Greetings TV Garth viewers! I’ve been massively behind on updates, especially since I’ve been glued to the set in search of new channels and observing the DTV transition that took place on June 12th. For now, here is at long last my first report about receiving Syracuse, NY stations from the apartment of my good friend Mr. A, who lives in Downtown Toronto. His apartment will now be known as the “downtown office” of TV Garth!
Mr. A (also known as “Anks” to some, especially those who visit his awesome photo blog) lives on the 27th floor of a building that faces Southeast of Lake Ontario, so he gets amazing reception. I started bringing over my Zenith DTT901 digital converter box along with my CM4040 indoor antenna to his place to do OTA experiments. This weekend in particular was amazing for reception, with both Syracuse, NY (and eventually Utica, NY) arriving. I was staying over at Mr. A’s place for the weekend because I was seeing many films at the Inside Out festival that was happening at the time.
The night began with elation that quickly turned into deflation when I caught Syracuse’s WSTM for a brief moment – but my camera wasn’t ready and the signal faded back out pretty quickly. I was gunning for WSTM as it had only flickered but never locked for me in Markham, and they were soon switching from Digital 54 to Digital 24 after the DTV transition. 24 is occupied already in Toronto with CBC French. So time was running out to bag this channel!
Below is a pic of me desperately trying to get WSTM back, aiming my CM4040 out the window and watching the DTT901’s signal meter. Mr. A was trying hard to cheer me up, but I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I got it back.
In the meantime, I settled for Rochester pics, since their digitals were coming in strong. I took a pic of the Syracuse weather on WHEC’s weather station as a “good luck” measure in hopes that Syracuse would get stronger as the night went on.
Then, BAM, the signal started to waft in again at about 2:58 am and I was ready this time! Funnily enough it was WSTM’s Weather station on 3-3 that was the first to decode on the DTT901 box.
Here is the WSTM signal getting slightly better! (And Mariah Carey glittering with excitement in the bottom corner near the TV.)
And of course, they were running Poker After Dark at this time of night.
WSTM features their sister station WSTQ, a CW affiliate, as a subchannel on 3-2. WSTQ was running a full length infomercial for the local Sun Chevrolet car dealership.
The WSTM weather channel on 3-3 was awesome as well, covering many cities all around the Central New York area. Below is Seneca Falls, and oddly enough Mr. A and I saw a car from New York the next day with Seneca Falls listed on the outer rim of the license plate. When I said “Seneca Falls? Where’s that?” he said “They were on that weather channel you were watching yesterday.”
When I saw this city pop up on screen, I excitedly told Mr. A, “Look it’s Skittlesville!!!” I have no idea how to properly pronounce the actual name of the city, though. (But wouldn’t Skittlesville be a tasty, colourful city?)
I frequently check the program guide info to see the details of the shows that are on.
Mr. A insisted that the woman on the left was Jennifer Lopez. Even though it wasn’t, she does look J-Lo-esque in the pic below!
This is me….then….with my Over-The-Air tools of destruction. Mr. A was incredibly helpful in supporting my OTA craziness, taking many of the pictures you see here of the reception, as I had to hold the antenna more or less in that position to catch WSTM. He even let me use his awesome new camera for pics when the battery died on my camera.
And at last, here is the Syracuse doppler radar!
WSTM carries the nightly Jay Leno repeat at 3am.
3-2 WSTQ keeps running that Sun Chevrolet infomercial on what seems like an endless loop.
I was already excited to be getting WSTM, but things got even more pop cultured when I saw a crazy commercial for something called “Hang Ups”. The ad features a guy throwing himself around on some acrobatic contraption. They even show a woman showing how you can use it at the office!
And here we have a great ad for Wayne’s Weather Deck Party, followed by the sponsors of the event (including a Syracuse rock radio station!)
The city of Adams has Birrell’d its way into my heart! (Inside joke!)
“I love Syracuse thiiiiiis much!” says the woman below, and I totally agree with her.
Here is the channel list from my Zenith box, with all three of WSTM’s stations gloriously represented!
Dewitt is a great “Joyce” of city to be covered by WSTM’s weather station. (This bad pun was brought to you via the fond memories of Three’s Company!)
Here’s the program info on tonight’s Jay Leno ep, followed by a shot of Jay himself.
I also popped back over to see what was on Rochester’s channels, and saw The Insider on 13-1 WHAM, and Divorce Court on 13-2 CW-WHAM.
Below, more Syracuse weather reports, followed by a great shot from the Syracuse traffic cam (the Syra-cam?)
