KEET to ignore analog extension

image ganked from popsci.com

If you’ve been following the news this week you know that there’s been a lot of discussion about postponing the end of analog television and the coming switch to the digital age. It turns out that despite a lot of advance warning to get digital converter boxes before the big switcheroo on Feb. 17, which you’ve been warned about with those annoying banner ads, and despite a coupon program to help people pay for them, a fair number of TV watchers, particularly poor folks and the elderly, are still operating with the old 20th century analog technology.

So, on Wednesday the House of Reps voted to extend the deadline until June 12. The Senate passed similar legislation last week; President Obama said he’ll sign it, and through a spokesperson promised to “continue to work with Congress to improve the information and assistance available to American consumers in advance of June 12, especially those in the most vulnerable communities.”

If you think old school TV people are breathing a sigh of relief and thinking maybe they’ll have more time to finally figure out that new-fangled box, well, that’s not exactly the case, not locally anyway. If you live in Humboldt County sans cable, and were watching the few stations still available with a TV antennae (and no digital TV or converter box) you know that the Eureka Television Group’s CBS 6 and Fox 29 made the switch on Nov. 28 last year, which is to say they switched off their analog signal and — no more Simpsons (now on 28, not 29).

Today we learned that despite the reprieve from Washington D.C. the local PBS affiliate KEET-TV will follow the original February date to shut down its analog signal, basically because it costs too much money to run both digital and analog feeds and it’s up to them to decide when to switch.  As noted in a Friday press release:

After 40 years of broadcasting on analog Channel 13, KEET-TV, public television for the North Coast, will cease transmission of its over-the-air analog signal after 11:59 p.m. on February 17, 2009. The analog shut-off will only affect viewers that receive their programming with an indoor or outdoor antenna. Cable subscribers will have no interruption of service.

Ron Schoenherr, KEET-TV’s Executive Director said, “There is some understandable confusion over the current legislation moving through Congress dealing with the possibility to continue analog broadcasting until June 12, 2009. KEET-TV’s staff and board of directors made the decision to stick with the originally mandated shut-off date and stop broadcasting our analog signal on February 17. The main consideration was a financial one. To date, KEET-TV has spent almost $2 million to comply with the federally mandated digital conversion, and we are still seeking funds for its completion. The average monthly PG&E bill for operating KEET’s 23-year-old analog transmitter is between $3,000 to $4,000. We simply do not have the funds to continue analog broadcast for another four months.”

In compliance with the federal mandate KEET began broadcasting a digital signal in 2003. In 2007, KEET began broadcasting a high-power digital signal on digital channel 13-1, and added their second channel KEET WORLD, which airs PBS news, public affairs and documentary programming on 13-2. In January of this year, KEET applied to the FCC for permission to terminate analog broadcasting on the originally mandated date of February 17, and has been running public service announcements giving viewers advance notice of the analog cut-off date.

Viewers that receive an over-the-air signal will need to install a converter box that connects to an antenna and television set. In many cases, “rabbit ear” antennas may not work well with digital broadcasting. New digital set-top antennas may also need to be purchased. There is viewer information available on KEET’s website www.keet.org, and questions about the digital conversion may also be directed to dtv@keet-tv.org. Information is also available at www.dtv2009.gov. A good site for antenna information is www.tvfool.com.

That leaves only KIEM Channel 3 for the analoggers post Feb. 17. The NBC affiliate decided to go with Obama’s pushed back June date. And they have an all new set of annoying messages ready to tell you as much.

 

Street View Still Irking You

Google’s ongoing little-big stunt gets another round of scrutiny. The writer of the piece goes on a fair bit about how criminals might use the maps and snaps to burgle you while you were away…. He also refers often to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat‘s boot-leathering which found that the Google bug traveled down more than 100 private drives in Sonoma County alone with that nosy camera, and says it had every right to do that. ‘course, there’s a lawsuit. And there’s at least one angry woman in Humboldt.

Clarification: Google claims it was within its rights to take pics on the private roads, not the Press Dem.

 

New fiber hope?

Proposed fiber path along Hwy. 299

The fiber scramble continues.

