We located a used server and we are back on the air. This will be a temporary solution as we will be doing a major upgrade to our server and other broadcast related software and hardware in the near future.

Unfortunately the Bulletin Board is not functioning yet so you’ll just see a single slide on the screen when there is no programming. Occasionally you might see a black screen but stay tuned as programming will soon continue.

There may be adjustments to our daily schedules so some programs you might have seen at a certain time might be shown at a slightly different time – for instance, Democracy Now was seen at 12:30 PM and will now be seen at 12PM and The David Pakman show will now be seen at 5 PM.

When a new Bulletin Board is up and running you’ll be able to see a daily schedule.

Thank you for your patience.

The Board of Directors and staff of Falls Cable Corporation

We never expected that it would take this long to solve our technical difficulties. We feel very strongly about our commitment to the Buckland and Shelburne residents to provide programs of local interest, like the Selectboard meetings, as well as other informative and entertaining programming from outside sources. Our inability to do this has been very frustrating for all involved.

Several weeks ago, our server, the major piece of hardware that enables us to send our programming to Comcast for distribution to their subscribers, crashed. We contacted the manufacturer and were told we would have to buy a new service contract before they could help us. The server was purchased in 2011 and at that time it was the most widely used server amongst public access community TV stations. They did not offer free technical support and the station bought a five year service contract that has expired, thus, their requirement that we buy another service contact before they will diagnose our problem or fix our problem. It could be a very minor problem but we have no way of knowing until we buy the contract. Negotiations with them have failed to alter their stance.

We have received a proposal from the manufacturer on a new server but that would also require the extra purchase of a service agreement that adds a substantial amount to the overall cost.

We are now in the process of learning more about other server manufacturers – we have a meeting with a representative on Wed. April 11 – and hope to have a recommendation for our Board of Directors on a new server by their meeting on April 17. If a purchase is approved at that meeting we hope it will not be too long afterwards that it can be purchased, delivered and installed. After a short training period we should be back on the air.

A post will be added here to update our status on April 18.

The recording of the meeting encountered difficulties and only the first 3 hours or so of the meeting is available here on the web site. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Update – Tuesday March 27 – Unfortunately Falls Cable’s Channel 17 continues to be off the air. At this point we do not have an estimate of when we will be back on the air. We are working hard to solve the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday March 13 was cancelled by the snow storm. The meeting was held on Thursday March 15 and is available for viewing here on the web site.

The meeting, held on Feb. 8, can be found under the School Committee section of the Town Government menu above.

On Jan. 25 I spoke with Beth Bandy and Toby Gould from Rural Commonwealth.

In the pull down menu above click on Shows and look for Over The Falls.

Sorry to report that there is no recorded version of the Nov. 14 Buckland Selectboard meeting for rebroadcast or for playing here on this web site.

We might be able to get an audio only version, and if so I’ll post it here.

In a previous post about the meeting it was explained that a technical problem prevented Falls Cable from making a recording of the meeting. Here is a further clarification.

The “technical problem” was due to not having a blank DVD available to record the meeting. This was not discovered until 5:05 PM during our normal set-up process. A last minute effort was made to find one but it was unsuccessful before 5:30 PM when the meeting was called to order. The meeting was broadcast live.

This is the sole reason why no Falls Cable recording of the meeting exists.

We again apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.