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July 18, 2019 7:15 pm  #1


Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

The CBC has confirmed that both of its FM feeds to the area near Peterborough are gone and could be until well into Friday. The Corp. indicates its transmitters are down and will be until cables are replaced. But rain could delay that and if that's the case, the blackout could go on a lot longer. 

I can only wonder how they let it happen and it's odd that it would become so serious that the stick would stop working.

CBC Radio One in Peterborough uses 98.7, while CBC Music is on 103.9. 

Hopefully, that opens the way for some good DX up there!

CBC transmitter in Peterborough is down, affecting local radio reception

 

July 18, 2019 7:59 pm  #2


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Sharp eye (or should I say ear) RA. The IRCP transmitter has been off the air since at least Wednesday. I must admit I don’t check it that often.
They recently replaced the 3 separate FM antennas on the tower with one master antenna. I think the work was done in 2017..

Last edited by andysradio (July 18, 2019 8:23 pm)

 

July 18, 2019 8:10 pm  #3


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

If Radio One was still on 740, this wouldn't be a problem for the folks in Peterborough.   Or try CBW-990 after sunset.

I suppose they could also listen to 860 and hear something owned by the Corp

 

July 19, 2019 4:42 pm  #4


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

All 3 FMs are back up but they are weak. Must have been some failure.

 

July 19, 2019 5:01 pm  #5


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Too bad I'm in Toronto and not at my Kawarthas DX post ... I can usually tweak the antennas to block the Peterborough signals when a good skip opening is happening. I've noticed 98.7 has been ever so slightly weaker than usual the last couple weeks. Maybe same with the others. For CBC English where I am Orillia (Oro-Medonte) is always the most solid and I tune to 96.5 in Penetang and 90.3/90.9 Toronto/Sudbury for acceptable signals when there's something I want to hear on the two French networks.

I did catch 101.1 Big FM Barrie off entirely last Monday morning until close to 8am. I managed to hear Youngstown OH, Detroit, Smiths Falls, Fort Erie and one station previously unheard up there - relatively new to air - 101.1 in Fergus, The Grand, whose signal sounded slightly distorted for some reason... 

FM signals rarely go silent these days, which is a good thing for listeners. Or maybe as I get older I don't check at 2am. So I always appreciate a heads-up, and any engineer or staffer kind enough to do so can (if I can be at the dials) receive a full report of what was heard in their station's absence, if they want that ... perhaps that's of some use ... when I can, I record, so could possibly provide recordings, too...

 

Last edited by Saul (July 19, 2019 5:03 pm)

 

July 20, 2019 10:14 am  #6


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

With the CBC signal on 103.9 not at full strength, those of you in Pickering, Ajax, Whitby might have a shot at 800 watt WDKX in Rochester.

 

July 20, 2019 11:05 am  #7


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

They sound a lot stronger today on all 3 frequencies. Maybe there back to full power?

 

July 20, 2019 11:58 pm  #8


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

mace wrote:

With the CBC signal on 103.9 not at full strength, those of you in Pickering, Ajax, Whitby might have a shot at 800 watt WDKX in Rochester.

And if you do, please let me know - they're one of my engineering clients now. A pretty amazing little station, actually... locally family-owned since day one, 45 years ago, and now in the second generation. A very potent 800 watts from the top of the tallest building in downtown Rochester, too. And *so* deeply enmeshed in Rochester's urban community. 
 

 

July 21, 2019 6:44 am  #9


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Scott, 103.9 is such a crazy mix of Woodstock, Sudbury and Toronto that Peterborough gets hammered even at the best of times where I am 50 km nw of Peterborough. Rochester can be heard but it takes me getting to a south facing hill and bypassing Peterborough. Easier to get distant skip... (monster of an opening yesterday, which I missed)
 

 

July 21, 2019 3:02 pm  #10


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Saul wrote:

(monster of an opening yesterday, which I missed) 

I'll say. I was listening to Jewel 88.5 on Saturday, when it suddenly faded out. Replacing it was KLCV, a Christian station on the same frequency from Omaha, Nebraska. The first great DX get I've had on FM in years.

     Thread Starter
 

July 22, 2019 11:42 am  #11


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

RadioActive wrote:

Saul wrote:

(monster of an opening yesterday, which I missed) 

I'll say. I was listening to Jewel 88.5 on Saturday, when it suddenly faded out. Replacing it was KLCV, a Christian station on the same frequency from Omaha, Nebraska. The first great DX get I've had on FM in years.

Whoa thats quite the DX.   What time of day and was Jewel a weak signal for you to fade out like that?

 

July 22, 2019 11:52 am  #12


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

It was around 4 or 5 PM, and yes, Jewel usually comes in quite well. 

It's unusual, but it does happen. A few decades ago, in 1977, before the FM band was an overcrowded mess, there was one other incredible day like that when locals were fading out like crazy and other stations were emerging from the static. That one day was the only time I ever got stations from Mississippi, Florida, Kentucky and Alabama.

