Today is the day that all of our area TV stations will be making the transition from "analog" to "digital". You've been seeing this on the crawls for months now.
WSWB (Channel 38) and WOLF (56) made the switch weeks ago. At 12:30pm today, WNEP (16) will change and at 11:59pm, WYOU (22), WBRE (28) and WVIA (44) will follow suit.
This means that if you DON'T have cable or satellite, and you don't have a "digital tuner", you will need to add a Digital Converter (around $50) to watch the local stations on your set.
Retailers reported heavy converter sales over the past few days, but not every TV set is going to be paired up. If you've watched the Classifieds lately, or have been to any Estate Sales or Secondhand shops, you've seen lots of older TV's for sale. Remember, you may be able to buy a set for $ 5 or $10, but then you also have to purchase the digital converter ($ 50 plus). Most older TV's will be useless without upgrading the tuners---except, I suppose, to only serious collectors and musuems.
I guess this officially means the end for my 1973 Toshiba Black and White TV. My folks bought it for me after a good first grade report card. (Or perhaps partly due to the fact that they were getting tired of Sesame Street?) This was our second TV. It was before cable, and I remember carrying it all over the house with a special antenna in an effort to pull in WICZ (Channel 40) from Binghamton to watch "Superman" each day at 4pm. It was fuzzy, but watchable. Hey, we only had four local channels in those days! Soon, cable would change the way we watch TV, but still---about once a year or so, for old time's sake, I'd plug a set in just to flip through the dial and see which channels I could pull in "off the air". Now to do so, it would cost me $ 50...and even though I am sentimental, I am also CHEAP!
Digital TV may be an improvement with better reception and additional channels, but it's sad to see all those TV's headed for the scrap heap.
Goodbye old friend.
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Just remember, it's still free to listen to Magic 93. While we do broadcast in HD, we have no intention on giving up our analog signal. So don't throw any of your old radios out!
