In 2008, the Federal Communications Commission realized that there were still some issues to work out with the digital television transition. America was the first non-European nation to plan the switch, and the FCC decided that it would be helpful to test the results in a small city before the actual switch date. The city chosen was Wilmington, North Carolina.Why Wilmington? One advantage was that the digital channel positions in the area would not change after transition. In addition, Wilmington had no hills that might cause reception problems, and the stations all had UHF channels. Thus, on September 8, 2008, every Wilmington station except one broadcast its last analog signal. The UNC-TV/PBS station WUNJ continued its analog broadcasts, since it was responsible for emergency notifications in the city.The PreparationThe decision to make Wilmington the testing point did not come out of nowhere. Residents were informed many months in advance through public service announcements, community town hall meetings, and local news stories. 93 of Wilmington residents were unaffected by the transition, meaning only 7 had to actually purchase a converter. Those 7, however, were responsible for more than 1,800 calls to the FCC, and the commission realized this number would be even greater in larger regions. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only problem that the FCC and residents encountered.The ResultsFCC officials discovered that many residents who had already installed converters were still losing channels. Most of these were broadcasters who were switching to UHF from low-level VHF channels, such as WECTNBC 6 Wilmington, which reached Myrtle Beach before the transition, but not after. The station’s loss was only alleviated by the fact that a new digital-only NBC affiliate had come on-air in Myrtle Beach in the previous weeks. Thanks to this realization, the FCC called for distributed transmission systems to be constructed in order to serve areas that would lose coverage after the transition. Americans should thank the good people of Wilmington for being the test subjects for the digital transition, and for helping to ease the national transition.