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NBC 4 and WBNS 10 OTA "HD" signals off due to a "power hit"

X

xmusicmatt

NBC 4 and WBNS 10 ATSC Over Air "HD" signals off due to a "power hit"

Apperently both WCMH 4 and WBNS 10's over air HD signals are off due to a "power hit" as their calling it at the WBNS tower site..

Any radio affected?
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
Saw their E-mail, and watched the last few minutes of WBNS' newscast online.
Click to expand...

Both NBC4 and WBNS "streamed" their evening news casts.. NBC4 I think does the 5pm on a normal basis not sure about channel 10...

Both OTA signals are still down at 7pm -- I have no cable here.
 
Don't they have a generator on site or is this just a radio thing due to the power necessary? If the amount of power is an issue, wouldn't it be a good idea to have a 15kw ERP low power transmitter they can fire up? I can't imagine the cost would be high. Also plenty of room to mount on the candelabra since Analog 4 and 10 are both dark.
 
xmusicmatt said:
Both NBC4 and WBNS "streamed" their evening news casts.. NBC4 I think does the 5pm on a normal basis not sure about channel 10...
Click to expand...

The wording on WBNS' site leads me to believe they do all casts, anyway.

We've had that up here during power outages, though I don't think any of the Cleveland market stations got hit today.
 
They are not being very forthcoming in "the issue" ... (Maybe its just the 'techie' side of me wanting to know exactly what is wrong) .. their saying " a power hit" .. however it leads me to believe something more major than that happened (a tech failure) - It's almost 8pm and both of the stations have been dark since 3pm on Over Air ..

(They are still up on Time Warner from what I hear -- Time Warner gets NBC4 and WBNS via direct fiber feeds)


Update: Channel 10 blames the issue on AEP .. they say on their facebook page "AEP Has still NOT found an answer."

I don't get how such a Major transmission plant does not have some form of "generator" backup for the HD Transmitters.. The wolfes have money ... their very wealthy... It goes to show that major market television stations dont really care about their "OTA" broadcasts anymore.... as long as they keep the "feed" up to the cable companies.... which means they have generator power at the studio site which is right next to the two WBNS towers.
 
A small irony here is that a few weeks ago Time Warner subscribers viewers faced the prospect of having to turn to over-the-air for 10 as the contract negotiations were faltering. This is kind of the flip side of that.
 
Here is the message on the WBNS-TV website:

The WBNS-10TV transmitter took a power hit on Tuesday afternoon. Click on the story to see how you can watch every 10TV Newscast live on 10TV.com.
Click to expand...
WBNS-10TV - Columbus, Ohio
The power hit we took earlier still has us off air for many viewers. 10TV News HD at 11 p.m. can be seen at www.10tv.com
Click to expand...
.

via the WCMH-TV site:

Some customers are not able to view NBC4 over-the-air or via DirecTV. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work toward a solution.

Our engineering team is investigating the problem, and we will have our over-the-air programming back as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience.
Click to expand...

I wonder if a power surge, caused by the storm did damaged to some of their equipment? This long an outage doesn't make much sense.

There is something more to the story I bet. Were any of the FM's off the air that broadcast from the WBNS-TV tower?
 
xmusicmatt said:
They are not being very forthcoming in "the issue" ... (Maybe its just the 'techie' side of me wanting to know exactly what is wrong) .. their saying " a power hit" .. however it leads me to believe something more major than that happened (a tech failure) - It's almost 8pm and both of the stations have been dark since 3pm on Over Air ..

(They are still up on Time Warner from what I hear -- Time Warner gets NBC4 and WBNS via direct fiber feeds)


Update: Channel 10 blames the issue on AEP .. they say on their facebook page "AEP Has still NOT found an answer."

I don't get how such a Major transmission plant does not have some form of "generator" backup for the HD Transmitters.. The wolfes have money ... their very wealthy... It goes to show that major market television stations dont really care about their "OTA" broadcasts anymore.... as long as they keep the "feed" up to the cable companies.... which means they have generator power at the studio site which is right next to the two WBNS towers.
Click to expand...

