The digital TV era dawns at noon today in Wilmington, N.C., when a small galaxy of national, state and local government officials and broadcast executives gather at Thalian Hall in the city’s historic downtown district to mark the end of commercial analog TV in an early test-run of the federally mandated nationwide switch in February.

Lips were tightly zipped Sunday about exactly what will happen during the ceremony.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, a North Carolina native, and FCC Commissioner Michael Copps will headline the federal contingent. National Association of Broadcasters President and CEO David Rehr will be there as well.

Hank Price, the president and general manager of Hearst-Argyle NBC affiliate in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the president of the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters will emcee the two-hour event.

Most everyone at the event has a lot riding on the technical switch going smoothly. Any disruptions of local viewing may provide a road map of what lies ahead for the country as a whole.

For the six months since Wilmington was selected as the test market, the residents of the 197,760 homes in the five-county designated market area, the 135th largest in the country, have been bombarded by information–written, spoken and broadcast—about the switch.

The devil has been in the details for the general public, which has been given information on who would need to buy what kind of equipment in order to not lose their free over-the-air broadcast signal. That has included messages on how to get $40 worth of federal help toward buying the set-top box that will convert digital signals into old-fashioned analog signals that can prolong the usefulness of old analog TV sets.

A totally anecdotal, random and unscientific survey conducted by asking cab drivers, shop keepers and innkeepers encountered on a humid and hot Sunday afternoon in Wilmington, the response was uniform: “I’m ready. I’ve got cable.”

Of course, these are not the elderly, house-bound, poor or otherwise vulnerable communities everyone knows will be most affected by the switch in this Southeastern corner of North Carolina.

The Wilmington market dodged what could have been a devastating bullet when Hurricane Hanna produced high, but tolerable winds, brief and scattered power outages and some minor flooding on Friday before heading up the East Coast.

Perhaps it’s an omen.

Remain up-to-date on the latest news of the digital switch right here at TVWeek's DTV Switch Navigator.