2009 DTV Conversion

2009 DTV Conversion

On February 17, 2009 all full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital. Digital broadcasting will allow stations to offer improved picture and sound quality and additional channels. Find out more about whether or not you will be impacted by the digital TV (DTV) transition. Go now.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Hello all, I have been wanting to say something about this conversion for a while now, but have just now got the free time to do so. I think that it is very strange the government and congress of the U.S. has been so interested in switching all television broadcasts into digital format since the 90's and it is all finally going to happen Feb 17th 2009.
They are promising better picture and sound quality, and that the analog airwaves are needing to be freed up for emergency use by police and other emergency type organizations.
Now this is all fine and good, but it really makes me wonder what else the government is going to be doing with all the freed up air waves... makes me think of all the UFO sightings that are supposed to be starting up soon, and the mind control that others on here have talked about.
I have done as much research as I could on this subject, and the gov websites put out for us to go through for answers are all pretty much the same...It's all for YOU!...YAY!...but I gotta say that it really makes me wonder.
I just posted this to see if anyone else has thought about this big conversion, and to discuss the gung-ho ways that the gov is helping us to convert.
P.S. (to mods) not sure if this was done as expertly as everyone else...so please move it if needed.


(visit the link for the full news article)

Digital TV takes up a lot less bandwidth than analog TV. The US government took the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that currently houses analog TV and auctioned them off to private companies for their own use (such as wireless internet, communication, whatever).

No conspiracy. No UFOs. Simply technological progress, coupled with a desire to sell off a massively-needed part of the electromagnetic spectrum, for the benefit of everyone.

Sure, you just let them tell you that and believe every word of it, as all the others who have not bothered to reply at all to this thread.
Nothing is wrong, everything is good...thank you big brother for giving us clearer and better sounding television. We will all love you forever.

Originally posted by Vandermast
Sure, you just let them tell you that and believe every word of it, as all the others who have not bothered to reply at all to this thread.

The auctions were a matter of public record. The US, the EU et al. do this sort of thing.

Let say HAARP used that spectrum or the military etc. why would they auction it off???

On the surface the government looks like its pushing us towards something they want but High Def. TV is simply another standard like NTSC was back in the day.

The upgrade will make it harder for your slightly-above-average joe to broadcast a pirate signal that anyone will actually receive.

It's a matter of time until nobody owns a TV or radio that is capable of picking up a tech-savvy rebel's message. That helps the powers that be.

Off the grid=incommunicado. You'll have to be plugged in, checked out, up linked, downloaded, encrypted, decoded, compressed, and virus scanned and unzipped to get a word in edgewise. The days when the underground could jump on an eagle-scout designed radio and put the covert word out with catchy phrases about foxes in hen houses and birds landing will be over before long.

If it's not the main goal, it's still a fringe benefit they must be aware of.

reply to post by The Strategist


Exactly!...you know what I am talking about...it is not just for our viewing pleasure and emergency againcies benefit. If there ever came a time when "the rebels" needed to get out a broadcast to the rest of the team...or to inform people of the (bad people's) plot to hurt us...or to tell the rest of the word that all we need to do is spit on the bad aliens to infect them...we would be out of luck.
I know this is all tv and movie hollywood drama stuff...but sometimes truth is really stranger than fiction.

I am just getting into the wide world of scanners. I bought an old one at a yard sale, and i can program it to what ever frequency i want. The problem is i need to know the exact frequency to be able to hear any thing. ONline there are many sites that list state and local frequencies from police, and fire, to the mcdonalds walkie talkies. I have alot of fun listining to all the crazy people out there. I think with an older scanner you can also pick up cordless phone calls. But i think that is illegal.

I think this conversion over to digital tv broadcasts is the first step into citizens losing rights to use the broadcast frequencies that should be free for everyone. I think everyone should have a C.B. and a scanner, just to show the government how much we value these broadcast frequencies.

reply to post by ChilledVoodoo


In my opinion it is a very good idea that you have equipped yourself in this manner, I too have an old scanner from 1984 and it still works fine and picks up police and emergency broadcasts.
I also have a couple of CB radios left over from when my father was a truck driver.
Everyone should have some way to communicate in ways other than cell phones or internet messengers like yahoo or msn.
Thank you all for your replies, I was hoping that I was not the only one out there with this on my mind.

-edit for spelling-

[edit on 25-4-2008 by Vandermast]

Originally posted by ChilledVoodoo
I think with an older scanner you can also pick up cordless phone calls. But i think that is illegal.

I would say that depends more on the cordless phone than the scanner - some very very old cordless phones may of had no encryption at all.... This is all off the top of my head but I would expect some level of encryption on the digital models - I'm sure it wont be too hard to find out - just determine the model of phone and google to see if the channels it uses are listed.

But if you really want to go over board you shouldn't let a little thing like encryption bother you!! all you have to do is capture enough packets of data to enable you to run a brute force attack and get the key! - if you can do it for WiFi i'm damn sure you can do it for a £30 cordless phone

Scanners are nice, but for how long? It's a matter of time till they integrate their radio system with their dispatch computers via broadband, thus making it impossible for the general public to know what they are up to.

I'm not American, but I've been seeing these ads on American TV for a while and have been wondering also what it's all about and why the government is implicated.

Digital is one of those magical words. I've worked 16 years as a Graphics designer and I'm also a musician, so I know a lot about analog vs digital. Digital is less expensive because it's cheaper and can never come close to analog. For the older people; remember those vinyl records with the rich, warm sound? The CD never came close to accomplishing this (vinyl is still the standard in the industry for sound comparison). MP3's work well only with electronic music, ie, music that is made with machines rather than actual musicians. In the 70's, the industry would never have even attempted to offer such poor quality. Remember those half-inch thick plastic records for small children? MP3 quality is below that. Much below that.

