Anyone else besides me got a bad feeling about this?
Two stations owned by the same BDU ie: Rogers just disappears?
Sure hope i'm wrong.

I don't have a bad feeling about 2 Rogers stations disappear.

See, 42.1 is extremely important for 40% or 45% of population in Lower Mainland, as those people are watching programming in Punjabi and Cantonese on this channel. I don't think Rogers will lose such important chunk of political and commercial pie. This would've been a poor judgment, as "visual minorities" in Lower Mainland will reach 51-52% by the year 2017, according to Statistics Canada. Vocabulary of the "Newspeak" will have to be changed then, I suppose, but at this point it becomes an offtopic to this forum.

I think alm's right - there's no way Rogers would let those stations go toes-up just like that. Couldn't it just be a key component failure that they haven't been able to replace, with their engineers being too busy fixing it to take phone calls?

I'm not thinking they shut down completely, just the digital broadcast.
I'm sure most of their viewership is cable, digital or otherwise.
I hope I'm wrong.

I'm quite certain that Rogers would not have gone to all the expense and trouble to outfit those stations for DTV and then pulled the plug on them in such a wishy-washy manner. Those stations are still broadcasting, just with a serious glitch in their data streams: OTA Station Status: Vancouver, Victoria (http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?t=107971)

So if they had intended to drop them they would have shut down the whole systems rather than leaving those transmitters running, wasting all that energy. Also, by regulation they would have had to inform Industry Canada and the CRTC beforehand of any change to the status of those stations. Nothing like that has happened. :)

Would Rogers be entitled to making those channels BDU only?
Is the problem we are having affecting their local BDU channels?
ie:Shaw's versions of CKVU-DT and CHNM-DT
Loosing out on Hells Kitchen and the 1:00pm NFL game really bites.

Would Rogers be entitled to making those channels BDU only?
Probably; however I agree with Stampeder that shutting down OTA has to be announced officially first.

Would Rogers be entitled to making those channels BDU only?

Although it might be possible, it would result in some undesirable consequences (loss of simultaneous substitution and priority carriage on cable). Both Rogers and Shaw are very strong supporters of OTA (for reasons I have listed before) so it is very unlikely they would want to do this.

Today:Application by Rogers Broadcasting Limited to amend the broadcasting licence of the conventional television programming undertaking CJMT-TV Toronto, Ontario.
The licensee proposes to add a new digital transmitter in London to broadcast the programming of CJMT-DT.
The new transmitter would operate on channel 20 with an average effective radiated power (ERP) of 10,600 watts (maximum ERP of 14,000 watts with an effective height of antenna above average terrain of 197.6 metres).
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-759.htm

One interesting note in the application:

the proposed contours for the digital transmitter are significantly larger than the existing analog coverage of CJMT-TV-1 London. Under our proposal, the population count within the Regional Service Contour (Grade B) will increase by approximately 43%. We believe that this increase will address the restricted coverage issue when the transmitter was first approved in 2003.

They go on to explain that the original analog transmitter was under powered due to interference issues, but they are now able to increase the power in DTV to approximately match the coverage of CFMT-DT-1.

Does that, or will that interfere with CBC out of TO on RF20? I mean, there is worry that WNGS RF7 will interfere with a non operational RF7 transmitter out of Kitchener (or surrounding area), so I don't quite understand how this would be allowed?

It also says (on page 8 of main application) that the analogue will cease operation on August 31st, 2011. Also an interesting bits of information are the cost of the transmitter ($500000) and the yearly lease on the tower ($40000).

Also, they seem to be the first to provide any real details of how they'll inform viewers about the transition:

Two months prior to the shut down of our analog transmitters, Rogers proposes to broadcast PSAs during peak viewing periods, including during our third-language newscasts, advising OTA viewers of the date analog transmission will cease. These PSAs will also advise viewers of the steps they will need to take in order to continue to receive our station over-the-air. OMNI will air these PSAs in a variety of different languages in order to ensure our viewers are well-informed of our plans. We will also post details of the transition on our websites.

Further to Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2010-485 (Issues related to the digital television transition) we will also actively participate in the national consumer education program.

Main application? Where can i find the main application. It seems to be lost in cloud.

Plus the ERP was lower from the 25kW. (-11kW). Since, I have not seem any DTV conversion ads. It looks like that Rogers will upgrade to digital next year.

One last thing, how can a signal with 25kW ERP can complete with a signal that has an ERP of 500kW?

Read ya l8r,
Al

Main application? Where can i find the main application. It seems to be lost in cloud.

Click the application number and takes you here (http://www.crtc.gc.ca/public/broad/applications/2010/2010-1404-2.zip). Within the linked zip there are a bunch of files, one of which is the main application.

@Emerald_Boar: Please see this message in another thread for an excellent explanation of why ERP for DTV can be so much lower than for analog TV but still produce acceptable reception.
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=1158387

I'm glad to see CJMT-DT in London will have a larger coverage area than the analog transmitter. I live less than 2 kilometres from the transmitter and the picture quality is usually poor, compared with the other transmitters on the Byron tower. It'll be like going from a candle to a halogen light.

Not sure when this changed... but I noticed that Woodstock 31 CITY-DT-2 is now AU (ie. Authorized By Industry Canada And May or May Not Yet Be Operational).

Finally another DTV channel is getting closer to switch over to digital broadcasting in the London area!

What RF will CITY use to test on? They where assigned ch 51 to test on. But CHCH is using 51 for its analog. And TVO was given 51 to test DTV from Toronto.

I guess CITY could use ch 47 to test on. (ch 47 was for OMNI1 to test on).
(ch 48 was for OMNI2 test on.) I can see OMNI1 48 use 48 for its broadcast during transition. But I can not see CITY testing on 47 or another RF.

Just one point about the CJMT proposal is that they will "hard/flash cut". But first they would give 2 months notice before doing so. I have yet to see anything on CJMT about DTV. I would assume that if CITY does "hard/flash cut" they would give us 2 months notice as well.

Read ya l8r,
Al

What RF will CITY use to test on? They where assigned ch 51 to test on. But CHCH is using 51 for its analog. And TVO was given 51 to test DTV from Toronto.

I guess CITY could use ch 47 to test on. (ch 47 was for OMNI1 to test on).
(ch 48 was for OMNI2 test on.) I can see OMNI1 48 use 48 for its broadcast during transition. But I can not see CITY testing on 47 or another RF.

Just one point about the CJMT proposal is that they will "hard/flash cut". But first they would give 2 months notice before doing so. I have yet to see anything on CJMT about DTV. I would assume that if CITY does "hard/flash cut" they would give us 2 months notice as well.

Read ya l8r,
Al
When you say "test" I think you mean "operate a transitional digital facility".

If they're authorized for channel 31, it will be a flash cut from analog to digital, with no transitional period. (They may still wish to 'test' on 31 during some overnight periods, but that would involve not transmitting on ch 31 analog at the same time.)