Very few people might have noticed it, but it was blue screen for those watching their television using the traditional way with TV antenna to watch Doordarshan (DD). When asked for the reason, it was known that the Doordarshan Kerndra, Trivandrum have stopped the transmission of the analog mode of terrestial transmission of DD National and DD News channels. The analogue transmitter for DDK, Trivandrum was switched off on the night of February 28, 2018, thus bringing an end to the era of free-to-air analogue terrestrial TV transmission.
The days we spent turning the antenna pole to get the best signal is now just a memory. Those 20 ft long big pole antennas were later replaced by smaller internal antennas and now, even that is history.
Options available now to get Doordarshan:
1. DTT (DVB-T2) Set Top Box to be used with Indoor/Outdoor antenna for regular TV sets
2. Integrated digital TV set (iDTV) with a built-in set-top box or DVB-T2 tuner
3. DVB-T2 Dongles for OTG enabled smartphones, tablets or laptops which can be used with the ‘TV-on-Go’ app, available on Google Play
4. DD Free Dish (earlier DD Direct+), Doordarshan’s multi-channel Free-To-Air Direct to Home (DTH) service
5. Regular cable TV connection
6. Regular DTH connection