High def tv is below the 35 mm (film) quality. And what you see on your digital tv is generally 256 colours: quite limiting. The most blatant example of this was the opening credits of Star Trek Deep Space 9. You have a space scene with, if memory serves me right, a comet. On digital tv, you see the bands of grey levels while on analog tv, it's all smooth.

Back in the early 80's, Sony and others were working on hi-def analog tv; decades ahead of current digital technology.

The only reason we have digital now is that it's cheaper. Your digital camera might take nice pictures, but compare the colours to the original and it doesn't even come close. At some point, technology will revert back to analog; there won't be a choice.

So either this switch to digital is simply a $$$ decision or there is something sinister behind it.

reply to post by ajmusicmedia


Thanks for the reply, I agree with you about the quality between analog and digital...I have been seeing many glitches in digital television, and the mention of records to cd's is right on.
And also about the U.S. government making it THE LAW that everything go digital is the thing that made me post this, you said that something "sinister" could be behind this...and I think you could be right.

reply to post by Vandermast


This is why ATS can suck. I've given you PLENTY of sources for what I claim, and you decide to ignore it all and cling to your idea of shadowy men in smokey rooms trying to enslave us all, completely without evidence.

I tried to teach you something, but you really don't care. I hope you start to deny ignorance sometime soon - it's better for everyone.

I heard it was to stop people getting cable for free with just an antenna.

This is a subject that is near and dear to my heart. I do audio production for a living. Mostly live sound (think-angry, un-employable, sound guy:lol. What most people don't realize, is that wireless mic's and wireless instrument rigs, and wireless in-ear monitoring systems, and wireless com systems, all use part of the spectrum that was so eagerly auctioned off by our esteemed members of Congress. The high comedy that will ensue during the 2012 political season will be worth the price of admission.

Let me explain.

When you throw a shindig on the scale of a DNC or RNC, there are literally thousands of channels of wireless communication jammed into and around the venue. The only ones most of us see are the media talking heads and the odd political blowhard as they appear on camera. But behind the scenes, there are thousands of people who rely on wireless com to pull the event off.

I was part of an MTV 'town meeting' last year with a certain candidate who now doesn't matter. This event was held at a small state college, in a small NE state, for instant web-cast (talk about going straight to DVD :@@. Still, there were hundreds of us techys and production folks using OVER 100 channels of wireless com. That was for a video media non-event. Imagine if all the worlds media outlets needed to be represented with tech and production crews on site. Boggles the mind really.

As of Feb '09, it all goes away. Well, to be fair it doesn't. It just becomes susceptible to compromise to the point that it's useless. Nooone wants to risk Rep Windbag (R, VT.) winding on about the benefits of global stupidity only to have his signal 'sqwaked' by the secret service security channel....ON AIR! It's a career ender.

I see no conspiracy. I see a group of people making self serving decisions based on their own limited understanding of the situation (Congress). The only real change I see coming is that we will become accustomed to seeing our politicians, rock stars, and public speakers tethered to their mic's. It's a good thing too, some are so full of hot air that they risk floating off otherwise.

Gram

reply to post by Gramafaloon


It's not congress being self-serving. On the contrary, this has great benefits for the public. Analog TV spewed radiation all over the place - using up a far greater part of the EM spectrum compared to its digital replacement. When we move from analog to digital (which is happening across the world, not just in the US), we free up the part of the EM spectrum the analog signals were using, and instead just use the part the digital signals use. That leaves a massive part of the EM spectrum free for use by the FCC. The FCC, however, decided to auction it off, thereby releasing it to companies for use.

There's nothing self-serving about it (apart from kick-backs) - the idea for shifting makes perfect sense, and has nothing to do with aliens, the NWO, David Icke, or 2012.

reply to post by dave420


I agree with you dave420, ATS can suck...especially when know it alls think they can "teach" everyone something that thier feeble minds don't want to cuz thay just want to believe in conspiracies.
Thanks for the "education", but the point of this thread was to discuss possible threats to personal communications that a lot of people enjoy using.
Like momma always said..."don't make yourself into an ass by trying to force your opinion on everyone"....thanks mom.

[edit on 1-5-2008 by Vandermast]

My biggest beef with this, is that there is seemingly no benefit to this that balances out cutting lower income families in rural neighborhoods from receiving emergency weather information for free over the local news stations.

And a side note, having worked a call center for Time/Warner cable in Dallas, I happen to know that viewing habits can be (and are) recorded through digital cable, but not on analog. I'm not sure if this is because it is harder/impossible to do with analog, or just because Time/Warner only cares what the financially well off are watching, but it disturbs me that I no longer have the option to go with analog...

reply to post by N1cotine


Exactly!...it is fine for everyone to be getting better picture and sound quality and all that, but what about the families who are still using black and white rabbit ear tv's?, what you said about the free 3, 6, and 9 analog channels for weather and emergency are needed by these people...they are still out there. The govermnent tries to make themselves look good by sending out coupons to go buy the converter boxes at a cheaper price, but why go through all that trouble when they could have just asked the people who need them to call or write their office and they would be sent a free one in the mail?
This is just another of the ways that we as american citizens are slowly losing rights in a way that doesn't seem like we are...and too many are eager to take these coupons and kiss the feet of the gov for improving their tv reception.