Converter or not, you could be without signal

If you get local stations through an antenna and haven’t already converted to digital signals, you will lose almost all television on midnight Friday.

Even if you have converted you may have problems, because digital signals and analog signals can have different strengths and coverage areas; it’s not uncommon for people who have watched a station with analog to be unable to receive it with digital. (This reporter, for example, only gets two stations consistently today, compared to a half-dozen before digital.)

For information about what to do in any of these situations, the best bet is the federal government’s Digital TV Web site, www.dtv.gov. At this site you can get a coupon to subsidize $40 of the purchase price of a digital converter box.

And if the whole thing seems like too much effort, Comcast is happy to step in: Sensing a marketing moment, the region’s dominant cable-TV company is offering same-day hookup for new customers who call by noon, and next-day hookup for those who call after noon, even on weekends.

The offer was set to expire today, but Comcast has pushed it back another week to June 21.

– David Brooks