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Eligible households may continue to apply or re-apply for TV converter box coupons. Applications for coupons are accepted online, by phone at 1-888-388-2009 (1-888-DTV-2009), by mail and by fax. Mailed applications must be post-marked no later than July 31, 2009. Online, phone and fax applications must be submitted by 12 midnight Eastern Time on July 31. It typically takes nine business days to process and mail coupons. Consumers who have applied for coupons, but not yet received them, may check the status of their request on www.DTV2009.gov by selecting Check Your Application Status.

To signify the end of analog broadcast, KLRU aired the station sign-off one last time:

Tonight, one minute after midnight, KLRU will cease analog transmission. Our chief engineer David Kuipers has the honor of ending the analog signal and as a tribute to the station’s history he will air KLRU’s original sign-off.

Before stations were broadcasting around the clock they were required to “sign off” before ending the broadcast day. These were often patriotic images put to the music of the Star Spangled Banner. The KLRN/KLRU sign-off is no exception and it will be a trip down memory lane for many of our staff. David will air the sign-off on its original 2” tape, eschewing our fancy digital technology one last time.

DirecTV viewers,
Many of you have written KLRU wondering why you can’t watch KLRU in HD. For now DirecTV is downconverting our HD signal to provide KLRU on their system. This step was taken recently so they could continue to provide our channel after the impending demise of analog. They do not, yet, have the technical infrastructure in place to provide our signal in HD. They are working through the top 50 markets, transitioning each one to HD, and have not done the Austin market yet. When asked about the time frame for our transition and they could not give a specific date.

Building on the widespread acclaim of African American Lives (2006) and Oprah’s Roots (2007), African American Lives 2 journeys deep into the African-American experience to reveal the triumphs and tragedies within the family histories of an all-new group of remarkable participants. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. returns as series host, guiding genealogical investigations. Part one of African American Lives 2 airs Sunday, Feb. 8, at 4 p.m.; Part two airs Sunday, Feb. 22, at 4 p.m.

In conjunction with the rebroadcast of this series, KLRU’s Michael Emery will be blogging about his own genealogical experiences. Here is part one of his journey.

My dear mother kept several photograph albums that spanned decades of family relations. Always the patient parent, she would sit with me and my siblings in order to explain what the many pictures were about and who was being therein pictured. This was better than her reading us storybooks, because these were not made-up: these were real events and real people, frequently my own relatives. And so it went for me as a boy, my attraction to genealogy began as photos of my family and oral histories. (more…)

The move from analog to digital broadcasting will take place on February 17. Do you know if your television is ready for the transition?

DTV Answers Day will be January 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. throughout Central Texas. Experts from all local television stations will be out in the community answering questions and giving demonstrations about the digital television transition.

KLRU will be at the Nimitz Museum Community Room in Fredericksburg, 340 East Main St. Other Austin television stations will be at the following locations:

Taylor Public Library 801 Vance St.

Lantex Theatre in Llano 113 W Main St.

LCRA Riverside Conference Center in Bastrop  1405 Willow St.

Bee Cave Library in the Hill Country Galleria 4000 Galleria Parkway

Univision Studios Austin 2233 W. North Loop Blvd.

This weekend, KLRU viewers will get a chance to check to see if their homes are ready for the DTV transition. At about 5:58 on Saturday (just before Lawrence Welk) we will be doing a special two minute DTV check. People who are watching KLRU’s digital signal will receive video saying their TV is fine. Those who are watching on the analog signal will get video saying that they are not ready for the transition.

Please tell people you know about this opportunity to make sure their TV is ready for the 2/17/2009 conversion to digital broadcasting. We’ll be doing at least one more test in the future. For more details about the transition call KLRU’s DTV hotline at 232-2471 or go to klru.org/dtv