OTA Station Status: SW Ontario, Lk. Erie, Lk. Huron

[Betamax]

Free up the frequency to make Verizon happy

And unhappy, because it forced WLPC-LP off the air.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLPC-LP

[ScaryBob]

And unhappy, because it forced WLPC-LP off the air.

LOL. I guess Verizon trumps Jesus in Windsor/Detroit.

[abnutcracker]

IIRC, the idea was switching to 26 but staying on analog until the conversion deadline.

Ah ,so a media campaign to fool the public ,as most were caught expecting to be fully digital .I guess they now have people wandering as the true message was hidden . Wait till Aug 2011.

http://atv.ca/london/promo/windsorchange/index.html

Should have noticed that 60 was removed ,but 16 remained was the clue of the intent .

http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show....php?p=1142167

[stampeder]

Originally Posted by abnutcracker

a media campaign to fool the public

All it says in that ad is that they're changing OTA channels. No harm, no foul, IMHO, but given the close time frame to the DTV conversion it would have been nice had they clarified that it was not (yet?) a DTV transition.

[Phil81]

Like others have pointed out.../A\ (CHWI TV-60) in downtown Windsor is NOW using 26 analog. What most may not know is that this change has *SEVERELY* crippled..., even eliminated previous reception of Cleveland's WVIZ PBS (RF 26) here! Had no trouble picking up WVIZ essentially 24/7 before this. It had been one of the better Cleveland stations for digital strengh all the way across Lake Erie since moving to WKYC's tower. No other available PBS station within OTA reach carries the PBS World sub channel either. The end of an era for many Essex county Canadian WVIZ viewers.
Damn you CTVgm! I am beyond pissed because of your latest POOR channel decision.

CHWI-TV60 was originally going with digital 25 (in the IC DB) for post transitional use, but abruptly flip flopped and applied for 26 until the transition and now they want to sit on CH 26 FOREVER? Why? They should be on 25 after Aug 31, 2011 only. CTVgm are shooting themselves in the foot here. Using CH 26 freq for analog or digital is not a good plan. I live 26.3 miles southeast of CHWI-TV60 (26), and see a WORSE picture than what the suprisingly clear CH 60 analog broadcast looked like. WVIZ-DT is definitely adding digital snow to it. To top that off, Cleveland area stations can become *significantly* enhanced (outside of a tropo events) for long durations late in the day due to Lake Erie ducting around here. This happens especially on warmer spring/summer/fall afternoons and evenings. At these times CH 26 in Windsor will likely be hammered plenty by WVIZ-DT. I also wouldn't be surprised if even Windsorites watching on the E or SE side of the city might see a slightly degraded CH 26 picture at times because of this.

Still, why did CTV outright abandon CH 25 plans so abruptly? They chose CH 25 long ago and that's where they would be best suited to operate IMO. The previous WLPC-TV26 low power station just 1 mile away right across the Detroit river didn't ever interfere with WVIZ-DT here before, so CHWI-TV60 CH 26 shouldn't either. (But it does!)

In took comparison readings of signal strength/quality of WVIZ here before and after CHWI started on CH 26. WVIZ-DT had registered 7-8 out of 10 bars on my TV and ~65% signal strength and 100% quality on the Centronics ZAT502 ATSC tuner box in the last few weeks straight. Now WVIZ-DT is either 1 out of 10 bars with non stop dropouts or just gone completely, and the ZAT502 ATSC box cannot decode the signal either. It's signal bar displays a low 50's fluctuating sig strength (RF voltage?) and the sig quality (SNR?) is near zero percent. Some light ducting or atmospheric enhancement at one point yesterday (Mon) made WVIZ decodable again (TV=5-6/10 and ZAT502=~62% sig 100% qual) and gave CHWI the boot for a while, but now CHWI NTSC is back on 26 and even visible through the snow with the antennas pointing at Cleveland.

WTF. This is turning into a MESS.

Picking up digital TV here 'between major markets land' is fast becoming more and more impossible with the gradual loss of stations that folks in this region had no trouble picking up before. All the US/Canadian stations sharing the same frequencies 120 mi or less apart is more than just annoying. I feel for those people that spent a small fortune putting up towers and going with three antennas combined together, each pointed at one of the three U.S markets instead of using a rotor+one antenna. I have seen more and more of these setups around here lately. The co-channel must be killing their reception of some channels completely now.