Back over in Rochester reception, both WXXI and WUHF were coming in, which oddly, are the more difficult ones to receive from Mr. A’s apartment compared to WROC and WHEC.
Back over on 3-3, WSTM’s weather channel shows a commercial for CW6’s Action News. The headline blazes across the bottom “Only Local News”! “Digging Deeper”! “Triple Doppler”! I don’t even live in Syracuse, but after that promo I was all pumped up for their newscast!
Back on the main 3-1 WSTM, Jay was talking to animal expert Julie Scardina, who brought some friends with her. Jay doesn’t monkey around with these guests, but he does look a little “Scard” off by the giant bird in the third pic below. (You can see Julie quickly rushing in to smooth those ruffled feathers.) Soon even guest Kevin Bacon is in on the act, with an animal cozying up to him.
Then, after all the excitement of getting WSTM, I doubled my pleasure and picked up 9-1 WSYR, also from Syracuse! I was totally happy to be Kickin’ It with Byron Allen!
Then came a local commercial from WSYR, who needed to wake up the people who just don’t give a duck about battling prejudice. You can purchase a rubber duck from InterFaith Works and even participate in a “Duck Race” to help fight racism! (Though the commercial seems a bit paradoxical, as the slogan “Help End Racism” gets flashed right over a stereotypical image of black children banging on “African” drums. But the event’s heart in the right place!)
Speaking of stereotypes, here’s Bret Michaels and a bevy of buxom beauties! They’re promoting a rock music collection titled Hard and Heavy.
The pic below was an attempt to capture my joy, shock and awe at receiving Syracuse stations that night!
Over on 9-2 WSYR-2, they were showing commercials and public service announcements. (I thought WSYR-2 was a weather channel like the ones seen on many NBC stations, but it’s more of a general entertainment subchannel.) Is it me, or does the woman on the right look like she’s totally annoyed with the sweet older couple looking at the flowers? Like she’s about to say, “Yeah, I know they’re pretty, but can you get out of here?”
She doesn’t look much happier even when the sweet couple are gone. Maybe this is a dark PSA about how flowers will die if we don’t take care of the Earth, or something like that. Maybe I should Google the phone number and see what it’s really about.
Here we have a happy goldfish, but this being a PSA, he’s probably seconds away from A) an environmentally caused illness, B) accidentally being starved to death by a neglectful owner, or C) becoming a snack for a mischievous cat.
The following pic would have been a great shot of the WSYR-2 logo if the signal hadn’t decided to go on an acid trip when I snapped it. But you can still get the gist of it.
WSYR’s signal may have flaked, but I was In Wine Country back over on WSTM!
WSTQ, though, was still showing the Sun Car infomercial!
Here we have someone lifting a crate of delicious wine on NBC’s In Wine Country.
Look closely on the map below and you’ll see Toronto noted on the map along with Syracuse and a few other major cities!
Meanwhile, back in Rochester, 13-2 CW-WHAM was showing Judge David Young.
Then came a commercial for Dr. Phil on 3-3, WSTM’s weather channel.
The woman below looks like she should be saying “You know, I was once romanced by a Cazenovia back in the day. He was a real lothario!”
Don’t miss Dr. Phil on CW6 (WSTQ) weeknights at 7pm! (Also check out the city name in the weather report….makes me think of All My Children’s Palmer Cortland!)
And you think WSTQ is done with cars? Nah, they’re taking us for the ride with more of the Sun Chevrolet infomercials!
Below is a Pop Quiz from In Wine Country. I’d say that Shiraz goes best in a Kristal goblet. (Inside joke for Mr. A, who deserves tremendous kudos for allowing me to go crazy with TV reception at his place.)
Here is the main ad for CNYcentral.com which is the main portal for WSTM, WSTQ and WTVH (though WTVH’s digital signal is blocked in Toronto by CFMT’s analog signal on Ch. 47).
Finally something other than Sun Cars! An ad for Action News on CW6 over on WSTQ!
As much as I’ve joked about the ubiquitous presence of the Sun Chevrolet infomercials, I love this shot of the dealership’s sign. It makes me sigh for American roadtrips from when I was younger, going to Buffalo and Jamestown, NY.
You have to love a city that’s named Manlius. I imagine your voice would have to go down an octave just to say it with the right “oomph.”
This is probably what the guys from Manlius look like.
WSYR’s signal popped back in just long enough for me to capture the Live Doppler from WSYR-2. At this point, I finally had to go to bed, as there were more Inside Out movies to see, and more reception to catch (including Utica, NY!)
Stay tuned to TV Garth for the next Reception Report, which will feature more Syracuse and my first documentation of Utica!
