The message is that even if you received signals on rabbit ears before, it is very unlikely that you can use an indoor antenna for digital signals. One participant said they had to mount an indoor antenna on the ceiling to achieve reception. 

One other disturbing fact was discovered is that even though the Magnavox set top box featured analog pass-through, the device greatly diminishes the strength of the analog signal that passes through it.  The decrease in signal strength is more than half.  This means that the analog signal for KSKC Public TV was marginal for viewing after passing through the set top box when it was very strong and robust when directly connected to the TV set via antenna without the set top box.  This is partly due to the low power transmitters that KSKC uses.  When KSKC goes digital sometime this spring, they will increase power levels on two of their transmitters greatly, hopefully alleviating this problem.  The issue of directivity of antennas is also important.  Most outdoor antennas are fairly directional, that is they need to be pointed at the transmission source with a fair amount of accuracy.  From the demonstration, it can be assumed that if a viewer is trying to pick up signals from two different transmission sites the antenna many need to be repointed if the two transmission sites are more than about 60-90 degrees apart.  An example might be someone in Pablo who wants to watch translators from Blacktail and a commercial station from Missoula.   These signals are nearly 180 degrees apart and rotating the antenna may be needed.  This is also true for amplified indoor antennas, as they are not omni directional. 

It seems that it behooves retailers to insist that outdoor antennas are a necessity in this area except in extraordinary cases.  I would also suggest that staff that sell set top boxes be required to program a converter box using an antenna that they sell in their store so that they can better empathize with the buying public’s issues.

One last word about outdoor antennas: they ARE LEGAL!  It is ILLEGAL for a covenant or homeowners association to restrict the use of an outdoor antenna. This is called the Over-the-Air-Reception Devices Rule and can be found at www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/otard.html

I received a call from a viewer who was having trouble with their new converter box.  After querying the viewer I realized that Elmo doesn’t receive any digital signals!  So the box is of no use; at least yet!  The three stations they watch are either on translator or KSKC’s Jette channel.  The translators are still on analog and KSKC is analog until later this spring, so the converter box only degrades the signal making it impossible to get any signals on rabbit ears.  I will continue to bring you more information as the transition continues.