[Robert Drobot]

We are told by the government it is in our national interest to live in the insanity of a free trade market ( quicksand ) economy. Why then is the Congress sticking its ugly head into the alleged 'free marketplace' tent; making law to cram a digital signal down the collective throats of Americans, when we didn't ask for this dictatorial intervention???

[jdege]

Because when they’ve moved everybody off the current analog broadcast frequencies, they can then auction those frequencies off to the highest bidder, and use the money to buy more votes.

[Robert Drobot]

Correction :

I've come across the minutes of one Congressional staff meeting ( H.R.___, Regarding the Transition to Digital Television in which 'security' is referenced thirty-eight ( 38 ) times; 'national security' is referenced three ( 3 ) times; and Homeland Security is referenced five (5 ) times.

[live+let_live]

I love conspiracies, they’re lots of fun. But this is just the evolution of the technology. Digital is better. It uses narrower frequencies than analog.

[Cvengr]

I think it is a mechanism to ween people off of TV, in the same fashion that tobacco has been taxed out of existence.

[Man50D]

I'm sure lobbyists on behalf their clients in industries who stand to benefit from this law were a big if not primary factor for passage of this legislation. It has as much to do with national security as banning incandescent light bulbs.

[Beagle8U]

When the Government can get rid of so called “Free” TV and cash in on what amounts to air they will, and did.

Once the Tech was in place and in use the Fed saw no reason not to cash in.

[Popman]

THE REAL REASON CONGRESS IS DEMANDING AMERICA CONVERT TELEVISONS FROM ANALOG TO DIGITAL???

Obviously, the tin foil lobby is behind this so they can sell lots of tin foil hats

[diverteach]

It’s so you can see the BS in the media more clearly. LOL

[Rider on the Rain]

Don’t you think they want the spectrum freed up by analog TV, and don’t you think it is be needed for national security, emergency preparedness, and public safety functions?

[PGalt]

Very interesting post. Thanks. (Just thinking...worst case scenario...easier to manipulate propaganda?)

[A. Morgan]

The 9/11 commission mandated better public safety radio the best system required reassigning the 24 MHZ for public safety
radio frequencies.

[SlowBoat407]

Te frequencies that are currently being used by analog will be repurposed for a number of things, including emergency and security communications, data transmission for high-end smart phones that will leapfrog European cell technology, and other devices using local wireless technology.

No word yet on which frequency the black helicopters will be using.

[Lord Basil]

FWIW, the feds are offering at most two $40 coupons per household to buy digital-to-analog converter boxes. Yet another instance of our tax dollars at work.

[BigLittle]

To make room for more PDA's, cellphones and whatever new digital trasmission devices are on the horizon.

Analog broadcasting was and is simply sloppy in the utilization of bandwidth, and yes the govt reaps $$$$ for the changeover.

[SkyPilot]

[DB]

There's only so much radio frequency spectrum below 1 GHz. Conventional TV used the fast majority of it. With digital video broadcast the quality is much better and the spectrum use is far more efficient. That frees up a large chunk of spectrum for new uses such as truly broad band wireless Internet and other related technologies. The current WiFi allocations are too narrow for wide spread broad band. They are also shared with other unlicensed transmitters such as microwave ovens and cordless phones etc...

So in other words, for the most part it is called progress.

[tet68]

Obviously, the tin foil lobby is behind this so they can sell lots of tin foil hats

Ya’ll just don’t make the connection, digital signals defeat aluminium foil....go through it like butter right
to the brain stem, say hello to your new alien overlords.

[TomGuy]

For similar reasons that are forcing the fluorescent light bulbs. Mandates create corporate profits, per McCain. His problem is, however, he doesn't apparently realize that the consumers ultimately pay the cost.

As McCain stated in a This Week interview:

This is McCain (from This Week, February 17, 2008) [emphasis added]:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about on the issue of climate change? Because you and Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [I-Conn.] have come out for a bill which would have mandatory reductions in greenhouse gases.

MCCAIN: Gradual reductions, yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they are mandatory.

MCCAIN: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you sticking by that?

MCCAIN: What I mean by that is that it's cap-and-trade, that there will be incentives for people to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's a free-market approach. The Europeans are using it now. We did it in the case of addressing acid rain -- look, if we do that, we stimulate green technologies. I have great faith in the American industry. General Electric, the world's largest corporation, has announced they're dedicated to green technologies. This will be profit-making business.

It won't cost the American taxpayer. It will make profits, because we'll move forward with the innovation and ability of American industry to address this issue.

No wonder McCain admits he doesn't know much about economics. Who does he think is going to pay for GE making all that profit, since he says it isn't the American taxpayer? Will President McCain just mandate that profits will henceforth grow on trees? Where is the profit from those mandated fluorescent bulbs coming from?

[Hint, JohnnyMc: Consumers. And a majority of consumers are also taxpayers. So, all that corporate profit will cost the taxpayers.]

[meyer]

The simple (if devious) explanation is that the media giants like digital because it gives them 2-way communications (they know what you're watching) and they think that all the recording permissiveness that courts granted in the analog VCR and cassette era will be erased in the digital era and they will be able to stop people from recording shows for free.

Oh, and with digital, they can squeeze many more channels in a given bandwidth as compared to analog.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Bandwidth. Plain and simple. Analogue TV is 1930's technology. (AM Radio is 19-ought's technology, FM also 1930's. that's another story.)

There is a straightforward trade off of bandwidth for receiver/transmitter complexity. It may have escaped the author, but there has been some slight progress in electronics since the 1939 New York World's Fair.