ScaryBob is probably right...Verizon wireless probably did push CTVgm along with a $nudge$ into shutting down old CH 60 early so they could grab their spectrum in the Detroit Metro area months before our digital transition played itself out. Wonder why there have been zero complaints about CBLFT CH 68 in Sarnia?
What was so 'BAD' with CH 25? TVO CICO-TV32 won't be utilizing 25 at all. Flash cutting on 32 instead. How is it that no one realized there is a 150kW full power PBS station just 90-95 miles southeast of Windsor? Even dispite WVIZ's directional null to the north, there was still plenty of signal for reliable decoding here where I am well inland from lake Erie. (~4 miles)

Common CTVgm, for the sake of your viewers, make sure CHWI-DT in downtown Windsor ENDS UP ON DIGITAL 25 (YOUR ORIGINAL INDUSTRY CANADA ALLOTMENT). That channel was the best choice. As far as I can see, nobody is using CH 25 for up to 150 miles in every direction (list of CH25's from Trip's site).

abnutcracker mentions expectations.. I'm sure there were many improperly informed people in Windsor who saw or heard this 'Big Announcement' message on the news or in the local paper and thought that this finally meant /A\ was converting to digital TV. I can just wonder how many of those people simply abandoned the station once and for all when they discovered the same old garbage analog signal as before.
I found it funny that the local PSA on /A\ and the CTVgm owned radio stations in this area said "...where you can still watch /A\ news and all your favourite /A\ programs, just change the channel to 26..." Really, how many even watch CHWI outside of 6pm when all the exact same programming is shown at the same time in HD OTA from Detroit? I would love to see daily viewer numbers outside of the local /A\ newscast.


--
Just for the hell of it, here's a ever growing list of U.S digitals at my location that have been lost/ruined due to co-channel where all were decodable without problems before.

1. WQHS-DT RF34 Univision Cleveland has ZERO chance because of local station CFTV-TV CH34 analog. (2006-present)
2. WUAB-DT RF28 MyTV Cleveland comes and goes at times because of WFUM-DT/now WCMZ-DT. (mostly outside of Wintertime)
3. WJW-DT RF8 FOX Cleveland lost basically most of the time because of WUDT-DT RF8 new Daystar low power in Detroit. (Apr. 2010-present)
4. WNWO-DT RF49 NBC Toledo frequently obliterated because of new WDLI-DT RF49 TBN huge ERP giant now. (mid Nov. 2010-present)
5. WVIZ-DT RF26 PBS Cleveland lost because of CHWI-TV60 RF 26 *analog*. (Jan 8,2011-present)
...a guess at which one might be next.
6. WPXD-DT RF50 (not on air yet) ION Television in Detroit lost frequently because of WEAO-DT PBS RF50 Akron, OH.

WEAO, along with WVPX 23 (and now WDLI 49) do tend to come in often like stated in the second paragraph of this post.
Wish WPXD-DT had gotten RF 19 at 1 MW ERP like they wanted. That signal would make it through the wind farm turbine blades better than high UHF50.

[alebowgm]

For me, RF 26 has been better reception than RF 60 and I can see Vic Park Place from my balcony... I went from sometimes having an unuseable picture to thus far having a clear/slightly snowy picture. But I do feel your pain Phil81. I wish they would find ways to not have co-channel interference.

[Phil81]

WNWO (Nbc) doubled their ERP from 59kW->118kW as of early this morning. They ran a crawl at the beginning of the Tonight Show last night saying that they were going to go off the air for transmitter maintenance between 1235-5am. Signal is indeed stronger than before, but only by a hair given the same very directional antenna they use. We get only a couple more kilowatts across the lake in this direction with this change.
(TV now shows ~1 bar higher than usual and another tuner shows 2-4% higher signal strength power today consistently)
This is the CP that has been completed. (-CP-)

Also, WTVG (Abc) applied this week to slightly increase their ERP on the same channel,antenna and HAAT they use now. [14.6kW->16.7kW]
Here is the application. https://licensing.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/ws...&fac_num=74150

Every little bit helps I guess.

