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GREENSBORO —  Some Triad residents were caught unprepared for the nationwide switch to digital television broadcasting Friday.

While the overall number of affected viewers was small, they made their voices heard.

Jolene Massie, the receptionist at WXII (NBC, Channel 12), said the station fielded more than 60 calls Thursday and Friday morning alone.

“Right now, they’re panicking,” she said. “A lot of people, they’re not ready.”

WXII turned off its analog signal at midnight. Massie said engineers will work from 8:30

a.m. to 5:30 p.m. today, usually a day off, to help viewers through the transition.

Stations turned off their analog signals to comply with the federal government’s DTV mandate extended in February.

Any set hooked up to cable or a satellite dish is unaffected by the change, but about 17 million U.S. households rely on antennae.

Viewers who received free over-the-air programming with analog televisions or outdoor antennae had three options: buy and connect a digital converter box to an analog TV, buy a TV with a built-in digital tuner, or subscribe to a paid service such as cable or satellite TV.

As of 8 p.m. Friday, students in Elon University’s School of Communications had logged about 1,400 callers to its DTV transition call center. 

Connie Book, associate dean of the communications department, is commanding the call center. Calls have been steady but not overwhelming, she said in a statement.

“We’re finding that some folks had their DTV converter boxes but never installed them,” Book said. “And some things just are not resolvable with the switch.”

Elon University hosted the statewide call center in cooperation with the N.C. Association of Broadcasters.

The Commerce Department reported a last-minute rush for the $40 converter box coupons: It received 319,990 requests Thursday, nearly four times the daily average for the past month. In all, the government has mailed coupons for almost 60 million converter boxes. The limit is two coupons per household.

It takes nine business days for a coupon to reach the mailbox.

Federal Communications Commission spokesman Mark Wigfield said that by 2 p.m. Friday, the agency had received 122,389 calls, nearly four times as many as on Thursday, the busiest day so far.

The shutdown was originally scheduled for Feb. 17, but the government’s fund for converter box coupons ran out of money in early January, prompting the incoming Obama administration to push for a delay. The converter box program got additional funding in the national stimulus package.

Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com