Thousands of Americans, most living in the rural West, will lose television reception when broadcasters go all-digital because the aging signal relays they count on for programming won’t work or will be turned off.

As many as two of every five of the receivers — known as translators — that relay free TV signals to areas that can’t get them any other way will be affected, according to one expert, leaving screens dark no matter how well residents prepare their own sets for the upcoming digital transition, which is expected to occur in June.

Some parts of eastern Colorado, such as the Kit Carson County towns of Burlington, Stratton and Flagler, are already planning for their transmitters to go dark, and communities in Nevada and Wyoming are expected to do the same.

It’s unclear exactly how many people will be impacted when the nationwide transition to digital television occurs.

“I don’t really think people fully appreciate how big a problem this is going to be,” said R. Kent Parsons, vice president of the National Translator Association and regarded by the government and private sector as the leading expert in the field.

A TV translator, typically the size of a briefcase, rebroadcasts programs from full-service TV stations in bigger cities to smaller communities outside the reach of a station’s powerful transmitter.

Translators can receive signals from other translators, in effect creating a daisy-chain web of relays that allows programming to reach miles further than a TV station could do on its own. They are especially necessary in mountainous areas where TV signals fight topographic obstacles.

“There are so many areas where the people in charge of the translators don’t understand or don’t know enough to meet the transition,” Parsons said in a telephone interview from his home in Monroe, Utah. “I estimate that 40 percent of all translators, licensed and unlicensed, will go dark.”

With 4,030 licensed translators in America, according to the Federal Communications Commission, and, by Parsons’ estimate, another 2,000 operating without a license, the potential impact is huge.

Colorado is home to 375 licensed translators, second nationwide to Utah’s 578, FCC records show.

Reasons for going dark are as varied as a lack of funding or knowledge by operators to upgrade the translators so they’ll pick up the new digital signals, a lack of desire or personnel to apply for federal grants to help pay for those upgrades, and even a lack of commitment to keep the translators running at all.

“It’s going to leave a handful of us who don’t get cable or satellite or dish with nothing,” said Doris Leoffler, 55, a homemaker in Stratton near Colorado’s eastern border. “Why should we have to pay for TV? It’s like paying for radio. Why? It’s supposed to be free.”

And the bad economy isn’t helping, her husband, James Leoffler, 61, said. “This is going to be a stretch for some folks, especially on a tight income,” he said.

“The only answer I get from the county is this is what it’s going to be.”

Translators became popular in the 1960s, especially in mountainous terrain, and began to lose favor in the 1980s with the advent of cable and satellite. It’s unknown how many households are served by translators, though a number of them are owned by religious groups that transmit their own programming rather than commercial televisiong.

“The very smallest areas don’t even have the expertise to know what it’s all about. They put it off andthey’ll find out they can’t,” said Paul Burkholder, communications director of Humboldt County, Nev., where three translator associations operate near the Orgeon border. One, in Pueblo, Nev., might have to shut them off.

The nation’s switch to all-digital television affects only full-power stations, such as those that carry network programming in metropolitan areas. Under new legislation approved by Congress, stations must transition from analog to digital signals by June 12, though they can turn off analog broadcasts before then.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill extending the deadline. The previous deadline had been Feb. 17.

Translators and low-power local stations are not affected by the law, though translators, if they are to continue functioning, at the minimum must be upgraded to receive a digital signal even if they continue transmitting in analog.

That makes them similar to the converter boxes millions of Americans are required to have so that their analog TV sets can receive free digital programming via an antenna.

Like the $40 coupons the federal government is issuing for consumers to purchase converter boxes, the government offers $1,000 grants for translator upgrades. The grants cover roughly a third of the cost of providing the bare-minimum upgrades to each box. Full upgrades — to both receive and transmit in digital — cost even more.

Fewer than one of every four translators has gotten the grant, federal records show.

Kit Carson officials have opted to shut off their boxes rather than spend the extra tax money to upgrade them.

“Sure there’s some expense to residents, but I haven’t read anywhere in the Constitution that it’s the county’s obligation to give anyone free TV,” said John Nichols, 61, a former commissioner in Kit Carson County, which owns six translators that will be shut off. Nichols, a cable subscriber, backed the plan while in office.

Then there are those areas that didn’t bother to wait for the transition at all. In Wyoming, secluded outposts such as Medicine Bow, turnedoff their translators long ago because they couldn’t collect enough money from a dwindling populace to keep them running. That leftresidents with no choice other than a more expensive satellite alternative.

“We shut them down when the last guy stopped using them a few years ago,” said Don Mayfield, a former councilman in the town of 275 who helped install the three translators years ago. “But we won’t give up the licenses. You never know when you’ll need them.”

“A good number of communities really rely on them,” said Byron St. Clair, National Translator Association president and former constructor of the boxes who lives in Westminster.

In tiny Denio, Nev., at the confluence of Nevada and Oregon, about 60 households reliant on translators will likely go dark, Burkholder said.

And Lyon County on Nevada’s western border “has real issues,” Burkholder said. “They hoped the TV stations would step up to do it. That’s a real gamble.”

County officials, who did not return calls for comment, have said taxpayers should have to bear the expense of translator upgrades.

“I’d not be surprised to see that quite a few of them are shut off,” said Jim Petty, a staff engineer at the University of Wyoming and caretaker to a handful of translators in the southwest part of the state.

“They did well when there was no cable or satellite,” he said. “The 1980s and the push of satellite eroded that. It’s a common situation these days: satellites are all over.”

In Kit Carson County, officials couldn’t continue paying for a few homes to get television. Some counties still use special property tax levies to pay for upgrades, but not Kit Carson.

“The equipment we have is old, bought back in the ’70s and never upgraded,” former commissioner Nichols said. “We have other options for TV now that back then didn’t exist. Those people will just have to pay for it. We couldn’t justify the upkeep.”

Costing $27,000 a year in upkeep and perhaps $500,000 to fully upgrade all six — enough to run the Kit Carson County jail for a year — commissioners say they had little choice.

County Administrator Carol Fritz estimates about 740 of the county’s 8,011 residents relied on the translators for television service.

“All I know is the day they throw the switch is the day you’ll find out what you should have done to be ready,” said James Leoffler, who said he’s not sure what his family will do without over-the-air television.

Meanwhile, inmates at the county jail not far from the Leoffler home will be just fine.

They get cable.

David Migoya: 303-954-1506 ordmigoya@denverpost.com

TV: “Big problem” underestimated

4,030 Number of licensed translators in the U.S., according to Federal Communications Commission

2,000 Estimated number of translators operating without a license

375 Number of licensed translators operating in Colorado

$1,000 Value of federal grants available to help upgrade each translator

23 Percentage of translators for which the grants have been awarded