The end of an era.

The CBC free to air transmitters were shut down about a month or so ago, yesterday the final nail in the coffin of free broadcasts to rural and remote communities, well ours at least.

The parabolic antennas came down, the receivers and transmitters removed and taken to the dock for shipment to Goose Bay then on to who knows where, land fill most likely after any saveable bits removed.

APTN is included in the shut down and clean out.

Others communities have been cleaned out and others will follow. Will radio be next?

The two blue units in collage above are AM transmitters from the 60's.  They were in operation here until about a year ago before being replaced with digital transmitters.

The Harperization of a once proud country is not pretty to watch. 

More updates on the Northern Ranger mentioned yesterday.

Something weird is going on. It is ironic that only Wednesday a visitor from Goose Bay mentioned how well the N Ranger had been operating this year, no mention of any problems had been heard at all in GB.
 I mentioned the little blip in Opps with the one hour delay and how she seemed to be traveling under duress, but apart from that no known issues.

Spoke too soon we did. Chatter on social media from passengers on board on the run south revealed some disturbing (but as yet unconfirmed officially) reports of the ship being held up in Postville due to its Transport Canada Certification expiring.

Whatever the problem first word was she was to overnight in Postville. Then word was that she was to depart Postville around 8 PM.

 Official re schedule is. Whatever happened she is behind now, usually due in Makkovik at 7 PM Thursdays. And things were going along swimmingly.

She is now behind about 5 hours, no biggy to make up, but if she is operating on one engine that will be difficult to keep up and more likely to loose more time. Time will tell. 

Upertydates on the Northern Ranger via CBC HV-GB. 

According to a spokesperson for CAI-Nunatsiavut (who did not sound all that convincing)  the Passenger Safety Certificate (PSC) on the vessel had expired on the 15th August resulting in a five hour delay in Postville.
It was just a regulatory issue, one that could be corrected with a phone call or some other form of communication and acquiring an extension the PSC.
At no time where the passengers at risk yadd yadda.

When asked if this should have been done prior to the shipping season the spokesperson waffled and answered a non asked question.