[WalterP]

Thank you JayG7800!

The responses from local braodcasters don't show a lot of enthusiasm for the ATSC 3.0 transition, but at least they do confirm that something is in the works.

"Our Market will be switching to ATSC 3.0 in the future, but it will be another year or two before it happens in this area. When it happens all the stations should go live with it at the same time. "

This seems to be a reference to a "lighthouse" shared frequency installation to start the five year transition to ATSC 3.0, which will likely exclude PBS stations (as is the case in other markets).

I wonder if WCAX owner Grey Television's long pending WYCI Saranac Lake license application is tied into this lighthouse installation...

 

[JayG7800]

I wonder if WCAX owner Grey Television's long pending WYCI Saranac Lake license application is tied into this lighthouse installation...

I was wondering that, myself, but based on their response, possibly not. WVNY and WFFF are both owned by the same company, so I am wondering if they plan to use one of these two transmitters as the ATSC 3.0 lighthouse. I have an hdhomerun ATSC 3.0 tuner, so I'm ready to go whenever something happens, although it's hooked to my UHF antenna at this time.

 

[WalterP]

My understanding of the current regulations is that ATSC 1.0 license holders can switch over to ATSC 3.0 (and shut down the ATSC 1.0 transmitter for the corresponding licensed RF channel) after a five year transition period that starts on the date their duplicate ATSC 3.0 broadcast begin transmitting on a newly allocated RF channel.

If correct, this means that the ATSC 1.0 licenses for RF 7, 14, 16, 20 (and corresponding transmitters) will remain unchanged for the forseeable future (5+ years), and the clock won't start ticking until the lighthouse channel appears on your ATSC 3.0 tuner.

Once you factor in the cross border channels and the repack cutoff at RF 36, there are limited options for a new or modified license (and corresponding RF channel allocation) unless someone decides to drive us all crazy with a VHF-Low RF channel for the lighthouse transmitter.

We won't know more until the FCC approves anything, but my speculation about WYCI is based on what has happened in other markets where a "My TV" license was repurposed for use as a lighthouse ATSC 3.0 transmitter.

The WYCI filing is the only "new" license application that I can find for the Burlington market via Rabbitears, and although it hasn't shown any signs of life for over a year it's still categorized as pending. The application seems to be for a new and more powerfull transmitter that would result in two distict towers at different locations (with different transmitter profiles) sharing the same RF 34 channel, and it should be powerful enough to reach the Montreal market.