The TV was crazy that hazy summer afternoon, as well, on the usual VHF suspects in those days - Channels 2, 3 and 4. That same day was the afternoon I saw KWGN TV from Denver on my set in Toronto, among others. Amazing, and it never happened again.
 
It was a long time ago, but I've never forgotten that day.

  

     Thread Starter
 

July 22, 2019 4:14 pm  #13


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

When I TV DXed in the late 80's I would videotape the station breaks and photograph the call letters. I have some amazing ID's from Florida [WEDU,WESH,WTVJ,WPBT]  Texas[KFDX,KJAC,KAMR,KPRC] S.Carolina[WCBD] Nebraska[KLNE,KNOP] Oklahoma[KTVY,KJRH] Mississipi[WLBT] Kansas[KSNW,KSNC] How would I post some of these? Photograph the pictures on my smartphone to start?



 

 

July 22, 2019 4:22 pm  #14


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

With tinypic.com going away sooner or later, try this: 

https://imgbox.com/

Just follow the directions and make sure that when you paste in the code on SOWNY, it's the full size one and not the thumbnails, by choosing "full size" in the options on the left hand corner after your upload is complete. (It normals to thumbnails, so you have to be sure to make that change.) 

Look forward to seeing those IDs!

And speaking of the aptly named KFDX...

 
 

     Thread Starter
 

July 22, 2019 5:38 pm  #15


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Its been over a month now for TV OTA but im still down to 12 channels from an average of 30 no matter what time of day.  

 

July 22, 2019 7:11 pm  #16


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

I remember my first e-skip event - summer of 1985, tuning a little black and white TV with rabbit ears in a cottage in the New York Finger Lakes. Baseball game showed up on channel 4. Channel 4? This was a long way from WIVB-land and there was no other 4 until you got to NYC and Boston. Kept watching for a little bit and it turned out to be the Royals on WDAF-TV from Kansas City. 

At the time, I too thought it was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. A few years later, when I got more involved with the TV-FM DX community, I learned that it's actually quite common in the summer months (and occasionally in December, too). The advent of the internet meant that news of an opening could be spread almost instantly, and so what was once a very random happenstance became almost predictable. 

In the last few years of analog TV, I was largely working from home near Rochester, and starting in June I'd typically spend the mornings with my office TV tuned to channel 2 and the antenna pointed southwest. WGRZ, of course, came in pretty decently - but not so strongly that it couldn't be overtaken once an e-skip event started rolling. And once it did, it usually started with WPBT or WESH on 2 and WEDU on 3 from Florida. It often moved clockwise at about an 1100-mile distance, through WBRZ 2 and sometimes WWL 4 in New Orleans, sometimes east Texas, usually into Oklahoma (KJRH 2, KOET 3, KFOR 4), and often up through Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas and into Canada. 

Sometimes the cloud would go northeast, too, and with no low-band VHF 1100 miles due north in deepest northern Ontario and Quebec to receive, the next signals around would be from Newfoundland. 

On very rare occasions, e-skip went above 3 and 4 to 5 and occasionally 6 (though nearby FM signals usually prevented that). There's too much FM near me to have been able to do much FM DX from home. 

On extraordinarily rare occasions, the skip went so high that some DXers caught high-VHF signals via skip. There was one very memorable event one July - 2004, I think? - that I missed out on completely. That may truly have been a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

There is still an active community of TV and FM DXers. The club is the WTFDA, Worldwide TV-FM DX Association. There's an electronic newsletter you can subscribe to, as well as mailing lists, FB groups and other means of communications. 

 

July 23, 2019 8:12 am  #17


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Fybush Almost all of those tv stations you mentioned, I have received semi regularly in the summer months [pre digital era] Probably my two best catches were KTVS ch 3 [now KCDO] Sterling, Co. from Hamilton in June 1977 and KDUH ch 4 [now KNEP] Scottsbluff, Neb. from Oakville Summer 1987. The first time I experieced TV e-skip was back in the summer of 1965 with KARD ch 3 [now KSNW] in Wichita, Ks. In the past few years, the best I have done is CBS 8 Rochester, NBC 3 Syracuse and ABC 50 Watertown.

 

July 23, 2019 8:34 am  #18


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

The good old days of TV skip are pretty much gone since the conversion to HD. Those signals are much weaker, don't travel as far as often and they're not on the old VHF bands. It's a shame but I think those days of seeing Florida, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas et. al. are done. 

We can still try for FM, though.  

     Thread Starter
 

July 23, 2019 10:24 am  #19


Re: Why You Can't Get CBC Radio Over The Air In Peterborough

Yes, CKVR Analog 3 back in the day was apparently frequent in South Florida aswell as CKCO-2 that was on the Bruce Peninsula, (a tower that was literally surrounded by two bodies of water)   

 

Last edited by markow202 (July 23, 2019 10:25 am)