The countdown to analogue TV switch-off continues. If this was a Hollywood disaster movie I'd be saying something like: "T-minus nine hours." There, I've said it anyway.
11.15pm update
Follow the countdown to analogue switch-off here.
5.30pm
Out of a sense of duty to you, the reader, I will be watching BBC2 until the early hours of tomorrow when the first analogue signal is due to be switched off at 2am. Why not join me here to see if it all goes to plan? Not in my hotel room, obviously - that would be impractical - but on this blog.
What else are you going to be doing? Sleeping?
My Whitehaven hotel has Sky, which is no use whatsoever. Fortunately I have brought my trusty analogue indoor aerial with me, so I don't need to miss a single second of action! Which is exactly what it is going to be - a single second.
Still, you never know, they might hit the wrong button and stick on Nuts TV instead. Find out here at 2am!
To recap, the BBC2 analogue signal is being switched off tomorrow - a shot across analogue viewers' bows, as it were - with the rest of the analogue signal being shut down in four weeks' time.
The bandwidth freed up by BBC2 will be filled by a selection of BBC digital terrestrial channels, including BBC3, BBC News 24 and CBBC as well as BBC1 and BBC2. It will be the first time Whitehaven residents have been able to receive Freeview, denied to them previously because of limited spectrum availability.
The other Freeview channels, including BBC4, ITV2 and E4, will be available to Whitehaven viewers when the other analogue channels are shut down on November 14.
During the four-week interim, ITV1 will move to button two on people's remote controls, again because of spectrum scarcity. A recipe for confusion? Possibly.
Whitehaven viewers will also find out tomorrow if the signal from their aerial is strong enough to support digital terrestrial TV. A recipe for more confusion? Probably.
Digital UK, the body responsible for overseeing switchover, has spent months preparing Whitehaven residents for the analogue switch off. But the really hard work begins tomorrow.
The same two-stage process will be followed across the country before the switchover process is complete in 2012.
Digit Al, the animated character which fronts Digital UK's publicity campaign, cuts quite a youthful figure. He might look a little more wrinkled in five years' time.
