With its vote of support Tuesday for Maine Public Broadcasting Corp.’s $9.4 million digital-conversion bond issue, this state has joined the nationwide march toward new television technology.

By an odd yet timely coincidence, The New York Times reported Monday that nearly half of the nation’s 1,600 television stations, led by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, are asking the Federal Communications Commission to remap the parade route, to revise the transmission standards. If handled correctly now, a change would be a fairly minor adjustment for broadcasters. If not, it could impose an major burden upon consumers.

Sinclair, which owns more stations than any other company in the country (59, including the former Gannett stations in Maine), conducted digital-TV reception tests in and around Baltimore last summer. The tests compared the real-world performance of the modulation standard adopted three years ago by the FCC, called 8-VSB, with the DVB-T standard being employed in Europe.

While 8-VSB delivered the promised lifelike pictures and CD-quality sound in most situations when roof-top antennas were used, it performed miserably with indoor antennas and was highly susceptible to interference from buildings, passing cars, even hands waved in front of the set. DVB-T, on the other hand, sparkled — even with the little ribbon antennas TV maufacturers throw in the box as an afterthought.

This, of course, could have enormous consequences for consumers, like the difference between shelling out $400 for an antenna with a mast and a rotor or just hooking up the freebie that came with the set. It could have an even greater impact upon one of the main selling points for this digital conversion — the mobility over-the-air digital transmissions can provide. With 8-VSB, you may be able to sit under a shade tree and connect your laptop to the Internet. You just might have to lug around an antenna the size of a beach umbrella to do so.

Sinclair is not saying 8-VSB should be scrapped. In fact, it concedes the current standard has some advantages, such as lower power consumption for broadcasters and, in some situations, better data transmission rates and higher resistence to interference from other appliances. What Sinclair is saying, now echoed by 750 other stations, is that the FCC should allow both standards to co-exist, conduct additional tests and give the technologies time to be further refined.

This wouldn’t be the first time two competing technologies have developed side-by-side. It’s like the days when consumers had a choice between Betamax and VHS, eight-track or cassette — one technology proves better and prevails. It’s like today, with Mac or PC — each technology has its place, depending upon the needs of the user.

There is one huge difference, though. The federal government never regulated home video or taped music. Nor does it care what computer platform you use. The federal government does regulate the airwaves — it claims ownership, in fact — and it has an obligation to see that they are used for the public’s benefit.

Public benefit has been the missing element of this entire digital conversion and it’s time it was added. The consumer electronics industry and the major broadcasters convinced Congress that this conversion had to be mandated and put on a strict timetable — that’s what the MPBC bond referendum was all about. FCC officials say they’re intrigued by the Sinclair tests, but they have yet to agree to a closer look. Congress must insist upon it.

Only about 100 stations have made the conversion to digital, all using the 8-VSB system. If DVB-T proves to be the better standard, those stations will have to spend about $50,000 to replace part of their hardware. That’s a small part — about one one-hundredth, actually — of the total conversion cost. Only a few thousand digital 8-VSB TV’s have been sold (at $4,000 and up). They will need some new circuitry to work with DVB-T.

It’s an expense, but a small fraction of the $16 billion that will be spent by TV stations on the conversion (MPBC will spend more than $20 million building the five stations it needs to cover the entire state). It’s an even smaller fraction of the hundreds of billions consumers will spend on either expensive digital TVs or on the $100 converter boxes they’ll need to use their existing sets. The least Congress and the FCC can do is to try to save the American public a few hundred bucks each on antennas.