San Angelo Standard-Times from San Angelo, Texas • 5

gosanangelocom San Angelo Standard-Times Saturday February 14 2009 A5 CONTINUED FROM PAGE A1 7 7 i on the stations to increase awareness about the analog Shutoff Stovall aMThc mff sages began airing Tuesday The KSAN and KLST viewing area comprises 11 counties Tom Green Sutton Ster-ling Schleicher Menard McCulloch Kinible Irion Ctock-ett Concho and Coke Mission Broadcasting owns KSAN and has an operating agreement with Nexstar Broadcasting Group which owns KLST and runs the station Mission Broadcasting is paying fbr KSAN digital transition and Nexstar is paying for KLST Charles Sherrill chief engineer with KIDY said everything has gone smoothly with the station digital transition KIDYacquiredadigital transmitter in 2003 and has been broadcasting at some capacity in both formats ever since "We just saw that there were man people ready than notrSherrillsaid Combined KIDY and KXVA-TV the Fox affiliate in Abilene cover a 27-county area Sherrill said The stations are owned by Bayou City Broadcasting There's still a lot of confti-sion with setting up the converter Sherrill said Oscar Rodriguez vice president of the Texas Association of Broadcasters said an estimated 53110 households in San Angelo watch television and of those about 3010 use TV Continued from A1 The federal government Is not requiring krarower stations such aKTXE-TV(Chan-nel 38) to twitch to digital That station iia rebroadcast ofthe Abilene ABC affiliate KTXS-TVThe Abilene station plane to keep KTXE said evening anchor Wayne McCormick KSAN the NBCaffillate already is operating in digital at foil power in all of the station coverage areas Stovall said KLSTistxansmittingadigttal signal that allows the station to broadcast in digital in San Angelo and cover about 75 percent of the viewing area think that you can watch KSANk digital signal and see how clear and crisp the picture said KLST theCBS affiliate is set to complete the conversion by Feb 25 weather depending Stovall said The analog antenna on top of the tower in Eda must be removed and replaced with a new digital antenna Once that is In places it will be hooked up to the new full-power digital transmitter KSAN tower is set up near Robert Lee KSAN and KLST are required by the Federal Communications Commission to air written messages antennas only As of last week 324 households in San Angelo are on the waiting list foragovemment coupon toward a converter box There'S stillagroup of people who are not yet Rodriguez said The converter boxes are available at large electronic retailers he said Rodriguez said research suggests a 98 percent awareness rate in the country about the switch to DTV but that a disparity still exists in the number of people doing what needs tobedonetobenadyfor the switch of people rely on TV for news and their connection to the outside Rodriguez said The problem now Rodriguez said is that the government coupon program has some flaws in the way it is structured The program does not have the authority to issue mare coupons until coupons that have already beat distributed expire Also coupons are sent as third-class mail and cannot be downloaded to a computer Rodriguez said Anew provision will allow people to reapply for expired coupons but funding for that is tied to the stimulus package Rodriguez said Congress deliberately made the DTV transition delay optional because members were aware of the costs stations would incur for the delay Ro driguez said An additional four months ofbroadcasting in analog will cost the typical station about' $100)00 morejust in electricity bills Rodriguez said "It's an expensive proposition and the government'll not offering assistance" he said This is atatime when stations are being killed Rodriguez said many companies nationwide are pulling broadcast advertisingbecause of the economic downturn Mark Wigfield spokesman for the FCC said about 38 percent of the L788 broadcast stations in the country will go ahead with their Originally planned DTV transition The FCC required all broadcast stations switching to DTV to air 120 announcements the week before the transition to make sure viewers knew of the change Wigfield said the FCC will advise stations against switching early if the agency thinks it will have an adverse affect onalocal market but the decision is still up to the stations Conditions that constitute an adverse affect include all local stations planning an early switch a large estimate of households that are not prepared and large populations speakers Families will now have until July 31 to apply for a converts1 box coupon Wigfield said (- sity It is a good time to open thick trees to allow better sunlight penetration Over time limbs tend to drift downward Raising branch height or eliminating low limbs is helpfkl and usually Improves light intensity as well as views Avoid excessively removing low limbs and inside branches that result in trees being skinned to heaven A good rule of thumb is not to remove a total of more than one-third ofthe top branches during any one pruning sea son Perennial flowering plants such as yellow bells salvia plumbago lantana and many more should be pruned and readied for spring Cutting tops back to live wood or shearing green tops by as much as two-thirds in the case of our popular autumn sage salvias should be completed soon Fertilizers are to be used after growth appears and the plant indicates that roots are absorbing water and buds and new shoots are ac TIMING Continued from A1 as much as one-third of live wood and branches will create a ratio of more roots to shoots and encourage rapid compensatory growth This is a way we stimulate rapid recovery in drought-affected plants Those who are trying to grow grass in limited sunlight should take a look at tree shape and branch den tive For most of our plants including lawn grasses we will wait one to two weeks after green leaves appear before applying fertilizer Applying fertilizer too early unless timed release formulations are used is ineffective costly and wasteftd Spring will come when it is ready We Just need to be ready for spring! 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