Jun 10, 2009 5:31 pm US/Eastern
TV Will Change Forever In 2 Days
Reporting
Adam May
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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In just two days, TV in this country will change forever.
CBS
In just two days, TV in this country will change forever. That's when television stations will change over from analog to digital.
Adam May has a look at how the change is happening.
Almost 1,000 feet above Baltimore, some of the biggest changes are underway to the world's first candelabra broadcasting tower.
After 50 years in the sky, the analog antennas are shutting down. On Friday, only digital antennas will be powered up.
"It's custom-made for our frequency," said WJZ Director of Broadcast Engineering Rick Seaby.
Seaby says this new, powerful 26,000 pound antenna will soon replace a temporary digital antenna that's already running.
"They have to install a new mount, then they use that big, yellow thing called a jim pole, they will hoist that up to remove two antennas and then they will hoist up the new antennas and put them in place," Seaby said.
"It's been a long transition period. We've been running two signals through the transitions, the traditional analog signal that we grew up with and the new digital signal. What's going to happen here at 12:30 on Friday is all those signals go away," said WJZ Vice President and General Manager Jay Newman.
He estimates between three and five percent of Baltimore viewers are not prepared for the cutoff and 20% of viewers who don't have satellite or cable also need to take action.
"Even those people who have DTC and have been watching for months still need to rescan their TV sets after 12:30 Friday or they will lose some of the stations," Newman said.
They'll lose out on a crisp digital signal already broadcasting but about to get even better.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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