If you are still climbing a ladder to adjust your rooftop TV antennae or leaving the couch to reposition those "rabbit ears," your TV will go dark in another year.

To stay tuned with your current equipment, you'll have to get a digital converter to dumb-down the signal for your low-tech TV.

Otherwise all channels will be full of "snow" and white noise.

Luckily, free $40 coupons, two per household, are now available from the federal government to help you defray the $50 to $70 cost of a converter. Converters will be available from electronics retailers and other merchants.

Beginning Feb. 18, 2009, analog TV signals makes way for digital TV (DTV) signals. Congress ordered the transition to digital broadcasting to make more efficient use of the publicly owned airwaves.

You do have some other options in addition to the digital-to-analog converter, which, again, is only necessary to get the digital signal over-the-air via an antennae to your analog TV.

• You will not need the converter if you own a digital TV, even if you get over-the-air antennae signals. The digital TV converts the signal with it's built-in digital tuner.

• You will not need the converter if you subscribe to a cable or satellite service, even if you have an analog TV. Your service converts the signal for you.

• The transition does not require you to buy a high definition TV (HDTV), unless you want to take advantage of a high definition video image.

• The transition is from analog to digital, which only requires that your TV has a digital tuner, your service provides digital tuning or that you get a converter for over-the-air digital reception.

• Digital TVs that are not HDTV are priced comparable with the newest analog TVs.

• You can watch HDTV programming with a digital TV, with a digital service or with a digital converter, you just won't get the full HDTV image quality.

Since March 2007, all TV reception devices -- including video cassette recorders (VCRs) and digital video players and recorders (DVRs) -- must be clearly marked as analog, digital or HDTV.

Also, analog products must be displayed with or near a consumer alert label that designates it as analog, while disclosing what is necessary to use it with the digital signal.

The coupons for digital converters are offered, along with more information, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration -- http://www.dtv2009.gov.

You can also call the 24-hour federal hotline at 1-888-DTV-2009 (1-888-388-2009) to sign up for the $40 coupons and to get more information.

Another federal website, the Federal Trade Commission's "Countdown To DTV Transition" -- http://www.dtv2009.gov" also offers digital conversion information.

Published: January 24, 2008

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home. The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service specializing in residential real estate, consumer news and related editorial consulting services. The DeadlineNews Group includes the website, DeadlineNews.com, offering real estate editorial content and consulting services, and its back shop, the Deadline Newsroom, an open house on news that really hits home. Perkins obtained his formal journalism education from University of Delaware and a journalism boot camp, the Institute of Journalism Education at the University of California-Berkeley. He went on to 20 years of service as a daily newspaper journalist at the Wilmington, DE News Journal and San Jose, CA Mercury News. Perkins covered housing on the San Jose Mercury News reporting team which earned a General News Reporting Pulitzer Prize in 1989 for coverage of the Loma Prieta earthquake. He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications. In addition to managing the DeadlineNews Group, Perkins most recently served as chief editorial consultant for Nolo's Essential Guide To Buying Your First Home, Nolo, and writes real estate television scripts for RealtyTimes.com.