How did the 2/17 signoffs go down?

[jal41]

GPB (statewide PBS network for Georgia) signed off analog at midnight as promised. They broadcast their longtime signoff/signon montage set to Ray Charles' "Georgia On My Mind" (the official state song) prior to signoff. The other Atlanta station going off, Religious WATC, broadcast a 30 minute history of TV.

How did stations where you are go out? Star-Spangled Banner or direct cut from whatever was running?

 

[tripinva]

WCAV in Charlottesville ended their 11PM newscast with a shot of an engineer's computer screen hitting the "WCAV TX Pwr" button, an hourglass appeared for a few seconds, and then it was gone.

- Trip

 

[LynnW]

KDNL-TV ABC affiliate on analog 30 cut from scheduled programming to night light in Spanish at 12 am CDT. No fanfare, nothing. But what do you expect from a major network affiliate in the number 20 or so market which has no news department. I don't watch network tv anymore, but never watched KDNL even when I did. Although it is only 5.2 miles from my house (on the exact same bearing as KSDK 5, which is 5 miles away), I have never been able to receive much of a signal, not on the big antenna in the attic nor with rabbit ears. All the other major stations are at about the same distance or less and in the same general direction. They have always been perfect.

WBRU 46 was supposed to switch, too, but I have never seen a hint of that signal over the air. It is sixteen miles away.

 

[theradiokid]

WWNY (Channel 7) in Watertown, NY, cut carrier right in the middle of the David Leterman show at 11-59 PM EST.

WSYT (Channel 68) in Syracuse, NY, cut from programming to a nightlight loop.

--The Radio Kid
(Oswego, NY.)
My email: [email protected].

 

[nathannah]

The GPB signoff got onto YouTube...unfortunately the Warner Music Group copybot attacked and deleted the entire audio track of the video because of "Georgia on My Mind" . Hello Warner, I think the Georgia State Song airing on the State of Georgia's network should get a freakin' exclusion from your stupid copybot!

I got to see the combined analog signoff on WCGV/WVTV in Milwaukee...pretty much a nice and grand statement from the station's general management about how their station's analog signals entertained for 47/28 years and they're moving into a new age, it was very nice (Sinclair runs a good ship there unlike at KDNL). Then they cut to nightlight programming featuring a DTV program and local hotline numbers.

 

[ixnay]

WBRU 46 was supposed to switch, too, but I have never seen a hint of that signal over the air. It is sixteen miles away.

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBRU ...

"WBRU is a commercial radio station in Providence, Rhode Island that broadcasts on 95.5 FM. It was the first student-owned-and-operated college radio station in the United States when it started as the Brown Network at Brown University in 1936.[1][1] Its slogan is "95.5 WBRU, The Original Alt Rock." Its transmitter is located in Providence."

Also see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="wbru"&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= ...

ixnay

 

[james32746]

WMFE went like this for the last few minutes based on watching side by side

WMFE-DT

End of DTV Troubleshooting program
PBS ID
WMFE Promos
WMFE ID
Tavis Smiley

WMFE-TV

End of DTV Troubleshooting program
PBS ID
WMFE Community Board Meeting Notice
WMFE Sign off announcement
SSB
WMFE ID
Tavis Smiley (signal cut off after 15 seconds into program)

 

[romer979fm]

Sinclair went to NightLight mode on the three signals they run in Nashville:

WZTV-17 (fox) began "According To Jim" at 12:00am...after a few seconds the audio abruptly changed to
the DTV "how-to" loop provided by the NAB...then after a few seconds the video went to black.
Don't know how long they had no video, but this morning all three [WZTV-17, WUXP-30 (my) and WNAB-58 (cw)]
are all in NightLight mode...showing the same loop explaining the transition, and what to do.

how long are stations running NightLight required to do so?

 

[w9wi]

WBRU 46 was supposed to switch, too, but I have never seen a hint of that signal over the air. It is sixteen miles away.

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBRU ...

"WBRU is a commercial radio station in Providence, Rhode Island that broadcasts on 95.5 FM. It was the first student-owned-and-operated college radio station in the United States when it started as the Brown Network at Brown University in 1936.[1][1] Its slogan is "95.5 WBRU, The Original Alt Rock." Its transmitter is located in Providence."

