Do cable TV substations still receive "over the air" local signals to repackage?

[fordranger797]

Do cable TV substations still receive "over the air" local signals to repackage?

I heard somewhere that back in the "heyday" of cablevision, cable substations utilized TV antennas to receive an "over the air" signal from local stations to repackage for consumers. Are cable companies still utilizing this method? It seems like it would be effective, as the over the air HD signal is 1080i (if it isn't breaking up).

 

[K6JHU]

I seem to remember that back in the late 60's/early 70's, my local cable system up in the Berkshires had a 150' 'curtain' antenna up on one of the local mountains to pull in OTA signals form NYC. In excess of 100 miles. Reason was to get the NYC baseball games for the cable system.

 

[Bill_W]

I believe back in the old days, cable headends received broadcast channels over the air from big antennas. The big antennas are still at the Comcast headends around here. Now, most of the big companies, Comcast, Verizon, get the signal sent directly to the headend via fiber from the broadcaster. Here in Philly some broadcasters have gone off the air due to transmitter problems but cable viewers continue to see the station.

 

[frankberry]

Brighthouse Networks in Tampa Bay gets the local stations via fiber. Over the air is their backup.

 

[fordranger797]

Thanks for the info so far, guys. What about "out of town" signals though? For example, my cable provider contains channels that are not in the local area, and I do not imagine using fibreoptics is a viable solution to picking up the signal.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Thanks for the info so far, guys. What about "out of town" signals though? For example, my cable provider contains channels that are not in the local area, and I do not imagine using fibreoptics is a viable solution to picking up the signal.

microwave possibly, but many cable systems have dropped distant stations due to syndex, all they're allowed to show from distant stations is the local news from those stations

 

[KML0224]

What about cable systems which carry an out-of-market PBS affiliate? Comcast in New Britain, CT (Hartford/New Haven DMA) carries WGBY-TV channel 57 from Springfield, MA, including their subchannels in SD. I'm not sure how the head end receives the local broadcast stations here, considering there's four different transmitter sites:

Farmington - CW (20), PBS (24), NBC (30) and FOX (61) [to my NW]
Avon - CBS (3) and UNI (18) [to my NNW]
Hamden - ABC (8) and MY (59) [to my SSW]
Montville - ION (26) [to my SE]

 

[Bill_W]

Comcast? Probably fiber. Comcast and Verizon have so much fiber. Down here in Philly, I believe that Comcast has a super headend down in Delaware. They pick up the cable channels from the satellites there, the local channels are sent via fiber there and all the signals are sent on a double fiber loop to all the Comcast headends in the Philly metro area.

 

[schmave]

My mother grew up in St. Marys, Ohio, about 60 miles north of Dayton, and when I was a kid their cable carried all OTA signals from Dayton, both of Lima's (Lima had two stations then and five now), some from Fort Wayne and CBS from Columbus. Once upon a time, WXIX from Cincinnati, about 100 miles south, was carried there. I always assumed those signals came from a huge tower about five miles east of town that to this day is stacked with antennas pointing in all different directions.
It's still there, despite the cable system having scaled back offerings somewhat over the years. No Fort Wayne stations are carried there despite it being just 60 miles away. All Lima and Dayton signals remain (technically Auglaize County is in the Dayton DMA), and somehow CBS from Columbus has survived, too.
(For my part, I always wondered whether stations from as far as Detroit or Chicago could be picked up considering some of the antennas were hundreds of feet off the ground.)

 

[Ultimajock]

I heard somewhere that back in the "heyday" of cablevision, cable substations utilized TV antennas to receive an "over the air" signal from local stations to repackage for consumers.

...circa 1988, the old Warner Amex system in Neenah-Menasha, Wisconsin, roughly 100 miles NNW of Milwaukee, used one channel to flip between WTMJ-TV/4 and WISN-TV/12, using the OTA antenna located between Neenah and Oshkosh. (WITI/6 was never shown, because they got in-line interference from WRTV/6 Indianapolis.) It was fun to find out WISN would run some Saturday night movie, call down to the office 3:00 Friday and request that 12 be left on over the weekend so I could tape it. Within a year, it was replaced with WTBS, as I recall...

 

[schmave]

That antenna must have been way up there to get interference from Indy!

 

[GRS86]

Thanks for the info so far, guys. What about "out of town" signals though? For example, my cable provider contains channels that are not in the local area, and I do not imagine using fibreoptics is a viable solution to picking up the signal.

Since most all head-ends are connected to each other by fiber because of the internet and telephone services that most companies provide these days, it's actually easier now, more than ever to carry a distant station. As it has been mentioned, most all stations send their feeds to the local cable head-ends, so if a cable system needs to carry a distant signal, all they have to do is to receive it over fiber from the head-end that directly receives the desired signal from the station, to practically any other head-end that needs that particular station.