Some over-the-air viewers of WCET-TV could lose their signals on Channel 48 the next week because the station has reduced power for "mandatory tower maintenance," says Kellie May, station spokesperson.
WCET-TV's antenna was "powered down" at noon today, Friday Sept. 6, for CET (48.1), CET Create (48.2) and CET Arts (48.3).
"During this time it may be difficult for viewers using an antenna to get a decent over-the-air signal" on the three CET signals, she says. Work is expected to be finished by Saturday, Sept. 14.
Viewers watching WCET-TV with cable or satellite service will not be affected.
The tower work is needed for the nationwide TV channel realignment – called the "repack" – to make more of the broadcast spectrum available for cell phone and other wireless companies.
WCET-TV's "regular programming" also will be broadcast from WPTO-TV's Cincinnati tower on Channel 14.5 "to ensure most CET over-the-air viewers can continue to receive PBS programming," she says. WPTO (ThinkTV) is part of Public Media Connect, the regional partnership between Cincinnati's WCET-TV and Dayton's WPTD-TV and WPTO-TV.
"We’ll have maintenance that impacts our signal intermittently over the next few weeks. We are hoping this is the biggest outage and not everyone will lose service," May says. Eventually WCET-TV will temporarily move to an interim antenna, which "will limit the distance of our broadcast (signals) because it’s less powerful," she says.
"Once the maintenance is complete and the antenna is back at full power, viewers may need to rescan their channels," she says. Information on rescanning can be found on the CETconnect website here.
For the "repack," TV stations are being squeezed into digital Channels 2-36, from the current digital Channels 2-55. All Cincinnati area stations except WKRC-TV will be changing to new digital channels on Oct. 18. But most won't notice a difference, since viewers still see their old analog channels (5, 9, 12, 14, 19, 48) after stations switched from analog to digital broadcasting in 2009.
PBS programming also is available over the air on WCVN-TV (Channel 54) in Covington, Ky.
