We had received a complaint from a viewer of WOTH-LD 25/Cincinnati's digital signal who lives
in North College Hill. Max Abel wrote:
Up until about a week & a half ago, we were able to receive the digital signal from Channels 25.1 thru 25.4 (with a converter box) with a jury rigged INDOOR set of rabbit ears (with bow-tie UHF antenna). Now, we receive no signal at all with the SAME antenna (in the SAME position). What happened? What changed? (We live in North College Hill.)The reason why is becoming clear.
WCPO-TV/DT 9 (RF 10)'s tower is where WOTH's signal is transmitted from. The WCPO digital transmitter on the tower, which by the way is located at I-71 and McMillan St., is scheduled for work once the DTV transition is complete Friday, to bring WCPO-DT up to its full authorization, which is 15.4 kilowatts of power at 305 meters above average terrain.
The work entails taking down the analog antenna, putting a new digital antenna in its place, and removing the current side-mounted digital antenna.
There's only one thing: In order to do this work, the tower crews need an environment which won't cause physical harm. And RF waves...well, they're not exactly healthy.
That is why WCPO and WOTH both have dropped the juice on their digital transmitters, so as to not expose the workers to too much radiation. We're wondering if perhaps they decided to take this step ahead of the work to begin Friday.
We're also hearing that neither station really gave viewers much notice.
Well in WCPO's case, that's not entirely true.
WCPO has aired occasional messages stating that work being done after the transition date would cause interruptions in signal. At the time however, the message didn't really stick with us. We had to go to the FCC database to find WCPO's last DTV Transition Report, which was dated 3/18, for everything to make sense in our heads.
So...there you have it. We promised an explanation, and there it is...
Thanks, Jeremy. Still bothers me that WCPO didn't make a bigger announcement about this, something that, oh, might be ON THEIR WEBSITE'S FRONT PAGE, or perhaps mentioned in the Enquirer, since that's our primary remaining source of print info. Block Broadcasting's silence doesn't surprise me much, though. But when I actually call WOTH to ask about their signal, and am told NOTHING? Well, that IS disturbing.
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