Rabbit Ears.(The Talk of the Town)(Antenna King owner Henry Langan)(Interview)

The handoff of the White House seemed like a piece of cake next to America's transition from analog to digital TV signal. With the White House, you switch residents but get a lot of the same stuff: podiums, helicopters, tour groups. With the switch that is officially taking place in television transmitters around the country starting this week, you could wind up with frame skipping, frozen screens, or, worse, nothing (as in snow). Bill Beam, the engineer in charge of the signal that WABC-TV sends off the Empire State Building, said recently, "We don't know how it's all going to wind up." In the months leading up to the switchover, the city's anxious cable- and dish-less citizens have been turning for answers to the Antenna King.

Lately, the Antenna King himself--a.k.a. Henry Langan--has not been in residence at the Antenna King headquarters, in the shadow of the Gowanus Expressway. Once, he ruled the rooftops of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx, places where today there are still a few hundred thousand people using old-style antennas to watch "Dancing with the Stars." (The relatively wide-open vistas of the outer boroughs make them antenna-friendly; Manhattan, by comparison, is practically terra incognita to the Antenna King, save for a few satellite dishes.) Steven Langan, Henry's son, is in charge now. "I'm the Prince," Steven said the other day, at the Antenna King showroom.

"I'm afraid about the changeover, to be honest with you, because there's such confusion," he said. Calls from worried customers have been coming in, some looking for special digital antennas, which do not exist, some wondering if they should finally make the switch to cable, which the Antenna King can't help them with, or to satellite dish, which the Antenna King can.

Estimates of the number of viewers not prepared for the transition vary, but broadcasters have been worried that more people have been shifting from cable to antenna, owing to the economy. "These network guys are panicked because if the signal goes their ratings could go," the Prince said, seated on a couch in the showroom, which contained a twenty-seven-inch TV playing a cartoon and getting so-so reception; a bunch of metal antenna poles; a space heater; and a busted display case. He explained that if you have cable or a satellite dish nothing will change for you. If you have an antenna (and a converter box), you will either get a picture or you won't, depending on how clear the path is between your antenna and the Empire State Building, but if you do get the signal you will get the best picture of your TV-watching life. "But some people using ...