Agreed that the Orcas Island situation needs to be much more robust. Across the wilderness and rural areas of BC and Washington State you will find analogue repeaters/translators that run for years with little maintenance, so I hope this is not a case of the DTV broadcast gear being too dainty on Mt. Constitution.

Actually there is a guy who has been on Orcas Island since KVOS signed on in the 1950s. His name is Erling and he's been there for almost 60 years now. The guy is kind of a local legend.

The problems on Orcas Island come from the fact that the electric grid is unreliable on the top of Mt. Constitution. There are a lot of surges, outages, and other problems up there that are hard on the transmitters. During the winter the road up there can be impassable. The only way to get there is via ferry or plane. Having a transmitter on Mt. Constitution is nothing like having a transmitter on Queen Anne Hill or Mt. Seymour.

I see KVOS is back up again 35.1 549pm

Is there any news on whether or not the PBS station broadcasting from the Bellingham area will ever boost their signal. I'm in Nanaimo and can "see" the signal, but it is not strong enough to get a picture.

The PBS station KBTC on K24IC-D 24 uhf (virtual 28.1,28.1) is at it full power. Its a low power translator station and had it power boosted a couple months ago and is at its max. Where I am in Nanaimo, the Westwood lake area, it is my weekest station and i saw no benifit to the boost myself. I can just, and I mean just, receive them with a roof mounted Channel Master 4228 8-bay deep fringe antenna. I know that in Harewood and the south end that stations from Bellingham are easier to get then where i live, so depending where you are less drastic meaures may work for you but it is a tough station to get here.

KBCB 77/100 green bars
KVOS 68/100 green bars
K24IC-D 57/100 yellow bars

Power outage on Orcas Island (Bellingham).

http://www.opalco.com/power-information/outages/

Just noticed a new channel 28-3 showing test pattern. Anyone know if K24IC-D is going to be adding a new channel?

There will be a new station coming on 24.3 the actual launch date is not known at this time nore is content that is the info from calling the KBTC general phone number.

Well until KBTC let's us know what they'll broadcast on 28-3, we can have fun speculating:

I paste a paragraph from their site, (I read November as in 2009) they did have Create & Docs. Uncertain what programming Docs contains, but Create certainly looks appealling to me. Hope it is Create!On November 1, KBTC began broadcasting its primary channel, 28.1 in HD. You can receive this signal free, over-the-air with your antenna and either a digital converter box or a digital tuner in your television set. KBTC will continue to offer 28.2 MHz Worldview. Due to the increased bandwidth required to broadcast an HD signal, both 28.3 Docs and 28.4 Create will no longer be broadcast from KBTC.

They have been altering the bandwith of both the stations dropping them a little bit to allow for the third one to have enough for sd on 28.2 and 28.3 that took place a couple days back also they started calling 28.2 KBTC 2 on the bottom logo.
I would imagine it will be from a PBS source.

Speculate no more...I received a reply from KBTC about their third feed:Hi,
We are looking at adding TVW on channel 28.3. We were planning to add it on December 1, but I think both stations are dealing with some technical issues.

Here's the link to TVW: http://www.tvw.org/index.cfm?bhcp=1

Thank you!!
xxx
KBTC

Hmmm... oh well, I was hoping it would be something interesting. :D It is basically the State Of Washington's own version of CPAC or CSPAN.

Well, at least it beats shopping or biblebabble.

I see 28.3 is now displaying program info that looks like the State Of Washington's stuff

I see the TVW is now on 28.3.

I was getting Channel 28.1, 28.2 and 28.3 really strongly Monday. (82 to 84%)
Last night (Tuesday) I was still getting that strong signal on the meter on my TV but absolutely nothing but a slient black screen on all three channels.
My TV on the fritz or what?:confused:

Appears to be live Seattle waterfront for now.

No KBTC here.

It appears that they are going to carry Antenna TV

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/456533-Tribune_Launching_Classic_TV_Multicast_Network.php

Another Classic TV Network

They have a power amplifier down the power for 24 will come back tonight or early tomorrow sadly it will be at 50% until a new power amp comes in.