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Maine Public Broadcasting going all-digital early

KML-224 said:
http://news.mainetoday.com/updates/036930.html

Maine's statewide PBS network will be switching off their 5 analog stations in Presque Isle (10), Orono (12), Calais (13), Augusta (10) and Biddeford (26) in the wee hours of January 11th.
Click to expand...

The article mentions 1am as the shut down time which is their usual sign-off time (they may keep 26 and WCBB on all night but the others go off, even the cable feeds) So they'll be signing off the analog transmitters and only be firing up the digital ones when they sign on at 6am.

One interesting thing to add is on Time Warner Cable, they offer PBS Kids Sprout and Create and PBS World but digitally OTA only offer a SD and HD feed. I wonder if they (and other pBS stations that don't do this yet) will start providing OTA subchannels of Sprout, etc.
 
Comcast in New Britain, CT (southwest of Hartford) only offers WEDH-DT 24-1, from what I've seen with my expanded basic cable and WEDH-DT on my TV's QAM tuner. WGBY-DT (PBS) in Springfield, MA shut off their analog transmitter for good a couple of weeks ago. The picture on cable channel 12 must be getting downconverted because it looks the same as it did before.
 
Not Sprout. Sprout is a joint partnership between PBS and one or more of the cable companies, and thus will not be available over the air.

- Trip
 
This has me wondering...with MPBN going all-digital and WPXT analog off the air, will the rest of Portland/Poland Spring be doing any type of digital tests like in Boston/Worcester or Hartford/New Haven recently?
 
You would think that WPFO, at least, would consider flash-cutting early given that half of Portland's stations are already digital-only.

- Trip
 
tripinva said:
You would think that WPFO, at least, would consider flash-cutting early given that half of Portland's stations are already digital-only.

- Trip
Click to expand...

HALF is a huge overstatement there trip.
6, 8, 10, 13, 26, and one of the two 35/51 are still on.

What 23 will most likely do is take one of the two tubes in their transmitter, rewire it for digital. On 02/17/2009, shut off analog tube #1 , turn on digital tube #2. Done.
 
35 and 51 are both digital-only, and after January 11, 26 and 10 will be digital only. That will be more than half. (I misspoke in saying "are already")

If 35 or 51 are still on the air analog, then they have lied in an FCC filing. I can't imagine that would go over too well.

- Trip
 
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