The Federal Communications Commission announced that the Wilmington North Carolina DTV Transition is set for Monday, September 8, at 12 noon.  Wilmington stations will be the first to fully switch to digital signals, in preparation for the transition that will take place nationwide early next year.

The Wilmington test will include over 180,000 households, not exactly a large market, but enough to make sure the transition can and will go smoothly. The Federal Communications Commission first unveiled plans for Wilmington testing this spring, saying it would give both consumers and broadcasters the chance to better understand the transition.

The idea of starting a test period prior to the actual transition set for February 2009 belongs to Commissioner Michael Corps, who said earlier in March that “the experience will help (them) spot issues that (they) need to address elsewhere in the country before next February.”

The Federal Communications Commission chose Wilmington as one of the test markets due to the fact that all the commercial stations there have already completed the construction of the DTV channels and can now operate on full post-transition power.

Despite the fact that earlier this year, a report released by The Nielsen Company revealed that almost 13 million households were not prepared for the digital transition, it appears that at least in Wilmington, people are aware of it.

“It’s been a grassroots initiative – everything from going to blueberry festivals to Fourth of July celebrations to Rotary clubs and civic affairs clubs,” Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo told Bloomberg. “You’d have to be living under a rock, or not watching TV, to not know about it.”