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Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
I know tower maintenance has to be done - it's a chore every radio station must eventually face. But I can't understand why CBC always seems to do theirs at the strangest time.
The latest centres around an old DX favourite - CBC's powerhouse Winnipeg transmitter at 990 AM. They plan to do some work on the giant tower when? Between 8:35 AM and 6 PM. It's supposed to last two days, no less, starting on Dec. 2nd and ending on the 4th. Why wouldn't they do this overnight? And why would it take two days? Is there something about the darkness that makes this impossible?
I'm not an engineer, so there may be a reason I'm not aware of. But to take your powerhouse 50K signal off air during the end of morning drive and keep it off when the rush home begins seems crazy to me - even if there's an alternate but less powerful FM signal available.
This is not the first time I've seen this. A few days ago, I saw a similar CBC warning about another outage at one of its sites at 1230 AM. At least this one was on the weekend.
I'm not sure if this has ever happened in Toronto since they moved to the CN Tower. But that's a different kind of "tower" maintenance altogether!
Upcoming tower maintenance will cause radio outages for CBC Manitoba
- pinto
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
I've dealt with it. Cheaper to have the union do it during the day.
- markow202
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
Im still wondering why they left their UHF Channel 55 CBC French antenna mounted on the CKVR tower in Barrie since 2011, not on the air. Its in the middle point of tower (white checkered wrap-around panels)
CKVR-TV_Towers.jpg (1588×2152)
Last edited by markow202 (November 28, 2024 5:33 pm)
- Saul
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
The outage won't affect 89.3...a local repeater. And any other repeaters across the province. So Manitobans can still listen...
- fybush
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
Saul wrote:
The outage won't affect 89.3...a local repeater. And any other repeaters across the province. So Manitobans can still listen...
Having just recently made the drive from Winnipeg to Brandon and back, there's a good chunk of that two hours where the low-power 89.3 from downtown Winnipeg fades out and the Brandon repeater doesn't come in yet.
But depending what they're doing, it may be work that's dangerous or impossible to do at night, and it's definitely more expensive to do it that way, and it's true that 990 isn't the only or even biggest way most Manitobans hear CBC, so it surely makes economic sense to do it this way.
(Also, that 540 signal from Saskatchewan is a barn-burner across central and western Manitoba for national CBC programming)
- andysradio
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
.....work on the giant tower when? Between 8:35 AM and 6 PM.
Pretty hard climbing and working on a tower at night and a lot less safe. Imaging trying to change a light bulb or maybe upgrading the fixture in the dark. Sure, they can use helmet lights but that is not the same as daylight. Further and probably even more importantly would be the temperatures at night.
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
I'm not trying to be argumentative, just curious because this isn't an area I know a lot about. How is that most other stations always seem to be able to do their maintenance overnight, when there are fewer listeners impacted? This is right in radio's primetime on a station I imagine does pretty well in the ratings.
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Thread Starter- andysradio
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
I am just surmising here but tower work is typically or maybe exclusively done during the day. Transmitter work can be done overnight.
- In Phase
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
Tower work can be done during the daytime on a hot AM tower. It has some risk but properly managed, it can be done. This however, is typically for basic maintenance such as changing navigation lights.
The CBC notice made reference to "repair and replace damaged parts" which may mean some form of structural damage on the tower which is a different situation.
- andysradio
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
Im still wondering why they left their UHF Channel 55 CBC French antenna mounted on the CKVR tower in Barrie since 2011, not on the air. Its in the middle point of tower (white checkered wrap-around panels)
CKVR-TV_Towers.jpg (1588×2152)
How old is that picture? That looks like the ch. 3 bat-wing antenna on top.
- markow202
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Re: Why Does CBC Insist On Doing Tower Maintenance In The Daytime?
Im still wondering why they left their UHF Channel 55 CBC French antenna mounted on the CKVR tower in Barrie since 2011, not on the air. Its in the middle point of tower (white checkered wrap-around panels)
CKVR-TV_Towers.jpg (1588×2152)
How old is that picture? That looks like the ch. 3 bat-wing antenna on top.
It is from then, but I live in Barrie and can confirm the Channel 55 UHF wraparound antenna is still on the tower.
Also the new digital CKVR antenna atop made the tower look much shorter than when the batwings were up!