The following is a brief of the story. For the full version, see the Thursday, June 11 print edition of the BDN.

Friday will come and go just like any other day, but for those who have not made provisions for the digital television transition, the squawk box may turn into the ant races. Ant races are  the static noise and lack of picture that occurs when you lose signal on your TV set.

Tomorrow, June 12, 2009, is the date set by Congress as the final deadline for terminating analog broadcasts. Some full-power broadcast television stations in the United States have already stopped broadcasting analog signals and are now broadcasting only in digital. The remaining stations will stop broadcasting analog on Friday. Times will vary based on the station.

In 1996, Congress authorized the distribution of an additional broadcast channel to each broadcast TV station so that they could use it for digital broadcasting while simultaneously continuing their analog broadcast channel. Later, Congress mandated June 12, 2009 (extended from February 17, 2009) as the last day for full-power television stations in the U.S. to broadcast in analog. As of February 17, 2009, about one-third of the nation’s full-power TV stations had already gone all-digital.

To contact Karla Terry, email karla@boonvilledailynews.com