WGBH reception

We're one of the few homes in our neighborhood without cable or satellite TV. There are several reasons for this state of affairs, including high costs and wanting to avoid the distractions of the Food Channel, Discovery, and Nickelodeon. But we don't see that as a problem. In our area, the broadcast DTV options are great -- five public television channels, four network affiliates, and even a few obscurities like qubo and This TV.

Nevertheless, there are challenges. We have rabbit ears attached to our HDTV, and even though we live right outside of Boston, they often need to fine-tuned to avoid "freezing" and other digital reception problems.

Two weeks ago, though, the big public broadcaster in Boston, WGBH ("Channel 2") disappeared altogether. No amount of fiddling with the antennae or menu settings would solve the problem. I eventually went to the WGBH website to see if there was a FAQ or support page that could help. There wasn't, but the station did respond to an email:

In response to your inquiry, WGBH 2 began mapping to channel 19 (our actual digital frequency) on Thursday, January 14, affecting all of our over-the-air viewers. We believed the problem was resolved by Friday morning, and most viewers who contacted us about the problem confirmed that for us. However, for viewers with certain TV brands, like Samsung, the problem persisted through Wednesday, January 20.

As of Thursday, January 21 at 6:00am, our engineers believe the problem has been resolved. If you now try tuning to WGBH at 2.1 or 2.2 and still do not find us there, please rescan for your channels and then try tuning us in at 2.1 or 2.2.

If you still do not receive us on channel 2, try a double rescan. This involves unplugging your antenna and then scanning for your channels, which should wipe out all channels from your TV's memory. Then plug your antenna back in and perform another scan. This should bring back WGBH 2 to channel 2.

If you can, please let us know how this works for you so we can report back to our engineers. Thanks!

The double rescan fix worked on our TV. However, I wonder how other people who can't reach the right resources on the WGBH.org website or understand their HDTV's confusing UIs (our Samsung remote, for instance, has three buttons that control channel settings) will fare. These days, the learning curve for TV technology is steep. For those people out there who can't figure it out, it will mean lots of frustration or simply giving up on certain over-the-air broadcasters.