At 09:26 AM 1/7/2009, w3kd@aol.com wrote:

Jim, my take on the DTV conversion is that Martin is looking an impending disaster in the face, and he and the other Commissioners are making a lot of public displays now (just a bit late, eh?) to try to look like they are doing everything they can to try to make this work. They pressed us into service as volunteers, but now they have just released a list of groups that they are giving lots of money to (including AARP) to disseminate information about the DTV conversion to people who are going to have trouble with this: elderly and low-income people especially, who might be expected to have over the air TV and who will need converters.

Lots of money is right... less than six weeks to go and now they're giving money. Guess we sold ourselves too cheaply! AARP gets $2.7m.... PinTech gets $2.8m ... looks like much of the money will go to setting up call centers. <http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-287750A1.doc> and this week the FCC ran out of money for the $40 certificates to help fund the conversion boxes... -- Tom ===== e-mail: k1ki@arrl.org ARRL New England Division Director http://www.arrl.org/ Tom Frenaye, K1KI, P O Box J, West Suffield CT 06093 Phone: 860-668-5444