KCBS-2 is OTA silent

[Robnoxious]

I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up yet and there is nary a peep about it anywhere online.

KCBS-2 is seemingly off the air and has been at least for me since last Thursday.
KCAL-9 is on.

I confirmed with a friend also in the Long Beach area who has an outdoor roof antenna since I use indoor ears.

W6XAO is down!

Can any else in the Southland confirm?

 

[Robnoxious]

I ended up tweeting Paul Magors since he's a frequent Twitter user and he replied right back that something is amiss up on Wilson.

Odd that I had to reach out to an anchor when the info could be easily posted on KCBS's own website?

I know broadcasters see us OTA viewers as basic poachers but come on, it doesn't take much effort to post something about it.

 

[MarioMania]

Or people see this, But don't comment at all

 

[Robnoxious]

Or people see this, But don't comment at all

That's not exactly what I meant.
The general public at large don't know to come here for such info or have even heard of this place.

A small blurb on kcbs2.com or whatever they call it thesedays would have been nice especially since they've been down for quite a long time was what I was getting at.

 

[Joey1986]

I'm getting KCBS fine OTA as of today. Perhaps the problem's fixed?

 

[Robnoxious]

Yeah, it conveniently came back on the air with less than 4 minutes to go during the AFC Divisional game.

 

[TheBigA]

I know broadcasters see us OTA viewers as basic poachers

Why do you think that? Perhaps NBC feels that way, since they're owned by a cable company. But CBS doesn't have a dog in that fight. Sure they get a per-sub fee, but if you watch OTA, you can probably also pick up their digital sub-channels.

 

[frankberry]

I got the following information from a friend on the west coast

"KCBS says the channel 43 digital transmitting antenna was damaged and although they are on the air with limited signal, beyond a certain radius of Mount Wilson reception is going to be "iffy" until they get the replacement, mount it on the tower, and switch over to it."

 

[GlennH]

Per Orange County Register on Jan 18th:

If you’re missing KCBS on your television, blame the weather.
Last Thursday, the rainstorm damaged the station’s antenna on Mount Wilson. Programming is being broadcast over-the-air at a reduced capacity while the antenna is repaired.

People watching KCBS over cable, satellite and subscription services have not been affected. Most people who watch KCBS over-the-air have a signal, but some customers do not, a KCBS representative said.
The antenna has been sealed to protect against water, snow and ice.

Contact the writer: [email protected] or Twitter: @HannahMadans

 

[Renanda]

Thanks for the info about the Mt Wilson tower. Thought the problem was my antenna.

 

[Robnoxious]

Why do you think that? Perhaps NBC feels that way, since they're owned by a cable company. But CBS doesn't have a dog in that fight. Sure they get a per-sub fee, but if you watch OTA, you can probably also pick up their digital sub-channels.

Well, CBS would really like everyone to subscribe to their All-Access platform over the web where they get close to 100% of the fees so they have just as much a dog in the fight as NBC/Comcast. My original flippant comment has more to do with how all OTA networks would rather everyone believe grandma's rabbit ears haven't worked since the late 80's. Like in the case of KCBS going dark for me a few weeks ago because they were on auxiliary power nothing was reported or explained or posted from the very powers that be that could have easily done so. Cable negotiating fees are part of the cash-du-jour for OTA networks but KCBS really dropped the ball with keeping the public in the dark such as I was.

It took me going to Twitter and posting here to get any confirmation and frankberry dug a little deeper and got a more definitive answer albeit a week well after the fact.

 

[frankberry]

Stetement from KCBS:

"Three storms ago, we suffered severe damage to our main transmission antenna located on Mt. Wilson. Many components inside the antenna were burned up. We sent all the repairable parts back to Maine for refurbishment and purchased new parts that we needed. This is a custom-built 66’ tall, 5’ around, 20-ton beast of antenna. All this past weekend yesterday and today we’ve had tower crews up 450’ in the air, inside the antenna making repairs. I am at the site presently writing this note to you. We will be back tomorrow to complete everything. We have been supporting OTA (over-the-air) with very low power (only 2000 watts) since that’s all I can place on the parts of the antenna that still function. We are hopeful to have full power (29,000 watts) restored to the antenna by tomorrow evening.

Thanks for your patience as we are approaching the last bit of repairs ... and for watching (when you can)."

 

[mike847]

Re: over the air loss of signal...

This happened in Phoenix several years ago. I don't recall the cause of the outage, but the attitude was if I subscribed to cable or satellite I wouldn't have any outage problems.