Watching television without cable or satellite service is about to become more difficult for many North Olympic Peninsula viewers.
For some television fans, those old rabbit ears on top of the trusty TV set could be hopping off into the sunset when television stations in Victoria and Vancouver, B.C., join stations across Canada and turn off their analog transmitters Aug. 31.
The Canadian transition to digital television will require those old analog TVs to have a digital-to-analog converter box to keep the antenna functioning — or to be hooked up to a cable or satellite television provider.
Rabbit ears might not be quite enough to keep the screen lighted. A bigger antenna with more pulling power may be required.
For many North Olympic Peninsula residents out of the range of Seattle-area signals, Canada has been one of the few sources of free, over-the-air television and among the last sources for old-style analog television since the mid-1950s.
Dave Lyle, owner of the Radio Shack outlet in Sequim, is cautiously optimistic for over-the-air television viewers after the transition.
“If you’re getting the analog signal right now, chances are, that with the right antenna and a digital tuner, you’ll be able to bring in most of what were the old analog channels” he said.
But for some unfortunate people, free television from Canada could become a thing of the past, particularly in fringe areas.
Digital reception can be finicky and the transmission range is typically less than with old-style analog.
Digital signals from north of the border can be hit-or-miss, depending upon terrain or obstructions in the signal’s path.
Unlike the old analog system of television broadcasting, reception of digital signals are an all-or-nothing proposition.
The signal will be either crystal-clear or totally absent.
There are no opportunities for a fuzzy-but-watchable signal currently possible with more forgiving analog transmissions.
Corey Stephens, maintenance engineer for CHEK-TV in Victoria — which has broadcast on VHF channel 6 since 1956 until next week — said he hoped that his station’s U.S. viewers via antenna would still get a signal, but was cautious about making any guarantees.
Cable TV viewers who get CHEK and other Canadian stations should see no change, just as there wasn’t when U.S. stations converted to digital last year.
Stephens said most viewers who received CHEK’s signal before should still receive it after the switch, depending upon the signal path from Saturna Island northeast of Victoria, where CHEK transmits from.
“Digital doesn’t carry as far as analog,” Stephens said. “But we did the engineering analysis and we tried to get the digital contour as close as we could to the analog contour.”
Jim Blundell, vice president and general manager of Victoria’s CIVI-TV — known on the air as A Channel but renaming itself CTV Two on Aug. 29 — also said his station was going to do its best to retain all its current viewers.
“If you got it before, then you should get it now,” he said. “It’s exactly the same footprint.”
Traditionally, a wide variety of analog Vancouver transmissions have made it up and over the San Juan Islands to the Olympic Peninsula without much difficulty.
Careful antenna aiming has allowed viewers to bring in Canadian networks such as the CBC, CTV, Global, Citytv, Omni and even French language programming for those with in range and willing to tweak the rabbit ears or rooftop arrays.
But digital signals may have a trickier time making it this far across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Mount Seymour, where Vancouver’s transmitters are perched.
The smallest obstruction can have the greatest consequences when pulling in the series of zeros and ones that make up a digital television transmission.
Trees, hills, houses and other objects pose a significant threat to reception.
Digital broadcasts from Victoria stand a better chance for Clallam County viewers, with varying degrees of success for television watchers in East Jefferson County. There are fewer things standing in the way.
“You should be good there,” CHEK’s Stephens said. “It should be more or less the same as it is now. That was the guess.”
Lyle said signal obstructions could be an issue for some viewers. It’s a matter of location.
“Trees aren’t as bad as buildings. And buildings aren’t as bad as hillsides,: he said.
“A lot of us have line-of-sight to Victoria and Vancouver and Bellingham.”
Set-top converter boxes costing from $30 to $70 are available from many electronics and department stores. But there is no assurance that a viewer’s location will allow the box pull in a digital station.
All new televisions sold in the United states since 2007 are required to include digital tuners, but again, there is no guarantee of reception.
For many viewers, an outdoor or rooftop antenna may help to pull in those elusive signals.
And for those trying the bigger-antenna route, most Canadian broadcast stations will transmit on channels in the UHF band requiring antennas tuned for UHF frequencies, even though the channel number that may appear on the dial will show up as a channel that once required a VHF band antenna.
Existing types of UHF antennas will work to pull in a signal where distance and terrain allow. But existing VHF-band antennas will become basically worthless.
For cable television and satellite service subscribers, the digital switch in Canada will have no effect on current channel lineups.
Wave Broadband, serving Port Angeles and Sequim, currently offers three stations from Canada: CBUT-TV with CBC programming and CKVU-TV with Citytv network shows, both from Vancouver, plus independent CHEK-TV from Victoria.
CKVU-TV was recently moved to a digital level of service by Wave requiring a decoder box for continued reception by most subscribers.
Broadstripe in East Jefferson County carries only CBUT-TV on its basic service.
By international agreement, neither satellite service available in the United States —Dish Network or DirecTV — can carry Canadian television channels.
In preparation for the big switch, many Canadian broadcasters are already transmitting in both analog and digital formats, particularly stations in the Vancouver metropolitan area.
For those currently able to receive Canadian over-the-air digital transmissions, the Aug. 31 transition may still require action on the part of over-the-air viewers.
Some broadcasters plan to switch to different digital channels when they pull the plug on their analog transmitters.
Digital tuners will be required to “rescan” to detect and acquire the changes.
Consult your owners manual for the television or converter box for instructions on how to do this.
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Photojournalist Keith Thorpe can be reached at 360-417-3524 or at keith.thorpe@peninsuladailynews.com.
