jr_tech:
Thanks much for researching this issue. Your explanation of why I was getting two exact copies of my channel scan list on my flat screen when running the channel scan makes sense. This does not happen on cable.
Now "CSCN" makes sense to me as well. The channel is audio only for the use of visually-impaired or blind persons. This sounds a lot like the radio reading services I see listed on
www.RadioStationWorld.com in some cities (I believe Cleveland may have such a station as well), the stations operating around 88 MHz. I am thinking perhaps, even likely, PBS affiliates across the US now have these audio-only channels, available to OTA viewers but not yet to cable subscribers.
I did not know, however (until now), that WVIZ operated such a channel, although I do know (and have known for some time) that the station does operate a small network of translator stations, most of which are located in far-suburban or fringe areas that WVIZ's main OTA signal does not reach -- very well or at all.
In this age of digital TV and its often weak signals in far-suburban areas, these translators serve those areas in which folks still get their TV reception via antennas. WVIZ has one such translator in the city of Ashtabula, Ohio, 50 miles from Cleveland and very near the Pennsylvania border near Lake Erie, as well as a translator in Sheffield Lake, Ohio, a far-western Cleveland suburb. There used to be a translator for the city of Chagrin Falls, Ohio (a far-eastern Cleveland suburban area), but it was taken off the air when WBNX-TV signed on in 1985. The problem was that WBNX operates on the same channel as did the WVIZ translator for Chagrin Falls, so the latter had no choice but to go dark. Whether or not it ever returned to the air on another channel, I don't know.
WBNX has three DTV subchannels: 55.1 is the main one (WBNX CW--the CW television network), 55.2 is WBNX-SD (standard definition), and 55.3 is This-TV. The third subchannel was added as a direct result of the affiliation contract of WUAB in suburban Lorain, Ohio having expired and the station did not renew it--in time or due to financial issues. This-TV was then supposedly moved to WBNX's subchannel 55.3, but the cable system in my area doesn't yet carry that subchannel or 55.2, and I'm not sure (don't know, if the truth be known) if or when these subchannels will be added to our channel lineup here.
I could get a refund on my Clear Cast antenna (the procedure to do so is outlined in a form letter sent along with the antenna), but I think I'll keep it, as I intend to do more experimenting. However, these experiments will not be very frequent, as every time I switch from cable to the CC antenna or vice-versa, I have to rescan the TV and redo the channel labels at the same time. For whatever reason, my area's cable system doesn't label the cable channels on TVs so equipped; labels appear on my set (in a small blue box at the upper right corner of the screen), for example, for only the major network affiliates. Since my cable carries some 50 channels (analog and digital), relabeling the cable channels, while not difficult by any means, takes quite a bit of time, as the channel labels must be entered one letter at a time for every station received.
I suppose, however, that I shouldn't complain, as my area's cable has only 50 channels; if I lived in either the metro New York or Los Angeles area, however, I'd have to spend perhaps an hour or more labeling all the channels those cities' cable systems likely carry, since both cities have seven VHF channels and probably many UHF stations as well. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the cable systems in those cities carry well over one hundred channels on their standard service tier alone.