Oregon Public Broadcasting

Several Northwest cities became test cases this week for the digital TV conversion. While many stations will keep their analog signals until June, broadcasters in Eugene, Medford and the Tri-Cities were among those taking the leap.

As correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports, TV stations have been fielding calls from stressed-out viewers.

On the first day of the new digital era, the engineers from Spokane’s eight stations spent 18 hours on the phone.

Bob Wyatt, the director of engineering at KSPS TV, says they took nearly 1300 calls.

Bob Wyatt: “The greatest majority of those were asking for help in setting up their converter box that they already had and/or adjusting their antenna to receive all of the digital stations.”

Wyatt says the call volume dropped off considerably after a day or so.

Five of Spokane’s stations are broadcasting exclusively in digital now.

Three Spokane stations will continue broadcasting in analog until June, as will most of the stations in Seattle, Portland and Boise, which have the highest number of viewers.