If you watch WSBE Rhode Island PBS regularly, you have no doubt seen our announcements since July 15 stating we are moving our broadcast frequency. That date complies with the FCC's 30-day advance notice of service disruption. While we had to prepare for the August 15 date predicted by the construction crew, work actually began at the tower site on September 13. At that time and based on the work schedule, the Plan to Scan date would be October 19. That new date is October 31.
This FCC-mandated frequency move includes outdoor, weather-dependent construction and tower work, and required powering down our transmitter on September 20. We are currently not broadcasting any signal over the air, so scanning yields no results yet.
Yes, the announcements and information on air and on our Website have said cable and satellite subscribers should not be affected by the temporary disruption and outage our over-the-air viewers experience. It is our deepest regret that reality is proving what "should be" is not always what "is." Cable and satellite viewers are experiencing disruptions and outages, too.
We share the 1,000-ft tall tower with WJAR NBC 10 and WLNE ABC 6; both stations are moving their frequencies now, too. Our transmitter will be located at about the 700-ft mark, so work for us placed us third in line.
All of us were hoping to have everyone up and running again by today - and that was the workplan -- however, the recent heavy rains and high winds made it unsafe for tower work, delaying our return.
So, Plan to Scan October 31. This date is subject to change again if we face more bad weather!
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Over-the-Air TV is Changing: Plan to Scan
How High Is It?
On or after October 31, use your TV remote control menu function to let your TV tuner scan for the new location of our signal. If you haven't scanned before, when you scan to get our channels, your TV will also find the new signal locations for channels 10 and 6.
If you have Internet, you may access Local Live Streaming (LLS) of our main channel schedule at http://ripbs.org/stream. Besides only a very few blacked out programs from distributors who did not grant us streaming rights, the regular schedule is all there, in real time.
We provide this lengthy explanation to give you some background on a complex issue. It does not make our programming any more accessible to you on television, but we sincerely hope it helps explain what is happening.
Thank you for your patience.
