Requiem for Rabbit Ears

The era of analog TV is scheduled to end forever on Feb. 17. Are you ready to say goodbye?

Takaharu Yoshizawa / Getty

Change is coming to America. You can't see it or touch it, and it may not be compatible with your existing hardware, but it's change you can believe in. On Feb. 17, the Digital Transition and Public Safety Act of 2005 is scheduled to go into effect, and one of the great technological monuments of this country, one that has endured for 68 years, will be rendered obsolete. I speak, of course, of the analog television signal.

Feb. 17 is the date of what people are calling the great digital switchover--or sometimes, kind of poetically, the "analog sunset." On that date,...

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