HDTV

[Randy Mays]

For Texas Station, HDTV Means Hospital-Disturbing Television
Source: Wall Street Journal (B1)
<http://wsj.com/>
Author: Evan Ramstad
Issue: HDTV

Description: Last Friday afternoon, WFAA-TV became the nation's first TV

station to begin permanent operation of a digital transmitter, venturing

into the new world of high-definition broadcasting. But just after the
transmission began, some of the 60 wireless heart monitors at Baylor
University Medical Center stopped sending data to nurses' stations. By
late Friday night, they thought they had the problem solved. But on
Saturday, the interference started all over again. It turns out that the

unlicensed, low-power transmitters in Baylor's heart monitors use
portions
of the radio spectrum equivalent to TV channels 7 and 9. Steve Juett,
the
senior clinical engineer at the hospital, called the station before it
turned its digital transmitter back on. WFAA sent 10 engineers to
evaluate
and hasn't transmitted a digital signal since. Though the disruptions
didn't lead to any harm, WFAA says it will wait until the hospital's new

system is working before resuming its digital broadcasts.