He of course meant WRBU... Haven't seen them in ages (since WNPT-DT fired up on 46) but I *have* seen them down here in Nashville.

romer: To my knowledge there is no required length for nightlight service in markets (like Nashville) where at least one of the four major-network affiliates agreed to remain on the air. In markets where all four went off, my understanding is that 60 days of nightlight service is required.

 

[Tom Wells]

A band scan this morning in Chicago shows a few new digital signals since I scanned last, but no analogs turned off.

Current score on the north side of Chicago: analog 18, digital 30.

 

[C Murder]

At WNTZ (Fox 48, Alexandria, LA), immediately following American Idol, we aired the Star-Spangled Banner, then a short reminder of what was happening. Antenna analog viewers in the Natchez area then saw us cut to static during the ID that followed. Digital and cable viewers, however, continued into scheduled MyNetworkTV programming.

Video from the control room feed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJmc80gLmZo

 

[KR4BD]

WTVQ-36 (ABC in Lexington, KY) ran a crawler all day Tuesday warning of the 11:59PM Analog Shut Down. At exactly 11:59, they cut the carrier right in the middle of Nightline. No announcement or anything... Just went to snow.... They are the ONLY Lexington station that ceased Analog on 2/17.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

WTVQ-36 (ABC in Lexington, KY)...At exactly 11:59, they cut the carrier right in the middle of Nightline.
No announcement or anything... Just went to snow...

Aren't stations supposed to ID themselves at (sign-on and) sign-off*?

I suppose here the thought was--hey, we're shutting down for good,
so the heck with legalities! What are you going to do FCC, revoke
our analog license? ;D


*: Try telling that to a certain AM daytimer in the Phoenix market,
the one nicknamed "Lumberyard 1440" here on R-I.

 

[azumanga]

WMFE went like this for the last few minutes based on watching side by side

WMFE-DT

End of DTV Troubleshooting program
PBS ID
WMFE Promos
WMFE ID
Tavis Smiley

WMFE-TV

End of DTV Troubleshooting program
PBS ID
WMFE Community Board Meeting Notice
WMFE Sign off announcement
SSB
WMFE ID
Tavis Smiley (signal cut off after 15 seconds into program)

Kind of funny that the analog side did not cut the transmitter after the SSB, but instead started the next program, before actually cutting off.

 

[azumanga]

KDNL-TV ABC affiliate on analog 30 cut from scheduled programming to night light in Spanish at 12 am CDT.

Why was the station running night light programming in Spanish, considering that the market has no Spanish-language stations?

 

[tripinva]

Why was the station running night light programming in Spanish, considering that the market has no Spanish-language stations?

The FCC requires nightlight programming to be in both English and Spanish.

- Trip

 

[dhett]

From Phoenix AZ:

KTAZ was a singleton station that flash cut from analog to digital. At about 10:30 pm, the analog signal was already gone, and the digital signal was up and running on channel 39.

KPPX went from pre-transition DTV on channel 52 to post-transition on channel 51. They ran regular programming until shutoff. I don't remember if the analog stayed up; I think it did, but at midnight, the station ran its customary TOH visual ID, then launched into regular programming. At 12:01, the signal cut off suddenly. The DTV signal on channel 51 didn't come up until this evening. Their latest DTV Transition Report indicated that they needed to install an antenna and transmitter for their final post-transition facilities.

 

[Madmansam]

My Cable Company carries 2 San Francisco TV Stations which ceased Analog. (KOFY and KICU) Since they carried both from their digital signals, nothing happened. No Fanfare. There was mentioned of it on their News but that is it.

 

[anotherguyTN]

In Jackson, TN WLJT PBS 11 shut down their analog transmitter at their normal OTA signoff time of midnight on Mon. Feb. 16th. They are staying at their current digital channel 47. WJKT Fox 16 had still planned to sign off on Tuesday, but changed in the last few days to where they are staying on. So other than WLJT's analog now being off, there is no real change in the Jackson area.

 

[LynnW]

WBRU 46 was supposed to switch, too, but I have never seen a hint of that signal over the air. It is sixteen miles away.

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBRU ...

"WBRU is a commercial radio station in Providence, Rhode Island that broadcasts on 95.5 FM. It was the first student-owned-and-operated college radio station in the United States when it started as the Brown Network at Brown University in 1936.[1][1] Its slogan is "95.5 WBRU, The Original Alt Rock." Its transmitter is located in Providence."

Also see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="wbru"&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq= ...

ixnay

That should have been WRBU. Sorry for the typo.