Can’t figure out if AI, shop job, or modern art piece…

Or maybe some guy took adderall for the first time, idk

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.

I appreciate your validation that this appears to be a content feed issue and not likely a reception issue. Too many possibilities.

The only addition I have is that the two channels originate from different transmitters as far as I can tell. That adds to how strange it was for both 13.1 and 46.1 being missing content at the same time, while their respective affiliates were fine.

I hope to find public outage or feedback reports for broadcast stations, maybe a pattern is evident somewhere?

Thank you for checking! Knowing it was just reruns on the Big Three for those lacking a social life is a certain flavor of relief.

Assuming it was a local “grayout” on the two subchannels coming from different transmitters, could it be a limited testing of the waters for possible public response? OTA watchers would probably report a lack of feed less than someone who subscribes to a wired (cable, internet) service because one assumes OTA has less reliable reception, and it’s also free. But in this case, the other subchannels being on air tells me it’s not a typical reception issue.

It’s easy to handwave this away as an abberation, but it’s still disconcerting.

On both channels? Coming from different broadcast towers? At the same time?