[ImHooked]

*Phil81

Sorry to read about the OTA disaster in the making down there. I guess there should be more 'Does this work' in the field and less 'This should work' in Ottawa and Washington. I hope things get sorted out.

re: GeorgeMx post #420

With the big freeze after the big thaw at the beginning of the year, my rotator froze up tighter than the skin on a wiener. I managed to finally break it free tonight. I checked if channel 56 was available here where I live by the airport here in London. I can get a grainy B/W but I also have OMNI channel 69 interfering with it. About an equal grainy B/W. Is one a harmonic of the other I wonder? Anyway, after 69 is vacated, there may be a bit of hope.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by ImHooked

Sorry to read about the OTA disaster in the making down there. I guess there should be more 'Does this work' in the field and less 'This should work' in Ottawa and Washington. I hope things get sorted out.

Unfortunately signal protection rights get lost when you cross the boarder, so even if Phil81 was within the protected contour of WVIZ (not sure if he is), since he is in Canada, there is no protection. If CHWI were to interfere with WVIZ for someone in the US and within its protected contour, that would be a different story however.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by GeorgeMx

If the channel 56 signal is receivable then the DT on 29 might be available to some London area OTA viewers too.

The problem is, CBLN-TV-1 is a repeater, so CBC will shut it down without transitioning it (at least not yet). If anything, CBLN-DT in London will likely go on air before CBLN-DT-1.

[GeorgeMx]

Originally Posted by roger1818

The problem is, CBLN-TV-1 is a repeater, so CBC will shut it down without transitioning it (at least not yet). If anything, CBLN-DT in London will likely go on air before CBLN-DT-1.

I don't follow your logic. CBLN-TV-1 operates on channel 56 so it has to be shutdown after August 31, 2011 because of potential interference into the US. I don't think the fact that CBLN-TV-1 is classed as a repeater makes any difference because the transmitter serves the highly populated area of Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge. It makes sense to transition from analog 56 to digital 29 in one step to meet the August deadline. CBLN London operates analog on channel 40 so it could stay on-air if Industry Canada and the CRTC allow it and CBC is prepared to accept interference from digital transmitters on channel 40.

[GeorgeMx]

Originally Posted by Phil81

...
WTF. This is turning into a MESS.

Picking up digital TV here 'between major markets land' is fast becoming more and more impossible with the gradual loss of stations that folks in this region had no trouble picking up before. All the US/Canadian stations sharing the same frequencies 120 mi or less apart is more than just annoying. I feel for those people that spent a small fortune putting up towers and going with three antennas combined together, each pointed at one of the three U.S markets instead of using a rotor+one antenna. I have seen more and more of these setups around here lately. The co-channel must be killing their reception of some channels completely now.
...

The objective of a good frequency plan is providing service for each station within the defined market area using just enough power to deliver reliable service. All frequency plans reuse channels so areas of interference are inevitable. The FCC and Industry Canada have the responsibility to maximize utilization of the broadcast spectrum so they work with broadcasters and cooperate across the border to achieve this objective. Neither government agency is concerned about protecting reception of a station outside the defined market area. Unfortunately, there really isn't any other way to do it.

[someguy23475]

WHNE, a low power station in Flint, has an application to move to channel 20 and their tower to Oak Park. If this is approved and this station signs on, it's yet another digital channel available.

[Phil81]

^^^
Looks like WHNE's signal (15kW total) will be heavily nulled to the southeast. I wouldn't expect a good signal for most of us on this side of the border.

----------
Some other news that might be promising. WJW in Cleveland has petitioned the FCC to relocate BACK to RF 31 at 600kW non-directional! Trip's site has the fresh info on this. http://www.rabbitears.info/tvq.php?r...s&facid=189156

If this goes through, maybe we can get WJW back due to the co-channel 8 problems that exist here now. Hopefully IC won't make a fuss about this interfering with Woodstock's CH31 CITY-TV repeater.

[Emerald_Boar]

WJW @ 600kW vs CITY @ 100kW

You know WJW will to have its strength reduced towards London. Otherwise, there will be nights where CITYtv will be knock off. (when aiming towards Cleveland). Yes, there was a couple of times where I was able to watch WJW when it was testing.

Hopefully, the signal is just nulled towards London/Woodstock and not all of southern Ontario.

Read ya l8r,
Al