3 Oklahoma City TV stations pulling the plug today

Poke

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Dec 3, 2003
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http://www.newsok.com/3-oklahoma-ci...article/3346392?custom_click=lead_story_title

At 1 p.m. today, the digital age officially begins for several Oklahoma City television stations.


KWTV-9, OETA-13 and KAUT-43 plan to switch off their analog transmitters at that time. KOKH-25 and KOCB-34 will go digital at midnight.

Television sets not connected to a cable or satellite service or without a digital tuner or converter box won’t be able to tune to those stations.

KFOR-4, KOCO-5 and KSBI-52 plan to continue to broadcast in analog. Congress recently extended the deadline for making the digital switch to June 12, so the stations have to make the switch by then. But about 600 stations nationally are expected to make the switch this week.

Several Oklahoma City stations plan to operate phone banks to answer telephone inquiries.

"I’m sure that we’re going to get some calls,” said David Griffin, president of Griffin Communications, whose three TV stations — KWTV-9 and Tulsa’s KOTV-6 and KQCW-19 — are all going digital. "I wish KFOR and KOCO were going on the same day. I think it would be easier for the consumer.”

Some viewers have complained about the long wait in receiving government-issued $40 coupons for digital converter boxes.

Griffin said he just got his last week after a six-week wait.

Steve Bottkol, director of engineering for KOKH-25 and KOCB-34, said the stations will not shut off the analog signal entirely for a couple of weeks, but will provide information on analog on what viewers need to do to receive the digital signal.

OETA’s 15 translators also will continue to operate in analog until the fall. Bill Thrash, OETA station manager, said translators are a different category from transmitters.

As of two weeks ago, Nielsen reported that only 3 percent of viewers in the Oklahoma City area, or about 20,000 homes, were not prepared for the switch.
 
Are the OKC HD locals back up, I heard 9 and 13 went to a green screen when they switched over to their final digital channels from the temp ones.

All but 3 of the Tulsa locals shut down analog today also.
 
Not for sure have not been home yet today.. So its just the HD stations not the SD??
 
Gee, what about the other 600+ stations going digital today. Should we post them all here, or separate threads for every town? :rolleyes:
 
all Burlington, VT DMA stations to switch tonight

Burlington, VT/ Plattsburg, NY DMA stations all decided to pull the switch today.
Screw congress they said, we are ready, we want to cut expenses and they plan to throw the switch at midnight. Only one station need to modify their broadcast frequency, WCA:mad:3) will go from 53 to 22, currently occupied by WVNY(22) analogue.
I wish them all the luck
 
Gee, what about the other 600+ stations going digital today. Should we post them all here, or separate threads for every town? :rolleyes:

This might not be a bad idea to have a separate thread on this.. It would be interesting to see what stations Dish is having issues with that made the switch today.. Plus sounds like more of them will be making the switch later tonight as well..
 
There really is no "switch", except for "off".

That's not exactly right for everyone. KXVA (Fox affiiate) here in abilene is 'switching'. They only had one station number so they had to do 'switch it' to today... well I guess they could have waited until June.
 
At 1 p.m. today, the digital age officially begins for several Oklahoma City television stations.

A little farther SW along I-44 from Oklahoma City, other stations are fixing to pull the plug on analog as well.

KSWO-TV in Lawton, OK (an ABC affiliate) has a countdown on its web site. Just under 4 hours left. They're flipping the switch at 11:59pm this evening.

The same thing is happening at two stations in Wichita Falls, TX. KFDX-TV (NBC) and KJTL-TV (FOX) are both owned by Nextar Communications. They're ending analog broadcasts the same time as KSWO.

KAUZ-TV, the CBS affiliate in the Wichita Falls-Lawton DMA is going to keep broadcasting in analog until June 12. Part of this is to give the station extra time to do some adjustments on its DTV transmitter. But it's also being done so the other three stations can go ahead and shut off their analog broadcast. KAUZ will, in effect, be acting as the "night light" for those who couldn't get ready in time for the switch.

With 3 of the 4 network affiliates in this DMA going all digital at midnight it should give those who haven't obtained converter boxes more incentive to get the problem addressed quickly.
 
That's not exactly right for everyone. KXVA (Fox affiiate) here in abilene is 'switching'. They only had one station number so they had to do 'switch it' to today... well I guess they could have waited until June.


Well, they did switch the analog signal off. KXVA on Dish is now just a purple screen. I wonder how long it will take for Dish to get the digital feed? I do get KXVA OTA, but the signal is weak (60's) and drops out often.
 
Well, they did switch the analog signal off. KXVA on Dish is now just a purple screen. I wonder how long it will take for Dish to get the digital feed? I do get KXVA OTA, but the signal is weak (60's) and drops out often.

As far as when Dish gets the new feed, I don't know.

Regarding the signal drops with OTA, I've been getting those too every now and then and my signal here is 98% or more most of the time. I think they're still working on things.
 
Are the OKC HD locals back up, I heard 9 and 13 went to a green screen when they switched over to their final digital channels from the temp ones.
...
Because 9 and 13 went back to their old VHF frequencies, Dish had to re-scan them into their ATSC receivers. I hear it took them about two hours to come back on Dish.
 

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