Best Buy Employee Erik Jensen says, "Anybody who's currently having any type of cable, high definition stuff, digital already or like a satellite system has absolutely nothing to worry about."

While new TV's have a built in digital tuner, the age of your TV doesn't matter.

Jensen says, "If you have an old TV set, an old black and white, if you have it hooked up to cable or satellite, at this point in time there'll be no change." According to KDLT Chief Engineer Don Sturzenbecher, the station has invested $2 million in the conversion so far and estimates it will spend at least 3 million more.

Sioux Falls is currently getting a digital signal. The Mitchell area is next this summer.

Beginning New Year's Day, the government will take requests for $40 coupons that can be applied toward the digital converter box.

According to dtvfacts.com, the boxes will cost $60. With that coupon, it is expected to set consumers back $20.

The coupons go out to customers February 17th, exactly one year from the switch.

Each household will be able to request up to two $40 coupons for the converter boxes.

Those in the market for a digital converter box will be able to buy them coming up in 2008 at thousands of stores nationwide.

At kdlt.com we have a chart that shows how to make sure you have a signal depending on your TV and how you get that signal now.

By Stacy Steinhagen KDLT-TV Dec. 27

The federal government says TV stations must switch over to all digital signals in February 2009. When that happens, traditional television sets will turn to snow, unless viewers get a converter box to read the new type of signal.

The converter boxes will cost around $75. The government is offering $40 coupons to help people make the switch.

Eight large consumer electronics sellers will take the coupons. They include: Best Buy Circuit City Kmart Radio Shack Sam's Club Sears Target Wal-mart

The government will start distributing the coupons in Febuary 2008, one year before the switchover.

WTHR-TV updated 4:13 a.m. MT, Wed., Dec. 12, 2007

Learn more about how to get a coupon for the converter box

Learn more about the switchover

Behind the placid pictures, a made-for-TV storm is looming.

Since the first days of television, the method of beaming pictures into our living rooms hasn’t changed much. But on Feb. 17, 2009, television stations across the country will hit the off button on this time-tested technology and switch to new transmitters, sending computerized digital signals through the air.

When the change comes, the estimated 30 million televisions that use traditional antennas will go to snow without a digital converter box. The cable industry is spending $200 million to educate customers, and Congress has set aside $1.5 billion to help subsidize the purchase of converter boxes.

Still, half of American viewers don’t know the storm is coming, according to a poll conducted last month by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing. For the 1 in 5 American households that still use rabbit ears or antennas on the roof, “the day of reckoning is coming,” said Barry Umansky, a communications professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

Not enough spectrum for all those signals The switch to all-digital television, and a similar switch in the wireless communications industry, is partly a repercussion of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when police and fire communications channels were clogged by too much traffic. The Federal Communications Commission first ordered the eventual transition in 1996, but Congress didn’t set a deadline until the the 9/11 Commission reported that first-responder systems needed a major upgrade.

The problem, said Umansky, a longtime broadcast industry lawyer, is that “America’s seemingly wide-open skies are chock full of radio signals, and there just aren’t enough frequencies for all the people who need to use them.”

By taking back the analog frequencies, the government will “allow the nation’s airwaves to be used by firefighters, police and other first responders to help the nation when there might be a natural or manmade disaster,” said Todd Sedmak, communications director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

By Rich Van Wyk and Alex Johnson NBC News and MSNBC updated 7:39 a.m. MT, Mon., Dec. 31, 2007