Analog broadcasting for WAKA-TV 8 scheduled to end tomorrow

[Nate Wesley]

WAKA-TV/CBS 8 been running scrolling bulletins for months on their analog signal, encouraging people to make the digital switch or to subscribe to cable or Dish Network. Within the last few weeks, they've even put the fear of The Bear into people, saying that Alabama's date with Florida in the SEC championship game will not be seen on analog television.

WAKA has a complicated plan to move to digital broadcasting that begins with turning its analog transmitter off at or around the first of December (which begins tomorrow). Will there be chaos? Will there be mayhem? Will people riot in the streets because they can't see Andy Rooney's commentary or that very special episode of CSI:?

Seriously, it'll be interesting to see what happens--this is probably the first big test of the digital transition for Alabama TV viewers. It will affect me--the twenty-year-old 12" TG&Y black & white TV I bought for $5 at a church yard sale is losing its best received channel. Thankfully, it's the only set not hooked up to cable.

 

[passtheword]

WAKA-TV/CBS 8 been running scrolling bulletins for months on their analog signal, encouraging people to make the digital switch or to subscribe to cable or Dish Network. Within the last few weeks, they've even put the fear of The Bear into people, saying that Alabama's date with Florida in the SEC championship game will not be seen on analog television.

WAKA has a complicated plan to move to digital broadcasting that begins with turning its analog transmitter off at or around the first of December (which begins tomorrow). Will there be chaos? Will there be mayhem? Will people riot in the streets because they can't see Andy Rooney's commentary or that very special episode of CSI:?

Seriously, it'll be interesting to see what happens--this is probably the first big test of the digital transition for Alabama TV viewers. It will affect me--the twenty-year-old 12" TG&Y black & white TV I bought for $5 at a church yard sale is losing its best received channel. Thankfully, it's the only set not hooked up to cable.

My 11-year old son just recently "inherited" one of those older TV's from one of his buddies who lives down the street. They were doing some "spring cleaning" (or "fall cleaning", however you want to look at it) and wanted to get rid of it. It's probably about the same size you mentioned...12" or 13" (his is color, though)...and it's old. I'm not really sure how old it is, but let's just say that the back of the unit only has a connection for an antenna or cable tv hookup, lol. We live about 35 miles south of the Birmingham television stations, and he gets a fair signal from all the Birmingham stations (btw, he also gets WAKA as we're about halfway between Birmingham and Montgomery). I don't know what he he's been using as a makeshift antenna to pick all this up (maybe a coat hanger, lol). Despite the fact he gets a fairly decent signal from the Birmingham stations, he's been asking me to get him a set of rabbit ears to hook up. I tell him (and my wife does too) that it wouldn't do much good to buy him an antenna for the tv because, come February, all those analog signals are going "bye-bye". He says he understands that, but I think somewhere in the back of his mind, he doesn't really believe that analog televsion is going away. I guess when one of his stations disappears tomorrow, it'll finally "sink in". I told him he'll have to settle with just watching VCR tapes with his TV come February, unless we go ahead and get him a converter for it, which we're still pondering. ???

It's sorta sad to see all those stations disappear. Growing up, I lived up on Shades Mountain, and the TV I had in my bedroom didn't have cable like the rest of the house for the longest time. So, I too, used a set of rabbit ears. Of course, I received all the Birmingham stations, but I used to watch WAKA quite a bit too (and probably when it was WSLA as well), and was really surprised how well channel 8 would come in.


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[Poledo]

It will affect me--the twenty-year-old 12" TG&Y black & white TV I bought for $5 at a church yard sale is losing its best received channel. Thankfully, it's the only set not hooked up to cable.

How did my old TV wind up in a yard sale in central Alabama? I thought I through it in the trash. BTW, my old TG&Y B&W was the TV I discovered DX on. It kicked me in the butt one night when I picked up WTBS-17 on Pensacola Beach, using only a loop antenna, then I noticed there was a signal on almost every frequency.

How much of WAKA's coverage area can't pick up another CBS OTA? I've never "stayed" anywhere in WAKA's coverage area that didn't get at least two CBS stations OTA with a good signal.

You'd think that WAKA would come up with an emergency back up plan to push back to analog cutoff until after the SEC championship game. Perhaps do the cut off immediately after the game for shock value.

