The Comcast head end for the Norwich franchise is located on Plain Hill road, just south of Baltic Connecticut, also known as the town of Sprauge.
The tower was originally built back in the mid 1980's to pull in New York City stations WPIX VHF CH. 11 and WWOR VHF CH. 9 from Seacaucus N.J.
Both stations have since been removed when it was determined WWOR was getting co-channel interference from tropo and WPIX was eventually picked up off of a satellite feed, when WPIX became a super station, but brfore that WPIX was watchable about 70% of the time due to WBAL CH 11 from Baltimore MD causing tropo most of the time.
WPIX became an affiliate of WB and it was dropped because WCTX WB-59 was the local WB affiliate for our market area.
They also dropped WLVI 56 Boston because it was also an WB affiliate.
We also lost WSBK 38 Boston because it became an affiliate of UPN and so did WTXX (now called WCCT) Ch.20 from Hartford.
So as you can see, many channels were lost do to network affiliation.
I forget now how tall the head end tower is, they originally used telephone poles with various antennas perched on top until they get zoning permission to construct the tower they now use.
It took a lot of local meetings to get that tower put up to get those two stations from the New York city area added to our system.
I am guessing but it might be at least 300 foot maybe taller.
Now true we do get WCVB 5.1 Real 20.1, but they also black the station out occasionally with a computer generated memo stating the following, "Do to FCC regulations this station must be blacked out" this is because WTNH 8.1 real 10.1 from New Haven is our local television market ABC affiliate.
So what this means is WCVB Boston which is also ABC, is only carried (Not blacked out) when there are no scheduled network feeds from the ABC network.
Comcast in Norwich used to have 19 OTA stations in its line up.
Now it carries 12 OTA channels between channels 2 through 18 on their system as its basic package, now for each station that carries digital sub channels, Comcast has conveniently placed those channels up in the 700's requiring the rental of one of their SA digital converter boxes in order to view those sub channels.
In my opinion, if those channels are feed over the air for free, they should be included as part the bare basic channel package.
This would include channels such as This TV, US, Create and CPTV4u The last two channels are broad-casted on Norwich's WEDN 9.2 and 9.3.
WFSB and WVIT have subs carried up in the 700's as well, so you have to purchase the "digital preferred" package to get those subs that broadcast in 4.3 format!
By the way while on the subject of digital TV I am glad to see WJAR picked up MeTV and dropped RTV.
MeTv carries most of the same shows as RTV but, has a larger library than RTV in its broadcast schedule.
If you can get WJAR 51.2 from Providence check out their line-up.
Bruce.
The tower was originally built back in the mid 1980's to pull in New York City stations WPIX VHF CH. 11 and WWOR VHF CH. 9 from Seacaucus N.J.
Both stations have since been removed when it was determined WWOR was getting co-channel interference from tropo and WPIX was eventually picked up off of a satellite feed, when WPIX became a super station, but brfore that WPIX was watchable about 70% of the time due to WBAL CH 11 from Baltimore MD causing tropo most of the time.
WPIX became an affiliate of WB and it was dropped because WCTX WB-59 was the local WB affiliate for our market area.
They also dropped WLVI 56 Boston because it was also an WB affiliate.
We also lost WSBK 38 Boston because it became an affiliate of UPN and so did WTXX (now called WCCT) Ch.20 from Hartford.
So as you can see, many channels were lost do to network affiliation.
I forget now how tall the head end tower is, they originally used telephone poles with various antennas perched on top until they get zoning permission to construct the tower they now use.
It took a lot of local meetings to get that tower put up to get those two stations from the New York city area added to our system.
I am guessing but it might be at least 300 foot maybe taller.
Now true we do get WCVB 5.1 Real 20.1, but they also black the station out occasionally with a computer generated memo stating the following, "Do to FCC regulations this station must be blacked out" this is because WTNH 8.1 real 10.1 from New Haven is our local television market ABC affiliate.
So what this means is WCVB Boston which is also ABC, is only carried (Not blacked out) when there are no scheduled network feeds from the ABC network.
Comcast in Norwich used to have 19 OTA stations in its line up.
Now it carries 12 OTA channels between channels 2 through 18 on their system as its basic package, now for each station that carries digital sub channels, Comcast has conveniently placed those channels up in the 700's requiring the rental of one of their SA digital converter boxes in order to view those sub channels.
In my opinion, if those channels are feed over the air for free, they should be included as part the bare basic channel package.
This would include channels such as This TV, US, Create and CPTV4u The last two channels are broad-casted on Norwich's WEDN 9.2 and 9.3.
WFSB and WVIT have subs carried up in the 700's as well, so you have to purchase the "digital preferred" package to get those subs that broadcast in 4.3 format!
By the way while on the subject of digital TV I am glad to see WJAR picked up MeTV and dropped RTV.
MeTv carries most of the same shows as RTV but, has a larger library than RTV in its broadcast schedule.
If you can get WJAR 51.2 from Providence check out their line-up.
Bruce.
