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The nation's first full test of the DTV transition has been 99 percent successful, says Kevin Martin, chair of the Federal Communications Commission. But he acknowledged that a few viewers lost signals and predicted that 15 percent of TV markets nationwide would see some shrinkage.

Wilmington, North Carolina has been the scene of the test. The FCC got 800 calls from unhappy viewers the first day, 400 the next day, and 1800 in all. That's less than one percent of a total market of 400,000 viewers.

One factor that emerged was a shrinkage of out-of-market coverage. The soon-to-be-gone analog signals reached farther than the new digital ones. For example, the analog signal of Wilmington's NBC affiliate got as far north as Raleigh, NC and as far south as Myrtle Beach, SC. Most viewers in these areas will be able to get NBC from affiliates closer to their homes, but a few will no longer be able to receive an NBC station at all. No more SNL for those folks. Presumably the network will not like that. Martin has ordered his engineers to identify the affected markets and "explore what steps can be taken."

DTV broadcasting's cliff effect is another problem for the 15 percent of Wilmington residents who still use analog TVs. Even with set-top boxes to adapt digital signals to analog, about a third of them will also need new antennas to get a strong enough signal into the set-top box.

See coverage from ExtremeTech and the Wall Street Journal via the Dow Jones Newswire.

Antenna poster boy: Channel Master CM2016.