[Jeffhs]

I'm amazed too. Analog was supposed to have been outlawed, for the most part, after the DTV transition. Surprised to see a few (very few) analog stations still on the air. My cable system is Time Warner, and is said to be 100 percent digital. However, my flat screen Insignia TV still shows "NTSC" in the blue info box at the upper right corner of the screen beneath the channel number, and "ATV" in the upper left corner of the same info box, except for broadcast stations; for the latter, "ATV" is properly replaced with "DTV". Makes me wonder if Time Warner's statement that their cable systems are "100 percent digital" is one hundred percent true.

My best guess is it probably is in fact true, but to get every digital TV station the cable carries, a cable box must be used between the cable from the wall and your TV's antenna/cable connector. (I know Time Warner's systems, including the one serving my small town, are set up this way; in fact, some channels, including the TV Guide Channel, have already been moved to digital tiers.) If you connect the cable from the wall directly to the TV, all you may (probably will) get are your area's broadcast stations and maybe a few cable channels, but again, to realize the full potential of your area's cable system, a box is absolutely necessary.

Some cable systems (such as in Meridian, Mississippi, where VK member radiotvnut is located; there may be other systems in the US doing the same thing or something like it) are now requiring the use of a cable box to receive anything carried on the cable -- including broadcast stations, which are under no circumstances supposed to be scrambled or otherwise made unavailable to viewers with older, analog TVs. How Meridian's system gets away with scrambling everything, including broadcast channels, is far beyond me, unless it is trying its darnedest to get their subscribers to ditch their old CRT analog sets ASAP and replace them with modern, digital flat screens.

Bear in mind that the VHF low-band analog stations on channel 6 and 87.7 MHz (there is such a station in the Cleveland area, WLFM-FM, currently broadcasting endless loops of local pro sports teams fight songs) will eventually disappear when the FCC requires even LPTV (low-power TV) stations and translators to switch to full digital. Even the sound carriers of these stations will disappear, due to the nature of DTV signals, and reception of the station's audio on on FM radios at 87.7 MHz will no longer be possible for the same reasons.