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Few got their rabbit ears in a tizzy as local TV stations cut off their analog signals Friday for the government-mandated national switch-over to digital.

Stations expected glitches and a staggering volume of calls from irate viewers, but the change went surprisingly static-free, local station executives said.

"There has been a lot less call volume than I have anticipated, which is very relieving" said Jim Arnold, vice president and general manager of KOLD, which dropped its analog signal at 9 a.m. "We collectively busted our humps to put out as much information as possible, and it apparently worked."

Arnold said many of the calls the station did receive had to do with viewers who didn't know they needed to have their digital boxes rescan for channels when they moved their antennas.

From now on, viewers need a digital tuner to see free over-the-air TV signals. The tuner may already be in newer TV sets; if not, a converter box is needed.

Those with cable or satellite TV service are unaffected.

The change frees up analog signals for use by public-safety communications.

KGUN and KWBA were the first locally to drop their analog signals, at 12:45 a.m. Friday. The stations' vice president and general manager, Julie Brinks, said the switch went "very smoothly."

"We had done so much preparation and communication in hopes" it would turn out that way, she said, citing KGUN's multiple newscast stories about the transition and how to prepare for it.

Brinks said most of the calls to her office were from viewers wondering how to rescan the channels or which way to point their antennas. Brinks recommends pointing antennas toward Mount Lemmon for the best reception.

Dave Kerrigan of KVOA, which halted its analog signal at 11 a.m., said his station also had no trouble.

"There have been relatively few calls," he said. "We thought maybe there might be a lot of calls, but apparently more people were ready for this than we had anticipated."

The Nielsen Co. estimated that about 3.1 million U.S. homes were unprepared for digital signals, particularly homes of the poor and elderly.

Adina Wingate, spokesperson for the Pima Council on Aging, said the organization had fielded tons of calls from confused TV watchers over the past year, but those calls had trailed off. Wingate said the organization started a campaign more than a year ago to educate people about the switch, circulating newspapers and fliers, as well as partnering with Arizona Public Media to get the word out.

"Very early on we did recognize a lot of people would be possibly confused by the technological piece of it, on one hand, but also frankly would be unable to afford the cost of the converter box," Wingate said. "People might be living on such extremely limited fixed resources that this will still be an issue for them."

Donald Kret, a 73-year-old retired labor union official who lives in Sahuarita and volunteers at the Pima Council on Aging, said the stereotype that the elderly would have problems with the changeover is inaccurate. Everyone he hangs out with has cable TV or satellite, and most of his friends are Internet-savvy.

"I'm surprised at how computer-friendly people I know are and how many are on the Internet and things like that," he said. "People became more aware of what was out there and saw the necessity of learning how to do it."

Charles Plotkin, 77, bought a digital converter box from Best Buy but had trouble hooking it up. A member of the electronics store's Geek Squad technical support crew came to his house to hook it up for free on Thursday.

"It's working perfectly," he said. "I called Best Buy, and they sent over a very good, very responsible person who was very knowledgeable. I couldn't be happier."