February 17, 2009 - television goes digital

The cable people are going to be busy. All those people with rabbit ears will be out of luck. On February 17, 2009 television goes digital.

I'm trying to figure out what that means. I looked up analog signal which is what we've had all these years for our TVs. Our technology book says that an analog signal is "a signal that continuously fluctuates over time between high and low voltage." Whereas digital signals are "based on numbers." They "exist in one of two possible values" - perhaps as we have learned in class- charged and uncharged, or 1 and 0.

I guess that means digital TV is a different way of broadcasting and receiving signals than the old analog method. I've heard it will give us better quality television with many more channels than we have now. I've also read that the analog channels will be available for emergency use. I'm hoping these terms analog and digital will become clearer to me as the semester progresses. And I guess we already have digital television available. It's just after the above date, no one will have analog. Am I right?

I'm wondering what this changeover will look like in America. Boy scouts running through the snow to help old people set up their converter boxes? (I heard one early plan of the government's was to involve said boy scout troops.) Rabbit ears recycled into modern sculptures and clothes hangers? Old analog TV's made into puppet theaters in preschools all over America? Maybe the changeover will be like Y2K - easy, simple, not even noticeable.

What I do know is that I'm going right over to my TV set right now to check my owner's manual for one of these labels - integrated digital timer, digital receiver, digital tuner, DTV, HDTV, ATSC. (I got this off the pbs.org website.) I'm back. Couldn't find anything in the manual. Guess I'll be one of those people calling up the local boy scout troop leader. Soon.