What happened to Channel 2 ?

On June 12, 2009 at midnight, analog transmission of television broadcasting stopped and digital transmission began.
With that change, some stations also changed the channel or frequency that they have historically used to transmit their over the air signal.
The agency that coordinated this change and granted the operating license is the FCC, ( the Federal Communications Commision ).
The FCC gave channel 2 WCBS from New York and WFSB channel 3 from Connecticut, the same transmitting frequency, channel 33. Both of these stations are CBS affiliates.

Confused yet ? Hang in there......

Southbury is in the Connecticut DMA (Designated Market Area ) of channel 3 from Hartford and their signal is much stronger than channel 2 from New York, so our receiving equipment locks onto the stronger signal, which is from Ct.
Since we were no longer able to lock onto Channel 2's off air signal, I immediatly called WCBS's engineering team to request a satellite variance, which is permission to pull their signal off of a satellite. They readily agreed,as they hate the prospect of losing all of the HV viewers, but said that by law, I had to also obtain permission from WFSB, channel 3 in Hartford, as we reside in their DMA. I called Channel 3 requesting permission and they refused, their logic being, of course, that they now have a monopoly on CBS programming.

We then approached Charter to see if they would be willing to provide channel 2 in the Village and they also refused. Charter can still receive channel 2 as they have a fiber optic line going down to Stamford where they obtain the signal from New York.

Where do we go from here?

After the analog shut off, the FCC realized that their projections would disrupt service not only for Upper Fairfield County, but also parts of Westchester County and Long Island could no longer receive channel 2 for the same reasons that we have, channel 3's signal was too strong, or channel 2's was too weak.

To try and remedy that, WCBS, New York has received permission from the FCC to increase their operating power from New York, which they hope to do soon.

They also have received permission to install a low power transmitter down on Long Island on WLIW's tower, trying to fill holes in their coverage pattern. My hope is that when this happens,, we will once agin be able to lock onto the signal from WCBS.

Speaking with the Engineering team from New York last week, they told me that they were in the process of budgeting for this new tower and hoped to have it installed this spring.

Whenever I talk with the New York engineers, they are pretty surprised that we can receive any of the signals from New York due to our distance and the inconsistancy of over the air digital transmission. We do have a good facility and state of the art equipment which helps overcome most problems, but sometimes atmospheric conditions will cause some problems, especially, seasonally. But more on that in another post.
Jeff