 

[roaddawg7703]

I do not see WAKA pushing the date back, i'm sure any all shutoff dates they agreed to were/are mandated by the FCC and was probably arranged prior to cbs plans to air the Bama/florida Game

 

[Poledo]

That game's so big that CBS and WAKA need to work out some deal with WSFA or WCOV to carry the game.

Bama fans like to fight!

 

[Chad-Stevens]

I hooked up DTV converters for several of my in-laws and their church friends near Selma and in two instances, WAKA was just about the only channel they could get a digital signal for, along with WBIH and its all infomercial format.

 

[Nate Wesley]

How much of WAKA's coverage area can't pick up another CBS OTA? I've never "stayed" anywhere in WAKA's coverage area that didn't get at least two CBS stations OTA with a good signal.

Ah, see, that's the funny thing. I live in Monroeville so I'm technically in the WKRG-TV viewing area. But in pure-OTA reception, WAKA is stronger and clearer, and has been for years. For whatever reason, WKRG's analog signal has been watchable, but plagued with snow and horizontal lines. I can remember growing up with nothing but a roof antenna giving us TV service as late as the early 1990s and never seeing any of that.

You'd think that WAKA would come up with an emergency back up plan to push back to analog cutoff until after the SEC championship game. Perhaps do the cut off immediately after the game for shock value.

I think the cable/satellite penetration is good enough that there will only be minimal complaints, but I can't say that WAKA hasn't given adequate warning to terrestrial viewers. The shaft is going to be in for folks who live in the rural areas where the analog signal came in fine, but the digital signal won't at all.

 

[MBird]

The scrolling message on CBS News Sunday Morning said, basically, "this is our digital signal. If you see this message, you'll be OK." But Channel 8 always had such a great analog signal anyway; I, too, lived in Monroeville and Frisco City, and WAKA-TV 8 was the only CBS affiliate I could pick up clearly sometimes -- it came in better than WKRG-TV 5 out of Mobile.

(They should have scrambled the signal for Iron Bowl viewers in the Tuscaloosa area ... now THAT would have caused 'Bama fans to get fighting mad.)

Now that the age of analog is ending, people may forget the backstory of the television stations in the Montgomery market -- how WCOV and WSFA waged the signal war back in the day, which is such an interesting tale. I, too, had the TG&Y 12" black and white TV set that was originally in my parents' room; they had moved up to the 25" Zenith color console. Later on, we had an RCA with an early remote control that looked like it had been used during the Apollo space program. But that black & white TV was with me a long time; I remember tuning in WRBL and WTVM out of Columbus, and WBRC and WVTM out of Birmingham on that tiny TV.

Talk about the end of an era! Digital television is bigger than the change from b&w to color -- it's like the radio shows of the early days moving over to television, with the cast of characters being seen for the first time.

I wonder if TG&Y makes a High-Definition version of that 12" set . . . . .

 

[Nate Wesley]

I wonder if TG&Y makes a High-Definition version of that 12" set . . . . .

The more newsworthy part might be finding a TG&Y.

 

[Poledo]

Later on, we had an RCA with an early remote control that looked like it had been used during the Apollo space program.

Oh yeah, well did you ever have a TV with a remote control that was attached to the TV by a 25 foot long cord, kinda like a video game joystick? That was the best invention ever, a big blocky remote that you couldn't loose in the sofa cushion! ;D

 

[Andy Coleman]

I talked to my granny today. she watches Jeopardy every day. now she won't get to see her favorite show. she isn't taking this well. I can remember watching WAKA back in the day in 1984 or 1985 in the afternoons watching Wonder Woman and in the mornings watching all those court shows. like the judge and superere court. I lived once in Evergreen and it came in clearer then Wkrg in Mobile. But WAKA was one time a good CBS channel being at one time only channel in Montgomery that was on 24 hours a day. With cartoons on early Saturday mornings and with shows like Dynasty , Fall Guy, Ateam, Have gun will travel, Sons of Will Sonnett, and Hogan Heroes when you visited with granny and granddad you could watch tv all night long on Frida y and Saturday nights.

 

[Poledo]

Off topic, but has The Fall Guy been in reruns on any station in the last 20 years? I want to see that show again.