Wilmington, N.C., is the nation's 135^th largest TV market with nearly 180,000 homes. Of those, about 15,000 are said to rely exclusively on off-air reception for TV.

As of yesterday afternoon, around 1,500 people had called the FCC or the market's TV stations or cable system in reaction to the market's switch from analog to digital TV service on Monday at noon. Most were not happy.

Some of the callers were unaware of the switch or simply did not prepare for it, despite the extensive awareness and educational campaign by the FCC, NAB and the local broadcasters. Others couldn't figure out their A-to-D converter boxes or get their antennas to work right.

The switch, involving four network affiliated TV stations and a religious station, is meant as an experiment so that the FCC and broadcasters can figure out what to expect on Feb. 17, 2009, when the other 209 TV markets are slated by law to make the leap to digital and plan accordingly.

In the middle of it all this week was Dan Ullmer, chief engineer of Raycom's WECT and Southeastern Media's WSFX, the NBC and Fox affiliates, respectively.

WECT fielded more calls than other broadcasters in the market—around 150—because Monday marked a major shift in its coverage.

WECT's analog signal pushes northward, well into the adjacent Raleigh market. But its digital signal, which emanates from a different tower, is designed to give better coverage of Wilmington at the expense of Raleigh viewers.

So, on Monday, many Raleigh viewers could no longer receive the WECT programming.

In this interview recorded yesterday with TVNewsday, Ullmer says it it's still too early to deem the Wilmington experiment a success or failure, but shares some early lessons learned and offers some hard-earned advice.

An edited transcript:

What is the tone of the phone calls you're receiving?

They range across the board. Some people are just politely asking for help. Others are angry because they think this is a right. They had it before and they don't have it now and they think this is some kind of government plot to take away their television. It's amazing what people think.

We've had a few very positive e-mails. But you don't hear very much from the people who were successful, that got things done. You only hear from the people who have failed.

So what's you're takeaway two days after you switched off the analog service?

It's surprising that even though we had a very expensive education campaign — there were really very few people who weren't aware of it — many people did not pull out their converter boxes or resolve their reception issues until the actual switch took place.

My perception is that even though we had such an extensive education effort and even though we have tried to reach out to the viewers in so many ways in so many events there is a large sector of the population that doesn't do anything until the disaster hits. It's the same attitude we find when a hurricane strikes.

Certain people say, "It's coming. I'll deal with it when it gets here." Then, it gets here and they're not ready and they get mad because they weren't prepared.

Well, procrastination is not peculiar to North Carolina.

TV is different. People seem to think of it as a right. They've forgotten that TV is just a technology and you have to master that technology to take advantage of it. We changed that technology and they needed to do something to make it work.

Generally speaking, was the trouble with the converter boxes or the antennas?

Both. One thing people don't understand is that tuning an antenna in a home is not an exact science. You have hot spots and null spots inside your home. You have to play with the antenna — move it and adjust it — to find the sweet spot or you have to put up an outdoor antenna.

If the home is along the perimeter of our signal, we are dealing with people that don't have an antenna that is good enough and should have upgraded to an outdoor antenna or replaced their outdoor antenna.

Closer in toward the transmitter site, people have trouble because they don't have antennas in the right places or they don't have the right antennas.

I've experienced this many times when I'm out doing demonstrations. There are certain points inside buildings where you have a null point and you can't get anything. But if you move just five feet away, you can get pick things up just fine.

In the early days of television, it wasn't unusual for people to move their TV around the living room until they found a place where the rabbit ears would work. I think that we've forgotten that with digital. It's not quite as obvious. With digital, you either have a perfect picture or nothing. With analog, you could see if the picture was snowy and you could see if got better or worse as you moved the set and the antenna.

In markets where the transmission sites are widely separated, that's going to be a frustration. I think the education effort for each market is going to have to be a little different, depending on the terrain. It's going to be really important that the message gets tailored and explained in layman's language. The engineers and the marketing people at each station have to get involved in delivering the message in a clear and understandable way.

How are you following up on the 150 calls that came into your station?

The big effort now is the outreach — to reach every one of these viewers who are having problems and talk them through or get them the white paper to guide people.

The most important tool is the signal strength indicator. We tell them how to use that indicator to find the best location for their antenna or the best antenna for their location.

Is it just you involved in the outreach?

No. It was just me and my staff, but we couldn't keep up. So, we've hired some people through a local church who had been trained and had been working with people prior to the cut-off.

What else have you learned in the past couple of days?

We learned something else when Tropical Storm Hanna came through here just before the switch. The 8-VSB standard does not like motion in the transmitting or receiving antennas.

So if you have an outdoor yagi antenna and you have high winds, the signal may break up. I've had a couple of viewers send me e-mails: The storm comes through and I lose my signal. What's going on with that?

We also found that here at the station. So, we are going to have to change that antenna. I am going to put in a much studier antenna or a panel antenna. Winegard makes a nice plastic panel that is no bigger than a satellite dish that will not flex in the wind.

All these antenna problems sound rather discouraging.

I'm a lot more pragmatic because I'm an engineer. It's a little bit like when we switched from typewriters to computers. The computers brought with them all kinds of new issues and problems. But once we mastered that technology and we see all the great things you can do with computers, nobody wants to go back to the typewriters.

So, on the one hand, it's absolutely true: digital TV is really frustrating for a lot of people. But, on the other hand, the picture is so much better and there are so many new services and things that can be done with it that in the long haul it will be well justified.

What do you think the Wilmington experience means for other broadcasters in other markets?

What a disaster we are going to have if everybody waits to Feb. 17 and broadcasters aren't allowed to keep their analog transmitters on to signal people what is happening as we have been able to do. Every phone line and store is going to be flooded with last-minute buyers trying to get this taken care of. [Editor's note: None of the stations actually ceased analog broadcasting in Wilmington. They merely replaced their regular programming with a slide telling viewers about the DTV transition and how to get help.]

When the government was considering the 17^th for the switch, broadcasters should have been more proactive in staggering the cut offs so it would occur sooner in some markets.

A lot of viewers waited to the last minute. Some broadcasters are just as bad because they are not going to do this any sooner than they have to.

Others have proposed allowing at least one station in each market to continue broadcasting in analog so that viewers would see an informational slide rather than just snow.

I think that is a very good idea. There are different ways to do it. Either switch to digital before the 17^th or maybe leave some analog transmitters up after the 17^th.

Any other advice for broadcasters in other markets?

I'm thinking that the soft tests have to be a lot longer and done during some more highly rated programming. We did two soft tests here, one for a minute and one for five minutes. I still don't think the message got through to a lot of people.

So, in terms of getting the word out and educating the public, how would you characterize the Wilmington effort at this point?

It it still a little premature to say whether it was a success of failure or what the real problems are. There is more information to come in and analysis to do.