It's great that Roger at least got a response from Global, I received no reply to my emails. Their Vancouver transmitter should have been up and running by now to serve a potential audience of over 2 million. Their excuses and delaying tactics are sad and pathetic. Hey Global, it's the 21st century!

Thanks guys for the info. I emailed them and told them that I was interested in seeing their HD 16:9 signal...and informed them that I receive a beautiful picture in HD from CBUT 2.1 and 58.1 here in Bellingham, with an antenna mounted on my garage.

Bruce

Blake...ran a scan on my tv this morning and it found 19.2, but there is absolutely no picture or sound--blank, like a place holder. It didn't find anything for 32.1 or 33.2 etc. I sent an email to ctv and was told to look in the same place you told me. I'm assuming that both CBUT and CITV have their transmitters on Mt. Seymour. Since I'm getting such a nice picture on CBUT would I be correct in assuming that CTV is using much lower power.

Thanks for you continued updates. Much appreciated.

Bruce in Bellingham

Hi Bruce, I haven't set up a Washington State thread here but if you have a look in the Reception Results sub-forum in the Delta/Surrey/etc. thread you'll see some South Surrey posts that would be fairly accurate for the Bellingham/Blaine area too:

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=36554

We'll keep the present thread for station news and I ask you to contribute your reception reports, issues, questions, etc. in that thread. You'll find answers to your station power level questions in there too.

If a few more members post about getting Vancouver/Victoria stations in WA I'll gladly make a separate thread. :)

cheers,
stampeder

The Promotions Manager emailed me saying:
Hi Blake

Your e-mail regarding an HD off-air station ad was forwarded to me.

One of the problems we face in our market was the entire shake up of the
local television world that happened back in Sept. 2001. Almost every
station in the market changed affiliation and channel number. The result
was great market confusion. We've done research and know that the amount of people who know what channel CTV is on, or at least what cable channel we're on as 90% of our viewers receive our signal this way, is way below the national average. This is why we continue to promote channel 9 in all our advertising. I know we're actually on cable 9, but no one refers to us in that manner..."I wonder what's on Cable 9 tonight?" They always refer to us as channel 9 which is why we advertise it that way.

I know there are many people like yourself out there who don't receive our
signal over cable. In fact, I watch our station on Bell Express Vu channel
250. But the amount of people who don't receive our signal on cable is not
significant enough yet for us to target them in our main advertising. I
wish I could be all things to all people, but in a market that's already
confused, it would probably just make things worse.

There are places where it would make sense to advertise our HD signal
numbers. These are places where I know I'm reaching only the viewers who
are receiving the signal of one particular source.

One day soon, with the growth of HD television sales, our marketing of
channel 9 will be irrelevant as most people will receive our signal on a
different channel number.

I hope this helps answer your questions.

American stations advertise what channels they broadcast at. For example, KCPQ-TV 13 KCPQ-DT 18. Would that be so hard to do for CIVT? CTV Vancouver Cable 9, DT 33, BEV 250. Or even a "Vancouver's Watching CTV cable 9" ad with text on the bottom with "also found on DTV 33UHF & BEV 250". People with HDTVs would appriciate knowing how to pick up HD signals.

The Promotions Manager emailed me saying:


American stations advertise what channels they broadcast at. For example, KCPQ-TV 13 KCPQ-DT 18. Would that be so hard to do for CIVT? CTV Vancouver Cable 9, DT 33, BEV 250. Or even a "Vancouver's Watching CTV cable 9" ad with text on the bottom with "also found on DTV 33UHF & BEV 250". People with HDTVs would appriciate knowing how to pick up HD signals.

What he also does not realize is people from ALL over Canada watch his channel. I have heard them call the station, 'channel 9' and I thought that is similar to Toronto. But at least in Toronto they say channel 9 cable 8!

Had an email from CTV. The reason they're operating at a lower power than CBUT is so they won't interfer with the obnoxious presence of PAX, channel 33, Seattle (Bellevue); a totally worthless waste of air-space--24 hours of preaching and info-mercials.

CTV is seeking alternate solutions, alternate channel allocation perhaps, so they'll be able to provide a more powerful signal.

Bruce in Bellingham

I think we all agree that the piddly output of CIVT-DT (CTV Vancouver on 33.1 remapped to 32.1) is silly and infuriating.

