There’s the countdown for most of the country, but in Wilmington, NC the future is now.

The FCC picked Wilmington as a test market to go all digital five months earlier than the national deadline to help manage the fallout from the analog holdouts in the viewing public. Soon after the analog switch flipped to “off,” dozens and dozens of phone calls were received at television stations in the market as well as the hotline setup by the FCC.

Prevailing problems mostly centered on old or underpowered antennas hooked up to over-the-air converter boxes or DTV sets. Another problem in Wilmington surrounded the fact that many folks had VHF antennas trying to feed the digital UHF signals. (That sounds funny to me; I haven’t given VHF and UHF one thought since my parents got cable in 1982!) The stations are suggesting rooftop antennas and RF amplifiers, especially for folks in low-lying areas. Note to retailers: stock up on those Channel Masters.

Meanwhile in the Erie market, WSEE triumphantly became Erie’s first commercial full-power HDTV station on August 26th, but apparently Time Warner Cable is still struggling to serve the high def content on their HD tier. According to participants at the AVS Forum, there was still no WSEE-HD on the cable system as of Wednesday.

Public television WQLN was slated to push their digital signal to full power on Wednesday, and will transmit a glorious 200 Kw of high definition Masterpiece Theatre. With that kind of electric bill, it’s “all hands on deck” for their next pledge drive!

So here is the Erie scoreboard for the digital transition:

WICU-12: DT-low power  – HD on TWC-412/City & 712 County
WJET-24: DT-low power  – HD coming
WSEE-35: DT-full power – HD over-the-air, TWC coming (will be
405/City & 709/County)
WQLN-54: DT-full power – HD over-the-air, TWC-415/City & 705/County
WFXP-66: DT-low power  – HD over-the-air, TWC-418/City & 706/County

Finally, here’s something to try if you are waiting for a HD box from Time Warner but already have the cable hooked up to an HDTV receiver: go into your setup channels menu and have it scan both analog and digital channels on your cable. On my mom’s new Sharp 1080p set we were able to watch multiple Cleveland market HD stations on the sub-channels. Maybe it’s old hat to you HD gurus, but I didn’t know you could do that!