I may have mentioned it before, but I am a springer. No, not a fan of Jerry, but I was born in late March and Spring is my favorite season. Mother Nature’s annual rebirth. I have been looking for signs for several weeks now.

The birds have been active and singing daily, if not ever so gaily and I have been watching the green shoots of the Daffodils push through the layers of leaves and mulch, waiting for that first yellow bloom to burst open. I spotted my first bloom yesterday, March 8th.

Spring is sprung?

Being a nice sunny, warm day, I went to Snoopy’s yesterday for a hot dog combo to eat outside at the station. While I was waiting for order number 50 to be announce through the window, order number 51 was sneezing his head off. I smiled and said something about it being the season for sneezin’ and we chatted about how our allergies had gotten worse with age. After calling my number I took my food back to the station and sat at the picnic table to eat. I have a method of securing the bag, wrappings, napkins and catchup packages from blowing away in the early March breeze by overlapping heavier items onto the lighter wax paper, and holding things down as I take a bite. There is a method to my madness, and it works well to keep things from blowing out to the street and preventing a possible fine for littering.

March is a busy month for me, and since I am taking my birthday week off, I have to squeeze a lot of things into three weeks. Daylight Saving Time approaches, and all the annoyances of time change has to be ready for the big event. I usually find the back-up master clock’s power supply is dead, review the cryptic programming on the master clock, and determine how many devices have to be manually changed. There’s also the matter of the Shop clutter that needs a good old fashioned Spring cleaning since I can’t find anything in the clutter.

I did review what I was doing last March by reading my blog posts, and found I was on the road a lot checking for signal issues in Chatham, Durham and Orange Counties. The cellular companies were test firing their Mobile TV transmitters on channel 55, which our pre-transition digital signal was on and was knocking us out in those areas during the test times. Adding in the normal seasonal changes in the atmosphere, and trees popping leaves blocking the signals and it was quite an adventure.

This year, we’ll know exactly how much the trees are affecting the digital signals as there will be no other distracting elements in the air. This will be our first test of a pure broadcast spectrum. You should expect to re-tune your antennas. It may be a slight move, or a more drastic move where you have to add wire on the antenna and move it to another area entirely. It’s a good time to install an outdoor antenna while cleaning the gutters, or inspecting and replacing damaged cables and splitters in the system. Make sure everything is clean, rust free, and tight. The cold weather has a tendency to loosen connectors, allow water into the connections, and so on. Don’t overlook the obvious or insignificant pieces! Every little thing can add up to trouble for the signals.

Oh yeah, and March 15- beware your friends if your name is Julius Caesar!