Boston's Analog Shutdown: WHDH-TV, June 12, 2009

The day finally came. After three postponements, many millions of dollars of equipment sales, nearly 68 years of commercial analog television broadcasting in the United States finally came to an end on June 12, 2009

Well, almost. Translators and other “Part 74” television stations—including the increasingly numerous “87.7 FM” channel-6 LPTVs operating primarily as radio stations—still have a few years to go, and even full-power stations could remain on the air for up to a month with a repeating loop of DTV transition information and converter-box installation instructions, provided their spectrum was not immediately needed for something else.

In the Boston market, a slim majority of stations had already signed off their analog signals for good, including channels 21, 25, 27, 44, 46, 48, 50, 58, 60, 62, and 68, plus all three New Hampshire Public Television primaries. The Providence and Springfield markets converted early, too, with Providence going on the previously-scheduled date of February 17, and the few stations in Springfield went one at a time over the past year. Shutting down for good on June 12 were WHDH-TV (7 Boston, NBC), WLVI (56/41 Cambridge, CW), WSBK (38/39 Boston), WUTF (66/27 Marlborough, Telefutura), and WMUR-TV (9 Manchester). In the case of WHDH and WMUR, both stations activated their permanent digital signals on the old analog channels (dumping transitional services on channels 42 and 59, respectively). Three more stations, WGBH-TV (2/19 Boston, PBS), WBZ-TV (4/30 Boston, CBS), and WCVB (5/20 Boston, ABC), will continue on with “nightlight” service, WGBH for two weeks and the other two stations for a month.

Thanks to transmitter guys Doug Kehrig and Brian Edgerton, and WHDH/WLVI Director of Engineering Jim Shultis, I was able to watch the shutoff of channels 7 and 56 from channel 7's transmitter room. Channel 7 had the oldest Larcan TV transmitter still operating in the United States, and it would be the last to get shut down. Before that, at 11:56 p.m., Brian shut down the channel 56 transmitter by remote control. Then, since authority to operate transitional digital transmitters did not extend past midnight, Brian shut down WHDH's digital channel 42 transmitter. Finally, with less than a minute to go before midnight, Brian walked over to the room with the old orange Larcan and pressed the button that made the relays go “clunk!” and powered off the old tube transmitter for good. Quickly operating a remote-controlled feedline switch, he stepped over to the waiting digital channel 7 and pressed a few buttons to power up the new rig. The new Harris digital transmitter needs a paltry 3.7 kW to make full power—only 29.7 kW average ERP—a far cry from the more than 30 kW required to make 316 kW peak ERP for the old analog signal.

(On June 16, WHDH received special temporary authority from the FCC to turn the channel 42 transmitter back on, while the station works to resolve reception issues with the new VHF service.)