As the transition day neared, there has been plenty of information and help available to consumers. TV stations, government agencies, advocacy groups and electronics stores posted public service messages, set up DTV hot lines, hosted information sessions at libraries and offered free converter box installation.
Mostly, it worked. Nielsen, the TV ratings agency, estimated that 11.5 percent of the total - some 127,000 Baltimore-area households - were entirely reliant on over-the-air broadcast signals. Another 14 percent had some TVs hooked up to cable, satellite systems or converters, but other sets still relying on over-the-air analog signals.
But barely 8,000 households (less than three-quarters of 1 percent of the total) were thought to have gone down to the wire unprepared for the switch - fewer than typically lose electrical service in the Baltimore area during a thunderstorm.
Many of those may be among the poor, non-English speakers and elderly. Some were baffled by all the techno-talk and might have given up in frustration.
"We heard from several seniors who said, 'I'm just not going to watch TV; I'll do without,' " said Laura Riley, division chief for individual and family services at the Baltimore County Department of Aging.
"That's a concern," she said. For many elderly residents, TV is a companion, "their link to the outside world, how they get information about weather and events."
"When you're alone like me, that's my partner," Patricia Bruchalski, 82, said about her TV.
Bruchalski, a pianist and former opera singer in Brooklyn Park, received assistance Thursday from Anne Arundel County's Department of Aging and Disabilities and a community organization, Partners in Care. After her converter was installed, Bruchalski marveled that broadcasts seemed clearer and gave her more channels - about 15 instead of the three she was used to.
"You're going to be up all night watching TV now," volunteer installer Rick Ebling told her.
Baltimore County's Department of Aging also has been helping vulnerable seniors with the conversion. "We heard from people who were confused about the coupons. ... We would go online and order [the coupons] for them," Riley said. Some also received help installing the devices.
But once the converters were properly installed, many seniors called to complain that they had lost a channel. That happens as local channels drop their analog transmissions, as they did Friday.
