How did you do in the switch to digital TV?

Since I signed up for Comcast last year, I wasn’t affected by change from analog signals to digital TV or DTV on June 12.

However, I have an old TV set. The Comcast technician hooked me up through my DVD player because my TV didn’t have the right plug ins. I’m not able to watch DVDs now, so I need to call about how to get that fixed.

I may need to buy a new TV set.

The switch to digital TV on Friday went off without any major hitches, the Federal Communications Commission reported in the article “Switch to Digital Television (DTV) Went Remarkably Well” on GovCentral.com.

More than 900 full-power TV stations shut down their analog signals on Friday, and they now broadcast only digital signals.

The analog shutdown affected 20 million TV households in the U.S. that received signals over the air, not via cable or satellite.

Acting Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Copps described the handling of the transition as a major success for the government, which has been planning the switch for more than a decade.

“For TV broadcasting, it was a final farewell to the Dinosaur Age and the dawn of the Digital Age,” Copps said in a prepared statement.

However, ConsumerAffairs.com said millions of taxpayers fumed as the 60-year era of high-powered, free, over-the-air television faded abruptly to black or, in some cases, broke up into tiny digital fractals.

The commission received nearly 800,000 calls from citizens complaining they had lost their free TV signals as the nation’s TV broadcasters switched to digital transmission on a different set of frequencies than those that have been in use since the early days of commercial television.

The largest volume of calls per TV household among markets registering 1,000 or more calls came from the Chicago media market, followed by the Dallas-Fort Worth, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore markets.

While the focus has been on the analog-to-digital transition, the change in frequency bands is a more significant contributor to the problem, according to ConsumerAffairs.com. Hundreds of broadcasters had to move because the federal government auctioned off the frequencies formerly used by VHF broadcasters for several billion dollars a few years ago.

The new frequency band assigned to TV broadcasters doesn’t have the power the old one did. Therefore, those in the far reaches of suburbia are suddenly finding they can’t get a decent signal.

Many close-in urban dwellers have for years been able to get by with a set of “rabbit ears,” inside antennas that can pull in a strong local signal. But the new frequencies don’t penetrate buildings as well as the old ones, so the rabbit ears no longer “hear” anything.

Even though D-Day for DTV has occurred, the government still is offering two $40 coupons per household for converter boxes. But you have to act fast because the coupon program is ending on July 31.

For more information you can contact the FCC’s hotline: 888-CALL-FCC.