The strangest thing about the various efforts to bring a redundant broadband fiber to Humboldt County is how new plans just seem to pop up out of nowhere. Virtually everyone is in agreement these days that a second fiber optic cable is vital to our community’s ability to function in the 21st Century. Coming up with a viable business model, however,  has proved elusive.

A company by the name of Broadband Associates International, Inc. is the latest player on the field, having just landed approval for almost $8 mil in state funding via the California Advanced Services Fund. That’s 40 percent of the total price tag of the project — $19.5 million — and local players are already questioning how Broadband Associates plan to come up with the other $12 mil.

If their plan proves viable (and for now that “if” remains large), not only would it provide a broadband safety net to those North Coasters who subscribe to their service (in addition to AT&T’s existing line — gotta have both!), it may also allow for “last mile” broadband access in such un- or under-served communities as Willow Creek, Salyer, Burnt Ranch, Big Bar and Weaverville.

According to Broadband Associates’ Web site,  the company was “founded by a team of highly experienced education professionals and telecom experts from AT&T Broadband.” Could that explain why AT&T seemed hesitant to sign on to another approach? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Willits Online also received CASF funding approval — $54,000 to bring broadband to Laytonville. Again, this amount is 40 percent of the total project cost — in this case, $135,000.

CORRECTION: While virtually everyone is in agreement that redundant broadband is needed on the North Coast, not everyone agrees that the method must be a second fiber. Microwave technology could provide an alternative.

 

Pay no attention!

A Humboldt County voting booth

The disturbing revelations brought about through the Humboldt Transparency Project may be going viral.  A story posted today on Threat Level, a politics and crime blog on Wired magazine’s blog network, describes in painstaking detail how the curtain was pulled back on the voting machines created by the wizards of Premier Elections Solutions (formerly Deibold) to reveal nothing but an incoherently babbling gaggle of audit logs. Pay no attention!

Not only did the Global Elections Management System software (the GEMS of Premier’s Emerald City) lose 197 votes, but the logs that are supposed to explain why and how look like “‘Greek’ to anyone other than a computer programmer,” according to Deputy Secretary of State Lowell Finley.

A computer scientist at the University of Iowa calls the voting system “totally nuts” and says it contains “lots and lots of different logs” that appear to have been “independently designed by people who didn’t talk to each other.” One of those logs incorrectly states that some batches of votes weren’t loaded into the system until some three weeks after election day.

Just reading about this system makes your head spin. The state continues to investigate the matter, but if you’d like to take a stab at it, here’s a link to the GEMS audit log. Good luck with that.

 

Dude…

I think you hit record insteada play…

 

Driving into the Hydrogen Future

Humboldt State unveiled its hydrogen fueling station today with Rep. Mike Thompson here to help with the ribbon-cutting and talk about the role the Schatz Energy Research Center is playing in our renewable energy future. He’s shown above driving HSU’s hydrogen-powered car, which he’d just helped fill with fuel.

Here’s a soundbite from Rep. Mike’s speech:

Star of the show was Schatz lab director Peter Lehman (below), whose pioneering work was featured in a Journal story, “Peter and the Fuel Cell,” back in 2006.

Here’s an excerpt from Peter’s speech:

Peter Lehman addresses crowd at ribbon cutting

While this is certainly cutting edge stuff, there are limitations. The fueling station at Humboldt State is the northernmost outpost on what’s deemed California’s “hydrogen highway.” The Toyota Prius hydro-car (converted at a cost of cost $45,000) will only go 100 miles on a 2.5 kilogram tank of hydro-fuel, and there is not another fueling station within its range. (A California Fuel Cell Partnership map shows the closest stations being in Davis and Oakland.) So, Humboldt’s lone hydro-car is mostly for show: President Rollin Richmond will be among the drivers, and as a Schatz lab tech explained to Rep. Thompson, there are plans afoot to use the vehicle to take mail deliveries up to the Telonicher Marine Lab in Trinidad.

 

Daily Dose of Weird

I couldn’t tell you what it means — probably nothing — but does anyone else find it odd that mikeforsupervisor.org is hosted on the same server as the City of Arcata’s official website? They’re housemates over at 72.51.37.112, an address on Sustainable Hosting‘s air-powered server farm.

Small world.