Basically, I sat my high ass down to watch OTA TV. I get only two main channels (ABC and NBC) and their affiliates, which share their respective main channel. Turned the TV on at like 10:45 pm CST, zoned out on my phone, looked up around 11:20 (when I started recording) and there was still seemingly not a feed, just a darkish gray picture. Changed channels, sister stations came in fine, showed normal programming. Went back to ABC and then NBC, both the same level of flat gray picture. Not fully black like there was no signal, but a maybe 75-80% dark gray.
If there were weather or atmospheric interference, it's my understanding that all of the channels would drop out or at the very least, struggle to produce a picture simultaneously. This was night and day. A complete (not black) blackout on 13.1 ABC, and perfectly fine on 13.4 True Crime Network and the other handful. Same with 46.1 NBC; it was "out" but all the affiliates work.
Wtf right? This doesn't seem incidental, or accidental.
I genuinely think the networks or some interloper blocked viewers from seeing the late night shows. Why? Maybe the ongoing latenight feud is just a convenient scapegoat and it's particularly because of the absolute slam-dunk job Mamdani did at making Trump docile to him today. The powers that be are strangling each other not to let casual socialism breach the mainstream with Trump's hearty support and don't want those utterly dumbfounding, amazing moments to be lauded by late night hosts and further spread than they already hopefully have been.
Yes, I did record this for 5 minutes and it contains some interesting commentary because, yes, I'm high. I also recorded shortly after the picture returned in a perfect feed of the very last songs of whatever band was playing on Kimmel. This was around 11:34 pm CST.
Did anyone else witness this? And can I send this video to anyone who would care about checking into how limited or widespread it could be? I could attach a short clip if needed, just hesitant about identifying data.
Again, high. But with video evidence.
Tl;dr at the bottom (sorry)
That is a good question. Now I genuinely don't know how it works in bigger / more dense metro areas but in gods cuntry anyway the transmitters are often 25+ miles away and don't necessarily contain all the channels one can get. I couldn't find an accurate or updated list of the stations I should get on any of those "free digital tv channel" websites that even list one of mine as a possibility, so it's out there but idk where. There was a GIS from NASA I believe that shows all the various public and private/commercial comms towers and such (I'll see if I can find it again) that had promise, sad allusion unintended, but I couldn't get it to load on my phone and can't look at a desktop so soon in the weekend, lulul.
I also read something about close frequency signals having to be physically separated to avoid interference which was depending on power output I believe (yayyy electromagnetic equations).
Additionally also, I can't remember which channel since it's been years since summer, but one of mine (and all its subchannels) would always lag a bit on a hot sunny day but would do fantastically in the rain. The other one was more or less the opposite. I've since repositioned it and have had clear picture/audio almost constantly that I've noticed.
TL;dr:
I'm pretty sure they're on entirely separate towers based on maps and prior reception differences.