Thanks DISH for keeping on top of situation

[Examiner45]

I just want to publicly acknowledge something that DISH has done and really didn't have to do and probably couldn't do a few days ago. Our local CBS affiliate, WCBI, Columbus, MS, burned out its transmission line over the weekend and has been off the air since sometime Saturday. So we've been seeing that screen saying we are aware this station is unavailable, etc, etc. But tonight, I noticed that they brought in another DMA's CBS station. Suddenly WXVT from Greenville is being shown on WCBI's SD channel. Even though its SD, its better than nothing and we have access to CBS for the interim. Thanks Dish for getting this to us and in a timely manner. It's much appreciated.

 

[MCSuckaDJ]

Interesting. Current legal issues aside (distant nets), they would have had to physically reroute their encoders in order to push an SD-only station onto an HD transport (unless they just re-routed the DMA's mapdown). Someone worked at least 6 hours to make that happen, in either case.

 

[r10fret]

Nonsense, seems to me that if a provider like dish or more importantly the station were so dedicated they would have arranged an DSNG uplink or a fiber feed to the providers within a few hours of confirming the line was out of service. You can be sure the cable co is not going to be off the air, only dish and their flawed off the air pickup setup with no microwave or fiber backup to the source from the local receive sites in smaller markets which are run by one of the stations themselves that has fiber connectivity.

Looks like the LRF for the market is at a competitors address, the triop NBC WTVA/ABC WKDH/FOX WLOV is the site, so they would have no good reason to get the local CBS competitors signal back up on dish in a hurry. "Sorry, still no signal"

 

[Examiner45]

r10fret, you actually make a very good point about the lack of backup on WCBI's and Dish's part. I suppose if they'd been prepared for this contingency it wouldn't have taken 2 days for them to have accomplished this. I'm just glad we were able to get something to take the channel's place. I personallly wish we'd got Memphis or Nashville HD instead of Greenville's SD. (we're all under the same spotbeam on 129). A post by a WCBI employee on another forum stated the off air signal would be down at least a week to a week and a half. I can't imagine getting another station would have happened at all had the law not changed allowing another station into the DMA.

 

[digiblur]

I've seen this a couple years ago with a station that burned in Colorado I believe. It was done at the request of the station I believe.

 

[bumblebee8]

I also want to THANK Dish for getting us another CBS station to watch while WCBI is down, it is much appreciated, of all the networks CBS is the most watched at my house.