Dozens of states set for analog TV shutoff test Wednesday

If your TV screen goes blank Wednesday afternoon, don't panic—it's only a test.

Wednesday will mark the largest analog TV shutoff drill in the U.S. so far, according to Broadcast & Cable (by way of Engadget HD), with 29 states and the District of Columbia set to participate.

Here's a list (warning: PDF link) of all the stations set to participate; note that the list includes past and future tests as well, so make sure to check the date (12/17/08, in this case). It looks like most of the tests will take place between 6 and 8pm local time, with each test lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to five minutes.

Wednesday's exercise will simulate what'll happen on February 17, 2009, when U.S. TV stations shut off their analog broadcasts for good and go all-digital.

If you have a newer digital TV, or if you're an analog TV owner who subscribes to cable or satellite, you won't notice anything unusual during Wednesday's test.

But if you have and analog TV and you get your TV signals over the air, you'll get a rude surprise when the drill hits: static, along with a crawl with information on how to get a DTV converter box. (Hint: Try DTV2009.gov, where you can find retailers who sell the $50-$60 boxes, as well as applications for $40 government coupons—you can request two per household).

Wednesday won't mark the nation's first analog shutoff dry run—several TV stations have conducted their own "soft" tests in the past several months—but it'll be by far the largest.

Back in September, residents of Wilmington, N.C. became DTV-transition guinea pigs after the town's "big four" stations shut down analog broadcasts five months early, just to see what would happen.

As it turned out, only a handful of viewers were caught without a DTV converter box, but many had trouble with their antennas (which, in some cases, were either too weak or misaligned; check out AntennaWeb.org for help), while others didn't realize they had to tune into a different channel (e.g.: 6.1 instead of 6).

Related:
Biggest Analog Cut-Off Test Shaping Up For Dec. 17 [Broadcast & Cable, via Engadget HD]
Reader mail: Do I need a new HDTV before the DTV deadline? [Yahoo! Tech]
A few more things you should know about the DTV transition [Yahoo! Tech]