[mythtv-users] Recordings problems after FCC bandwidth grab

[Gary Buhrmaster]

On Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 12:35 PM Jim Abernathy <jfabernathy at gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there a way to know if the local TV stations are doing this change to
> OTA channels?

While (as Michael Dean offered) you get the phase for the change
in frequency, it is not an exact date, but a range.  In addition, it
is not uncommon that the change requires other work on the
tower (if not for that station for others that share the facility) so
there will be periods of moving to other facilities (the alternatives
that most major stations have to allow for continuing to transmit
when work needs to be done, or in emergencies), and/or reducing
power for that other work (and occasionally just turning the
transmitted off) even if a particular station is not moving.

It should be noted for the largest/complex towers (Sutro is the
poster child in the analysis if you look at the report that the FCC
funded to be completed to do the planning) that there are only
a handful of crews qualified to do that work across the entire
country, so there is some jitter in the exact start/stop schedules
if the crew(s) get delayed on other projects due to unexpected
events (weather being the most common, but other stuff can
happen too, even with lots of time between the projects).

This is not entirely unlike one of those old children's game
of a 4x4 puzzles with one block missing and you have to
move all the parts to get things back in order.

The better managed stations will locally publish their dates
(in some, often all, combinations of newspapers, TV broadcasts,
and on their web site).  Knowing that your station(s) are
changing is certainly the first part.  And then you have to
watch closely.