PBS upgrades planned

Montana PBS has upgrades scheduled for the Thompson Falls and Plains area. Improvements to the Plains and Thompson Falls reception of Montana PBS TV is of current concern, according to Dewey Duffel, secretary of the Western Sanders County TV District Board. “So many of our problems with achieving constant always-on broadcasts is due to the long chain of relays that are necessary to make available these distant signals to the west end of Sanders County,” Duffel said.

In 2020 the TV building and tower on Pat’s Knob were replaced per Forest Service regulations. In 2021 the microwave units, including dish antennas at the two Burlington Northern Railroad towers, were replaced. That included one near Plains and the other near Thompson Falls. In 2022 Montana Public Radio from Missoula added an FM translator station at 88.1 Mhz on Clark Mountain.

Recently, the Montana PBS TV intermittent problem was solved by replacing a broken antenna bracket on Pat’s Knob for KUFM-MTPBS. Replacing the old or damaged equipment will follow standards that are being adopted across the United States.

The PBS signal is received on Pat’s Knob near Plains then relayed to Weeksville and Thompson Falls, then to Green Mountain between Trout Creek and Noxon. Repairing the bracket on Pat’s Knob ideally resumed reliable reception of the PBS channels, Duffel reported. From a transmitter near Flathead Lake to Plains and Paradise a microwave signal is received and rebroadcast to send signals that are retransmitted to Trout Creek and Heron via Green Mountain.

At present, Duffel said, when all is working well, Clark Mountain retransmits KPAX-CBS with five additional sub-channels. KCFW-NBC has three additional sub-channels. KTMF-ABC-Fox has two additional sub-channels and KUFM-MTPBS has four channels. Spokane has KSPS-PBS with three added channels. This offers 22 channels plus one more received at Green Mountain coming in from another Spokane sub-channel.

“In the future we hope to be able to replace all of our transmitters with units that will be suitable for re-transmitting signals in the new, next generation TV format,” Duffel said.

Within the next two years, two Missoula stations are expected to add transmissions in this format. Spokane as well, has not completed their upgrades. These new transmission standards called ATSC 3.0 can contain more information that breaks into a digital stream and uses the same standard as the internet. This results in added programs, higher resolution, digital files and enhanced messages for emergency alerts such as floods and fire warnings, Duffel reported.