"Robert Hovland" wrote in message
...

Does anyone know the latest info about what is going to happen to the FM
band when the FCC forces all of the VHF television stations to give up
their broadcast band and switch to the new freqency allocations for
digital TV?

No, they don't have to switch to new channels. They have a choice of using
the DTV on either of their channels. I'd imagine that many would choose
their VHF channel if DTV turns out to work well there.

As you may or may not know, the FM band is located in between
channels 6 and 7,

As are hundreds of other services.

I would be surprised if the FCC would
leave the FM band alone when the TV stations get out.

I see no connection what-so-ever between the TV switch to digital and any
effect on the FM band or any other services between 88 and 174 MHz. It
isn't as though FM stations were given a second frequency and have to choose
between it and their current one.

They want to
auction these soon-to-be-obsolete TV channel frequencies off to the
highest bidder.

Right.

The consequences I think of when I consider the moving of the FM band are
monstrous: what about all of the car radios, portable FM radios and
walkmen, and collector hifi FM tuners that will suddenly become unusable
without maybe some kind of adaptor which may or may not work very well?

I'd say that there is 0.00000000000001 % chance that the FM band would be
moved. Where would it be moved to? TV was already allocated the UHF
channels where much of DTV is located. Anyhow, some DTV stations are
already on VHF, including channel 2. There is no other FM band for the
stations to move to.

I would like to get comments from others who know more about this proposed
change and when it is to occur.

Who said there was a proposed change for FM? I think you are making this up
from whole cloth.

TV is allocated a HUGE bandwidth. Modern receivers allow much closer
spacing on UHF. The FCC is chosing to reclaim and sell some of this wasted
bandwidth as part of the DTV situation. There is no parallel in FM.