Frequency allocation to make room for wireless means some TV stations must move
Years after TV stations in Canada’s larger cities were required to switch from analog to digital transmission, many broadcast towers that serve smaller areas continue to pump out signals that black-and-white sets made in the 1950s can still pick up.
But the number of those stations appears set to shrink following a federal government decision to clear a large portion of the ultra high frequency (UHF) band for wireless users, and, because of cost, some of those towers will be going dark.
That means viewers without cable TV or Internet won’t get those stations anymore.
“We had to make the hard decision to shut it down,” said Tom Lister, operations manager for Miracle Channel, about the station’s analog transmitter that serves portions of southeastern Alberta, including Medicine Hat.