I always wondered what the arrangement was between WBNS and WCMH. Does WCMH pay rent or are they part owners of the tower?

Given how far LPTV travels in digital, I still don't understand why they don't have LPTV transmitters as a back up. Or maybe they should have fired up Channel 17 since it's still dark.
 
I'm sure there are most likely aux generators at the site. The studios are probably powered by a separate power source or aux genset. If I had to guess, I would bet that the power hit damaged the automatic transfer switch gear that controls and transfers power feeds from AEP to the aux generators.
 
Power is on to the site.. I drove by there tonight on the way to grandview.. My guess is the high voltage power transformer that feeds the high power requirements of the HD Transmitters took a hit which means they can't power them up ...

None of the Radio on the towers appear to be suffering from the "power hit" .. then again I know some of the tenants on that tower do have AUX sites elsewhere...
 
Latest from 10TV Facebook:

"We have an update from AEP on our transmitter issues. A major line has been damaged and must be replaced. Unfortunately, AEP estimates the repairs will last through the night. We hope to be back on the air for 10TV News HD tomorrow morning. CBS Shows can be seen tomorrow at CBS.com."
 
WOW Cable's feed of WCMH was a frozen image of the show "Anderson" for at least 30 minutes that I was around my television from about 245-315. It was still that way when I left.

98.9 Jack FM was dead air for my entire drive this evening from about 615-645 but it was back on the air by 11 when I checked again.
 
jhc2010 said:
WOW Cable's feed of WCMH was a frozen image of the show "Anderson" for at least 30 minutes that I was around my television from about 245-315. It was still that way when I left.

98.9 Jack FM was dead air for my entire drive this evening from about 615-645 but it was back on the air by 11 when I checked again.
Click to expand...

WOW gets their WCMH / WBNS feeds via Over Air HD Tuners.. So likely the HD Tuner froze when the MPEG Video stream stopped being picked up from their antenna...

I checked around 9pm and all the Radio stations on the WBNS towers were on air... However 98.9 Jack FM did appear "weaker" than normal so they may have been running at lower power?
 
I do wonder if 4 & 10 have backup generators on site for the transmitters? Out in Denver when the local TV stations built their new "superpower" a monstrous diesel generator with enough power to darn near power the Denver metro area was installed while the new transmitter building was being built; but then again that building is on the side of Lookout Mountain which tends to lose utility power if it gets so much as overcast or their is a slight breeze. As for the 4&10 issue, I reckon their is a separate utility feed from the road specifically for the HD transmitters that failed. At any rate its kinda funny to see 10 have "technical issues" as they come off as being "holier then thou" in terms of engineering perfection.
 
Josh_Cols said:
I do wonder if 4 & 10 have backup generators on site for the transmitters? Out in Denver when the local TV stations built their new "superpower" a monstrous diesel generator with enough power to darn near power the Denver metro area was installed while the new transmitter building was being built; but then again that building is on the side of Lookout Mountain which tends to lose utility power if it gets so much as overcast or their is a slight breeze. As for the 4&10 issue, I reckon their is a separate utility feed from the road specifically for the HD transmitters that failed. At any rate its kinda funny to see 10 have "technical issues" as they come off as being "holier then thou" in terms of engineering perfection.
Click to expand...

They must not have generators for the High Powered HD Transmitters at the site or they would be on those.. which kind of surprises me being such a major transmitter site (quite a few of the FMs in town actually transmit from that site too -- they appear not to be troubled by the issue --)

Apperently a 800ft length underground power cable has failed .. They (AEP) is in the process of replacing it -- My guess is because of the amount of power that the stations HD Transmitters require to run they have a direct high voltage run specific for the HD TV Transmitters... Which is why radio at that site appear to be still up.
 
Was wondering about this because the day before, WVSG "St. Gabriel Radio" was breifly off the air on Monday,but was back on later in the afternoon. Were there any other radio stations off that day?
 
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