UHF television signals to go digital by Feb. 2009

By John Oren
Williams Northern Light

Don’t prepare to throw out your present television sets just yet.
You may want to consider replacing them, though, a little less than two years down the road — if you pick up your signal from the Lake of the Woods County TV translator system.
That was the word from Lee Hervey of International Falls to the Lake of the Woods County Board on Tuesday (April 24).
“The old TVs won’t work without a digital translator,” Hervey said.
Hervey’s Voyageur Comptronics maintains the county television translator system as well as its law enforcement communications system.
The county TV system must go entirely digital by February 17, 2009.
The change will add capability to present over-the-air broadcasts. Among the changes involved in digital transmission are a major increase in channels, a much clearer picture than is presently available for broadcast television, lower power requirements to get the clearer pictures and a host of other changes.
“We will be going through a horrendous change in television over the next couple of years,” Hervey told the board.
The county translator presently carries the three major American networks on stations broadcasting out of Fargo and Grand Forks — ABC, CBS and NBC. It does not rebroadcast other national networks like PBS or Fox or any of the cable television networks.
Signals are picked up from Sjoberg Cable TV out of Warroad and rebroadcast over towers located north of Williams and south of Baudette. The rebroadcast signals are carried Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) channels 53, 55 and 57 at Baudette and 59, 61 and 63 at Williams. The signals are analog rather than digital.
The federal government is forcing the change to digital broadcasts. It will usurp the higher channels, especially those above channel 60, for sale to other communications media come early 2009 and force over-the-air UHF broadcasts to lower frequencies. The change will mean literally billions in additional frequency sales for the federal government, but it will also mean major changes for over-the-air broadcasts.
Federal rules will mandate more than simple usurpation of higher level UHF signals. They will require that all over-the-air broadcasts be handled with a particular type of digital signal.
Many existing television sets are equipped to receive only analog signals, Hervey told the board. They will be useless when all American television stations go digital, though cable and satellite systems may continue to offer analog programming that will get through to existing TV sets.
For Lake of the Woods County, the change will require that the present rebroadcast system be converted to digital signals by February of 2009.
Digital advantages
The advantages of converting to a digital signal are mostly lower power requirements, clearer pictures and sound and many more channels available on existing over-the -air signals.
Existing channels can “piggyback” additional channels on their basic signals, according to Hervey. He cited the case of one major network that could carry four, five or more channels — that many different programs — in its basic signal. The Public Broadcasting System (PBS) station out of Bemidji is already doing this with four (or possibly more) alternate broadcasts incorporated into its signal.
Digital television also requires less power for clearer reception than the present broadcasts, whether they are made on Very High Frequencies (VHF) or Ultra-High frequencies (UHF). Digital reception is limited only by line of sight considerations. and there is no “fall-off” in signal as there is with VHF or UHF signals.
“Over-the-air broadcasters love the change to digital, when each channel becomes many channels,” Hervey said. “It is a real threat to cable TV and satellite TV.”
The down-side
The switch to digital broadcasting doesn’t come free, though it will come with some tremendous income potential for the federal government when it comes to selling frequencies to cell phone and other communications companies.
The county is going to have to plug some money into its translator system. Hervey estimated the cost to convert the three present American network broadcasts to digital signals will be $103,000 for both towers.
The change will render the vast majority of television sets out there obsolete, instantly.
Converters are available to change digital signals back to analog ones that most present TVs can handle, and a basic converter can be had for only about $40.00. The problem is that you need one for each television, not for each household with several TV sets. There are also more expensive converters available, ones that offer more reception options.
“With the way the prices of digital TV sets are going down, most people will just throw out their present sets and replace them with new digital ones,” Hervey said.
That in turn is going to lead to very, very major disposal and recycling problems. The county is also in the waste disposal business and, in a very limited way, recycling.
A bit of history
The county TV rebroadcast system went on the air back in 1978 with towers at four sites: Grygla and Norris Camp as well as Baudette and Williams. Signals were picked up from Fargo and Grand Forks with the 500-foot Grygla tower and in turn rebroadcast to Norris Camp and then relayed to Baudette and Williams.
The entire system was upgraded to solid state in 1991. Sjoberg began selling signals to the county in 1993, and the towers at Grygla and Norris Camp were abandoned then. The Norris Camp tower was taken down, and a community group at Grygla bought the tower there.
The translator electronic systems at Williams and Baudette are 16 years old now and would probably have to be replaced in the near future, Hervey said.
No immediate action
Hervey requested no immediate action from the board, and the board took none.
The county will definitely lose its Williams tower translator frequencies in February of 2009. With designs that Federal Communications Commission officials have for other lower UHF frequencies in the future — especially those channels from 51 through 59 — there is a good chance that the Baudette tower frequencies could be usurped by the Feds, as well.
The costs of changing over to digital broadcasts will probably be built into the 2008 budget.
“This is just to get the word out to county residents,” Hervey said.