Since Bell GlobeMedia (CTV's parent) now owns CHUM Group (and therefore CKVU City TV Vancouver on channel VHF 10 NTSC) they should look into asking IC and the CRTC to take over CKVU-DT's preassigned ATSC slot on UHF 47. They could still remap to 32.1 and no present viewers would likely even notice, but with a good power boost lots of new viewers would be available.

There is a tiny Global TV repeater on 47 in Campbell River that might affect the power level, but we'd have to assume the mountains would block the Mt. Seymour signal from infringing there. On the U.S. side there are only a couple of 47s down in Seattle that have only very local contours.

Just a thought.

Jon, have you or any other DF'er given that suggestion to CIVT or CTV HQ?

I only just looked into this yesterday after a PM from levibluewa made me think about it, so I haven't yet. If you or anyone is in contact with them please pass it on.

There is an extra problem with channel 33 as well.

Previously I think we all assumed that KWPX-DT would stay on channel 32 post analogue shut off in the states. It now appears that they have elected to revert back to their analogue assignment - Channel 33 with 179 kW ERP.

http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-06-150A2.xls

I think that this would mean that CIVT cannot raise the power on 33 ever. Maybe the best bet would be switching with CKVU.

Another long term solutions may be switching back to 32 after the analogue shutdown here :rolleyes: o

One more option I thought of would be to switch assignments with CIVI-2 (analogue 17), a station which they own now. Looking in the Industry Canada assignment list it looks like a digitial assignment for CIVI-2 has not been made. Does anyone know the digital assignment for CIVI-2?

Thanks for that Ardsa - I never noticed before that the CIVI-2 repeater on Mt. Seymour doesn't have a future digital assignment, but following your idea CIVT could use CIVI-DT Victoria's alloted slot on Channel 23.

So, it looks like CTV has a couple of options now to which they already hold the rights (23, 47).

EDIT: Dang, I forgot about Global's repeater in the Fraser Valley on 23. Too bad, because I just looked in the FCC database and it seems that 23 is empty all through western Washington State. Now we're back to looking at Channel 47 I suppose.

Has CTV's PSIP changed in the last few days?

I have a Media Center computer with an ATI HDTV Wonder. (Oy could I tell you stories!) My immediate problem is that normally, running the ATI TV tuner autoscan will find 2-1 and 32-1. But recently, 32-1 has a good signal (>80%) but no picture. So, I manually enter CIVT's actual channel assignment, 33-1. Great Signal, great picture. But then, inexplicably, 32-1 automatically gets added again to my channel line up. Great signal, no picture.

Wierd hey?

Has CTV's PSIP changed in the last few days?

I have noticed a change as well. My tuner has not had a problem with it.

I noticed that the call changed from "CIVTDT" to "CIVT-DT". Perhaps they altered someother settings in their PSIP.

You can call CIVT engineering and see what they changed.

After scrolling through the CTV and OMNI Toronto threads, it appears that MCE is very picky about getting correct PSIP data.

Thanks for the confirmation. Saves me from chasing a non-existent software problem. Interesting that my ATI Tuner software assigns 33-1 to CIVT-HD not CIVT-DT as yours does.

BTW, today's heavy rain has all but blanked out reception of CIVT-HD in Lynn Valley, North Vancouver, with a Zenith Silver Sensor clone, about 5 km from Mt. Seymour

My hunch is that CTV has revisited their PSIP Data implementation in Vancouver based on the PSIP fix they just did in Toronto. I haven't tested it yet on my LG tuner.

Thanks for the confirmation. Saves me from chasing a non-existent software problem. Interesting that my ATI Tuner software assigns 33-1 to CIVT-HD not CIVT-DT as yours does.


Sorry. I am doing this from memory. The change was in fact from "CIVTHD" to "CIVT-HD".

My hunch is that CTV has revisited their PSIP Data implementation in Vancouver based on the PSIP fix they just did in Toronto. I haven't tested it yet on my LG tuner.

I noticed the change 2 or 3 days ago. I belive the Toronto changes were yesterday.

As of 13:30 Nov. 15:

With the current wind/rain storm and its gusts up to 100km/hr the CHEK transmitter on Saturna Island (VHF Channel 6) is down, as well as the KVOS (VHF Channel 12) and KBCB (UHF Channel 24 analogue and 19 digital) transmitters on Orcas Island.

CITY-Vancouver (VHF Channel 10) is still up and transmitting on Saltspring Island, and all the Mt. Seymour stations seem fine.

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=51579

hope all the west coast OTAer's rigs are doing okay. Your storm made the national news, must have been a biggie