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Digital TV Transition Threatens Portables

Homeowners' preparedness plans may be derailed

By Truman Lewis
ConsumerAffairs.com

July 8, 2008 

The small, inexpensive analog sets that consumers in earthquake- and hurricane-prone regions have come to rely on won't be able to receive the digital signals that all television stations will start sending when the changeover occurs next Feb. 18.

The federal government has been trying, with its usual lack of alacrity, to distribute converter boxes to homeowners whose older analog sets won't be able to receive the new digital signals, but the converter boxes won't be much use for battery-powered portable sets.

Many of the sets don't have external antenna connections and, even if they do, the converter boxes rely on standard household power and won't run off batteries.

There are a few battery-powered digital portables on the market but they are expensive – most are over $200 – and many consumers will find that the digital portables won't be able to pick up local TV signals. That's because the digital broadcasts don't travel as far as the analog signals everyone has gotten used to.

Check with Rush

OK, so can't consumers just listen to the radio for important emergency information?

That may work in large cities that still have fully-functioning local radio stations but in much of the country, local stations are now little more than satellite-fed repeaters of national syndicated programming. Many don't have news departments and aren't likely to have much information worth listening to after a major storm or other disaster.

Rush Limbaugh may be entertaining but do you think he'll know where the local shelters are located or when it's safe to drink the water?

You can, of course, thank Congress for this. The transition to digital broadcasting is part of a complicated shuffle that reassigns frequencies now used by analog television broadcasts to a variety of new uses (primarily those supported by a heavy lobbying presences in Washington).

Locals worried

The loss of the portable TVs is worrying local emergency preparedness officials.

In Los Angeles, where earthquakes and wildfires can knock out power and create havoc for extended periods, Keith Harrison of the L.A. County Office of Emergency Manager said AM radio may be able to fill the gap, though he sounded less than certain of that.

“A lot more people watch TV than listen to AM radio,” he told The Los Angeles Times.

Officials in hurricane country are concerned too. In Wilmington, N.C., WECT-TV has arranged for a local FM station to simulcast WECT's coverage of major storms to help make up for the loss of the analog TV sets.

TV stations in Wilmington have also written to local retailers urging them to stock up on portable digital TV receivers.

Federal agencies concede there may be a problem. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has not certified any battery-powered converter boxes. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has a warning on its Web site that the analog portables won't work after Feb. 18.

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