OTA NETWORK Status: Citytv, OMNI

[El Gran Chico]

My contact tells me that the new target date is "sometime in November" for the move to the CN Tower.

Hopefully it's earlier in the month than later. Some of us may need to/want to make antenna adjustments after the move. If they leave the tx changes too late, we may need to wait to the spring to make the rx changes.

[recneps77]

But they'd rather we don't exist, and pay for their cable

[El Gran Chico]

does anyone else think it odd that Rogers is so uncommunicative about its transmitter plans and timing?

It can sure fuel a conspiracy theory, but I'm not sure they are any worse than any of the others. Not sure any Canadian terrestrial broadcasting concerns does this particularly well, although TVO may be an exception.

Suggestion: read though the CRTC filings for the station you are concerned about and try to contact the signing officers directly. This has worked for me and maybe surprisingly, usually those people care about OTA and appreciate hearing viewers' concerns.

[PPL4GOLF]

Well, CityTV, Omni1/2, all of a sudden, become OTA leaders that other stations should benchmark against.

9+/10 signal strength (from very crappy signal on City before), accurate clock, accurate program data, fairly good program variety, multicultural, etc, etc.

The other channel doing useful data is CFTO and the signal is also perfect.

TVO has not figured out how to cater to older Samsung tuners.

CBC is a huge disappointment post analog shutdown. 720p, completely broken PSIP...huge disappointment.

So far, perhaps all the good going on Rogers' trio is not an accident

[mr.eous]

On Tuesday evening people in Toronto will have the opportunity to ask questions to:
Erika Kramer, VP Distribution Services, TV Ontario
Steve Martak, Engineering Supervisor, Rogers Media
Jeff Naphin, Director of DT Transition for Shaw Media
AFAIK, most SMPTE meetings are open to the general public unless specified as "members only" in the posting; of course, you can watch it streamed live, but cannot participate in the audience question period using that method. Might be a good opportunity to see when Rogers is ever going to get around to moving Citytv/OMNI transmitters from First Canadian Place to the CN Tower.

[tlman46]

Did anyone attend that session at Ryerson?
Any news on the expected move of the Rogers stations back to the CN Tower?
Thanks!

[ota_canuck]

I'd doubt that Rogers will be doing anything pending a decision regarding their CRTC application for 40RF.
http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/show...&postcount=410

[recneps77]

Well since they're likely paying for leased space on two buildings, I'd imagine they will complete the switch anyway.
And wouldn't it be a simple switch if already @ CN? i.e. just change the connection to send the output to a different antenna?

[mr.eous]

I watched the SMPTE meeting stream live and it's a good thing since they don't seem to be prompt adding recent meetings to the online archive. I suspect I was the only one who watched it and nobody else attended in person since the presenters made reference to the DHC forum at the meeting and nobody on here cheered about it...

There were some interesting presentations shown; lots of neat pictures and details on the slides. One interesting point from Shaw is that in Ontario, Global has zero technical staff dedicated to OTA transmission engineering/maintenance; they rely on contracts with others like TVO (in the case of the Paris/Kitchener site) to keep things running for them, which explains why some answers DHC members have gotten out of Global Toronto have been that they're "using an old TVO transmitter" or whatever since you're likely talking to disjointed production engineering folks or IT staff, not distribution or transmission engineering personnel.

As for what's now being called the "Rogers Media" transmitter room at the CN Tower, the rep showed progress pictures taken only days before his presentation and there was clearly still a lot of work to be done. I think he said it would be ready sometime in December, but I can't remember exactly.
Interestingly enough, he made no mention of this channel 40 CRTC application so maybe Rogers cooked up that idea just after the SMPTE meeting since this fellow has been with OMNI since its CFMT days and City since the CHUM era, so unlike the TVO lady who repeatedly states she's "not an engineer" when it comes to answering technical questions, the Rogers presenter was very technical.

Keep in mind the complexity of tapping into an existing shared antenna, especially one that can't easily be retuned like the mast at the CN Tower -- crawling up inside the mast can be done, but from the pictures shown, it's very difficult, although amusing to see the riggers' "I was here" marks at the very top next to the lightning arrestors.
IIRC, at the bottom of the mast is CBC's abandonned channel 5 VHF antenna, then going upward is the master FM antenna, the channel 9 VHF antenna, then the channel 19/20/25 antenna, then the channel 41/44/47 antenna, then lastly at the top, the channel 52 antenna. The issue is you can't just go to a hardware store and purchase any old piece of plumbing that'll let you break into the existing RF for the 41/44/47 antenna -- it has to be put through an appropriate custom combiner all the while coordinating efforts with Shaw/Global engineering since they share the antenna.
FYI, even though it should be clear, I still see some people talking about things like "permitted 1MW operation" and stuff for certain channels -- there's no talk about that from Rogers; the existing power levels for OMNI1/OMNI2/City from the BMO building are nearly identical to what they'll be for the CN Tower; the CN Tower will just be much higher elevation so coverage area will increase according to that.

[rimor]

@ mr.eous

Did the presenters mention about what's going on regarding the roll out of PSIP (e.g. proper time, show names, descriptions), in Ontario and across the country?

[downbeat]

There is a modest power increase for Rogers Media OTA stations from CN Tower (more or less 20 kW ERP) versus First Canadian Place (15 kW).

[Jase88]

^^^^^ Not to mention a large increase in HAAT vs. FCP.

mr.eous: I'm curious: In what context did they comment on DHC?

[mr.eous]

@ rimor:
I can't remember, specifically -- too difficult to note everything that was said. All that comes to mind is Jeff Naphin from Shaw Media gave an example of just how complex their distribution network can be since all Global content originates in Calgary and it's not a straightforward path to any transmitter site. Apparently there's even two facilities that signals pass through in Calgary, one just outside the city, and another near downtown. Anyway, I digress...

@ Jase88:
If you really must know () Erika Kramer of TVO emphatically quoted part of one of your posts (without username citation) in one of her slides. I'd say she used it as easy proof that TVO's transition was appreciated by some, since it's hard to quantify comments from OTA viewers, otherwise.
Also, while the second presenter was setting up, one of the section managers used the time to mention his own experience lurking on the DHC board. Really, I'd say it was more of an anecdotal comment he was making about how advanced some viewers are, in the digital age, being able to use TSReader to analyze broadcast streams and the like.

[Jase88]

That's funny! My name is quickly becoming well known within the broadcast community--and I'm not even employed in the industry!

[GeorgeMx]

Originally Posted by mr.eous

...Interestingly enough, he made no mention of this channel 40 CRTC application so maybe Rogers cooked up that idea just after the SMPTE meeting ...

If you read the application to the CRTC you will see that investigation of the channel 40 option happened well before the SMPTE meeting. People in the industry don't talk about upcoming applications to the CRTC, they only talk about applications that are already public.