Relics of the past

As most people are now painfully aware (how many Circuit City and Best Buy inserts does it take to get the message out to middle America?), on February 17, 2009, all full-power broadcast television stations in the United States will stop broadcasting on analog airwaves and begin broadcasting only in digital.

One thing that hasn’t really been discussed, however, is what will happen to all of those rooftop antennas that dot the urban horizon. While most have been long forgotten since cable rolled into the mainstream, some people still depend on an antenna to get their fuzzy back-to-back episodes of Mama’s Family. The FCC claims that you’ll be able to hook your new government-subsidized digital converter up to the same antennas, but don’t most older antennas only work for the first dozen or so stations? I had one on a house I rented in DC (which shocked me twice, and shorted out an old TV, but thats another story) and I don’t think I ever got one station with a clear enough picture. 

Either way, I wonder how long rooftop antennas will be a common sight across NYC. If only there was a way to hack together a city-wide wifi network using these antennas as repeating stations…