In a couple months, the US is going to switch from analog to digital tv. So what are we going to do with all of that equipment? Not you and me (our tv sets..) I’m talkig about all of the broadcasting equipment at the stations. There must be at least a couple stations in each town in this country, yet all of that equipment is about to be made obsolete…

There was a fella that became rather infamous in NC years ago. It was around the late 80′s-early 90′s. India and China had just begun to get connected and manual labor was headed their way at a mile a minute. NC was home to a ton of textile and milling industry and was hit hard. Real hard. But this one guy saw an opportunity. He thought that even if the region no longer had use for the factory, because NC could not compete with India’s labor cost, that the factory might still produce. Sooo, he went in and bought the factory. The entire thing. He numbered each piece…each machie and packed it all up on great big ships. When it reached the shores of India, he unpacked it and reassembled it, by number. He bought the factory from a seller that needed to sell and sold it to a willing and able buyer. Pretty clever. Despite making a small fortune, I believe he got a bad rap in the local papers for being a robber baron and and buying the factories at fire sale prices and the reselling for a handsome profit, but that is all lore at this point.

Fast forward 20 years…What are they going to do with all of the analog tv equipment? God only knows how many analog tv’s have been prpduced since they were invented in the 60′s and folks are going to great lengths to keep them out of landfills…they still work (and their inards are toxic, but that is another ball of wax)

Why not go to the local US stations, nationwide, and buy up the equipment (cheap) and sell it (cheap) to the local governments of Africa, India, Indonesia,etc. where they have no TV at all. The equipment might not be HD and it might not support TIVO, but who cares. It works. It works just fine and everyone wins.