For quite a few years, Canadian satellite and cable television systems have had a choice of US network affiliates which includes all of the Boston big-four affiliates and WGBH, through an organization called Cancom (Canadian Satellite Communications). As a Canadian company, Cancom is not allowed to operate satellite ground stations in the United States. US companies are not allowed up uplink to Canadian satellites. So, at this facility, the Boston stations (all but two of which transmit from the tower immediately overhead) are compressed and uplinked to a US satellite, whence Cancom can receive them at a receive site in Canada, where they can be remultiplexed with other broadcast signals and uplinked to Canadian satellites. This facility is operated by WGBH under contract to Cancom, to get around the restrictions on foreign ownership.
Copyright 2004, Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2004-05-05.