The conversion from analog to digital television signal is
complete and in rural Pennsylvania, days of free television
programming appear to be over.

In Bradford and the surrounding areas, it had been possible to
use an antenna to pick up some channels, including network stations
from Buffalo, N.Y., and a PBS station from State College. That
appears to be a thing of the past, as a digital television signal
doesn’t have the range that an analog signal did.

Digital converter boxes, which can be connected to analog
televisions to allow them to receive digital broadcasts, aren’t
seeming to make much difference in this region.

Mike Vinelli, electronics technician of Vinelli’s Picture and
Sound in Bradford, explained Monday he hasn’t heard of any local
success stories with the converter boxes.

“A customer I had a few weeks ago was getting signal early on,
but then the picture would freeze and he’d lose signal,” Vinelli
explained.

“The (analog) signal around here was never all that great, and
the digital signal doesn’t travel as far as the analog did,” he
said.

Vinelli added that when the Buffalo stations began publicly
discussing the impending signal changes, they warned that the
Southern Tier may have trouble getting the digital signal. A notice
on the Web site for WIVB in Buffalo warns that because of terrain,
McKean, Potter and Warren counties in Pennsylvania may not be able
to receive the digital signal over-the-air.

Aside from switching a few customers to satellite services,
Vinelli hasn’t heard a lot of complaints locally. The federal
government had originally set a February deadline for stations to
start transmitting in only digital, but moved that deadline back to
June 12.

“You had a lot of people early on who were worried,” Vinelli
said, explaining that many people signed up for satellite
television at the February deadline.

Vinelli, who is a dealer for a satellite television system, said
he’s switched maybe 10 people over in the past month.

“They were on antenna and couldn’t get signal with the new
boxes,” he explained. There are maps available on the Internet at
www.dtv.gov/maps and at
www.antennaweb.org where
consumers can enter their street address and ZIP Code to see what,
if any, television signal is available for that area.

Using ZIP Codes for several areas in McKean County, The Era was
unable to find any areas where signals were strong. In some places,
WPSU from Clearfield appeared as a moderate signal, but was a weak
or non-existent signal in the rest of the county.

Vinelli said he feels there weren’t a lot of people left who
used only an antenna to pick up television signals. Many of the
customers he has helped have been older residents who were used to
getting channels 2, 4 and 7 out of Buffalo.

“Most people are on cable or a satellite dish,” Vinelli
said.