Ah hah! Service interruptions June 7 th and 8th on the CN tower
https://jazz.fm/possible-service-interruption-notice/

RadioActive wrote:

10PM to 7 PM the next day? That's much longer than any interruption I've ever heard of before. Let's hope it's a good DX day. Another chance like this won't come again for a very long time.

Well it’s a whole new antenna much higher up involving what, 5-7 strong FM transmitters. 

That's very interesting. What would Rogers put on CHFI-HD? They already have both the Fan and 680 on their signals out of CKIS. What's left to put there?

I would imagine CHIN-FM would piggyback its AM signal on 100.7. (Although many forget that's what they were originally given 91.9 for, before turning it into a separate outlet altogether.)

And as for CHUM-FM, maybe TSN 1050? CFRB is already on HD elsewhere. What's left?

RadioActive wrote:

That's very interesting. What would Rogers put on CHFI-HD? They already have both the Fan and 680 on their signals out of CKIS. What's left to put there?

I would imagine CHIN-FM would piggyback its AM signal on 100.7. (Although many forget that's what they were originally given 91.9 for, before turning it into a separate outlet altogether.)

And as for CHUM-FM, maybe TSN 1050? CFRB is already on HD elsewhere. What's left?

1050 is also on 99.9

HD cleans up the main signal nicely. It's not really worth replacing any equipment for, but if you're replacing it anyway.....

I'd imagine Rogers will move their AMs from 92.5 to the stronger 98.1

RadioActive wrote:

But the HD signals are much more fragile than regular FM, so why bother?

If I drive in certain spots in the GTA, the signals disappear, depending on the station, swallowed by concrete or large buildings.

Which stations?
 

RadioAaron wrote:

I'd imagine Rogers will move their AMs from 92.5 to the stronger 98.1

Also would save them lease fees at FCP who charges per channel.

Hrick wrote:

Do not some of the FM‘s have reduced power back up transmitters at other sites such a FCP?

Yes; they'll all be on reduced power, not off.

I assume there was a switch over for some stations last night.

CHFI indicating HD-1 as of 10:15 am.   Also HD-1 on CHUM-FM. (no HD2 or 3's on those stations yet)  CJRT is indicating stereo on my HD radio.  CHIN is in stereo - not HD.  Q107, CBL 941, and CFNY all in stereo (not HD)

Last edited by tvguy (June 8, 2024 10:33 am)

CHFI-FM is 39.81 kW analog and correspondingly higher for HD.  It's previous ERP was 44 kW compared to 40 for most of the other class C stations. Because they had super-parameters at the CFTO-TV Agincourt site (210,000 watts horizontal and vertical), they were allowed to have the equivalent coverage from the CN Tower.

CHUM-FM has not been broadcasting in HD today, only yesterday. When did you take those screenshots? Only CKFM and CHFI in HD.

Evuguy wrote:

I'm back, as this project was too good not to want to dig into and share.  Short of when the CN Tower had that feedline fire in 2017 or the big power outage of 2003, it's very rare to see these CN Tower signals ever go off air.

The below shot was taken on the evening of June 7th, just before the start of the 10pm maintenance window (as per CJRT's advisory).  Note that CKFM and CHUM had already switched to their auxiliary sites before I captured this, thus their levels are abnormally low. Note also that CBLA, which broadcasts from the FCP, was participating in this activity as their signal level dropped remarkably early Saturday morning. They also shut down their HD sidebands (it was all back by later that morning). The technical submissions show that a slot for 99.1 has been provisioned on the new combiner, so I'm going with the assumption that CBLA plans to eventually move to the CN Tower, which would make sense for the CBC.

Identifiers: 1. CJRT  2. CBL  3. CHBM  4. CHFI  5 CBLA  6. CKFM  7. CHIN  8. CFNY  9. CHUM  10. CILQ

indian flag picture download

Below is what things look like as of this evening.  Note that CJRT and CILQ are actually stronger than before, while the others (less CBLA) are weaker.  I assume there still could be some tweaking to do. Ideally, the power changes they submitted to the CRTC should barely of been perceptible at the dB scale I'm using and ditto for the increase in antenna height.  My receive antenna is LoS to the tower at 13km.  Note the power levels on Saturday evening, after their maintenance window closed, were actually lower than what you see now by a few dB's.  

So does this mean it’s all still in process and being tweaked and old one shut off?

Im guessing we are all up and running now on the new setup?

PTE wrote:

It is according to the control panel. 

Are you up there as a worker and what happens to the old equipment now?

Is CBC Radio One transmitting the digital signal from CN Tower and the regular FM from FCP?