In the US, there are discussions underway to reallocate some of the OTA spectrum to wireless. This will force many stations to move frequencies or go out of business. This is especially acute near the US Canadian border where there is competition for channel allotment. For those of you want to read the details, cut and paste the link below into your browser.


[Link: broadcastlawblog.com]

I might have to change my habits if this goes through.
Maybe Koodo for my phone, and someone else for my broadband at a better price/speed. Then all TV through downloading.
(I wonder if the Yahoo offer of using my @rogers moniker via @yahoo is still good.)

??

CITY has to have been testing that transmitter off and on for the past few weeks. I go from a 5 or 6 out of 10 signal to nothing (most often nothing!), and I'm 66 miles away, just east of Albion, NY. 25 and 41 have been 9 or 10 for awhile now, up from 3-4 and usually 0 respectively before.

Did a quick channel scan here on the Island last night and noticed 2 things... 41 was broadcasting a SD sub channel and 15 was broadcasting for the very first time. Never-ever (3+ years) picked up 15 until yesterday. Guess talk of CHCH wanting to use 15 perhaps caused GI-15 to fire up its transmitter? Who knows...

WBNF on 15 has been operating for about a month now digitally. They were held up for a very long time by Industry Canada and finally got permission with a very directional antenna well away from Canada .

On Monday 12/12 CITY and OMNI 1, 44 and 47 respectively will be broadcasting from the CN Tower, check your reception then for any improvement

From North York (northern suburb of Toronto), I am not able to pick up 15. It is definitely low power and pointed away from Canada as per member digitalcable's note.

Yes, 41 broadcasts a sub channel in SD. From what I can tell, they simply re-broadcast their HD in SD. Not sure what the purpose is since they are just wasting bandwidth. It would be great if they had new content.

What I would love to see is for the OTA broadcasters to buy content from the cable providers and put it on the subchannels..... for example, discovery channel, all news channels or whatever. Maybe the economics dont justify this. A good example is for CITYTV to re-broadcast their 24 hours all news cable channel on an OTA subchannel. But then again, is there any compelling economics to justify this? It would be heaven if CTV CH9 adds TSN on 9.2 subchannel. But wait, I am dreaming again.

If OTA channels get squeezed by wireless (see my earlier note about this new US proposal to sell half the channels to wireless), they may all be forced to double up on sub channels. We would end up with strange bedfellows, ABC on subchannel 2, CBS on subchannel 3 and PBS renting out subchannel 4.

Word is that CFMT and CITY are moving to the CN Tower on 12/12/12. CJMT move to CN Tower and RF 40 is pending CRTC approval.

NFASTRO, 2 huge obstacles to your dream.

1. None of the channels are licensed for OTA
2. OTA broadcasters and cable providers are for the most part the same people.

On a more positive not, I see that Antenna TV (classic tv - [Link: antennatv.tv]) will replace Universal Sports on WGRZ 2.2 in January.

They've got the Three Stooges, D'oh! 3 AM, wait, I can always program a PVR session, no need to miss due to work or sleep. Woo-hoo!

Supposedly CITYTV and OMNI1 are now broadcasting from the CN Tower. I am in North York only 15 km or so from the tower so I see very little, if any, improvement.
Does anyone else see a significant improvement, especially viewers in Niagara/Buffalo?

In eastern Niagara county, there was a marked improvement last night. I could receive strong signals on the antenna pointed towards Buffalo which would hardly receive a blip before the change.

Nope.

Sometime in the afternoon (12/12), 47 became a 9/10 signal, and 57 ranged from 4 to 6. If 69 didn't move, they're a consistent 7 now, anyway.
Tom in Albion, NY

Report from centre of Grand Island NY: OMNI1 - 47.1, (Biggest Loser Finale is on now!) is now a solid 3 out of 4 bars, up from 0-2 fluctuating bars depending on the weather. No changes to other Canadian channels.. .