The DTV transition in metro Washington, D.C. inadvertently caused more than a few viewers including myself to lose access to ABC affiliate WJLA/7 & CBS affiliate WUSA/9 on Friday.
The problem occurred because at the same 12 p.m. time that 7 & 9's analog signals were switched off, their digital signals moved from the UHF to the VHF television band. Few people had DTV antenna setups that adequately picked up VHF signals since all the area digital signals until that point had been UHF. The result for many is that even after repeated rescan attempts, both WJLA and WUSA had receptions too weak to be accessed.
For what it's worth, I did jerry-rig a way to get both stations by having the two ends of my indoor VHF antenna literally lean against a room window, then rescanning. Of course, that is an inartful solution that's probably unique to my own household setup.
______________________Labels: television, washington d.c. area, wjla, wusa
