Digital TV means changes

By Janice Kurbjun
Times staff writer

The old adage, out with the old, in with the new often doesn’t work in rural communities, particularly when referring to technology.

On Feb. 18, analog cell phone frequencies officially died, forcing some Carbon County residents to convert to digital cell phones. In February of 2009, the Federal Communications Commission plans to phase out analog television broadcasts, affecting two towers operated by Saratoga’s Elk Mountain TV.

Currently, the towers operate as analog-only, picking up free, over-the-air local television through channel 2 in Casper and channel 5 in Cheyenne. The two channels still send their analog signal even though both have been broadcasting digitally for four years.

“There are a number of people in town here, many who are elderly, whose sole source of connecting with the outside world (is through the local channels),” Dan Gorton of Saratoga said. “It would be a real shame for it to go away.”

Before the channels drop analog service in 2009, Elk Mountain TV hopes to install a digital-to-analog converter. The device would pick up the digital signal and convert it back to analog, making the transition seamless for old-fashioned viewers of the local stations. However, one obstacle stands in the way — the signal strength.

When the snow melts on the mountains where the towers stand, channel 5 Chief Engineer Keith Yosten plans to test whether Cheyenne’s digital signal is strong enough to warrant the $1,600 converters. If the signal is not strong enough, local television viewers who use antennas to pick up the analog channels will be left with no service.

“There will probably be people that will be calling us (on the day of the phase out) wondering what is going on,” Yosten said.

Subscribers of Bresnan Communications and Communicom Services should see no effect in local television.

“If nothing happens,” Gorton said, “our access to any kind of news, the weather or anything that’s going on in Wyoming, for the residents of Saratoga, Riverside, Encampment or Baggs that don’t have Bresnan cable, will disappear.”

Even satellite TV subscribers in much of southeastern Wyoming who opt for local channels do not get the two in Wyoming. Officials at Dish Network and Direct TV confirmed that all or most of Carbon County is in the Denver marketing area and gets Denver channels, not Wyoming stations.