Two New Seattle Area TV Subchannels, OTA and FREE

There's good news for viewers in Western Washington regarding two new free OTA subchannels.

The Tacoma, WA PBS affiliate KBTC-27 (virtual 28) has warmed up their dot-3 subchannel (28.3) and they are now presenting TVW, The Washington State Public Affairs Network from the State Capitol, Olympia, Washington. Here's the KBTC Press Release and a photo. http://www.tvw.org/modules/Articles/...ionRelease.pdf

Here's their (anticipated) schedule: http://tvw.org/index.cfm?bhcp=1



KZJO-25 (virtual 22) (ex-KMYQ) is now testing its new dot-3 subchannel and they are currently alternating showing Tower-Cam live views from around the City of Seattle including the Interstate-5 bridge crossing over the Lake Washington Ship Canal, maritime traffic and the occasional Seagull flying below the bridge and a static informational slide.



The current subchannel testing is in preparation for January 1, 2011 when 22.2 which currently hosts a rebroadcast of KCPQ-FOX-13, will be moved to the 'new' 22.3 and 22.2 will begin hosting an all new Network, ANTENNA TV. http://www.broadcastingcable.com/art...st_Network.php

This new Network http://www.antennatv.tv/ will be seen across the Country and here is a link showing over three dozen of their affiliate stations (accurate or not, being Wiki) so they may be coming to your town as well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._TV_affiliates

If you want to receive KBTC-28.3 to receive TVW or if you want to be able to continue to receive the rebroadcast of KCPQ-FOX-13 after January 1, you must have your TV set or your D-to-A Converter Box do a rescan to "add more channels" or "scan for new channels". Since both new subchannels are now up and running, you can do this today.

* A heads-up: if you were watching KBTC OTA about two years ago, you probably remember they had four simultaneous programs available on virtual channels 28.1 thru 28.4. Then, they stopped televising on 28.3 and 28.4. Rather than having two 'dark' stations on my TV sets' main menu of available channels, I went into the other menus offered and I blocked those channels because they were inactive. When I rescanned today, my TV set did not detect the renewed 28.3. I had to go back into the deeper/secondary menu and manually unblock 28.3 to return it to the screen offerings.

* UPDATE! 12/14/2010 The rebroadcast of Q-13 Fox on 22.2 was moved to 22.3 sometime last night.

* UPDATE! 12/15/2010 The rebroadcast of Q-13 Fox has returned to 22.2

Jim