Greetings TV Garth readers! Last weekend, there was an AMAZING tropo opening. (For those not familiar with the lingo, “tropo” is short for tropospheric enhancement, which is what allows long distance TV reception to occur.) This was my most intense experience with DTV tropo yet! It almost felt historic in scale. I’ll break this down by date and try to give a recap that can do justice to this awesome event! (Get a snack and a drink…this is gonna be a long one!)
Friday Jan. 15th
I didn't think anything was unusual at first. But a little after 12am, I turned the antenna, and I noticed a flicker on RF29. Then I noticed a flicker on RF51. Last time that happened, it was Chicago, so I quickly threw on my hat, dragged the antenna outside and put it on a ladder parked on top of the shed.
In that position, Chicago, IL's WMAQ (RF29) rolled in off and on through the night (I caught it only briefly last Summer.)
I also caught two new stations - Chicago's WPWR on RF51, and WBUI on RF22, which I'd never heard of.
I looked up WBUI on Wikipedia and discovered it's the CW of Central Illinois (licensed to Decatur, IL.) But what really bowled me over is that it's a mind blowing 542 miles away from me!!! (At this point it was a new record for me!) I also picked up some of my more familiar catches with Cleveland, OH's WEWS on RF15 (with an Oprah episode featuring Lady Gaga) and Detroit, MI's WMYD on RF21.
Saturday Jan. 16th
In the very early hours (5am or so) Cleveland and Chicago were still coming in. (Including WEWS’ local show Kaleidoscope which had Delores McCollum talking to Leon Bibb about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.)
Cleveland also stayed in during the early afternoon with WEWS (RF15), WKYC (RF17), and WBNX (RF30) but then I caught something new on RF22 - South Bend, IN's WSBT! (This was my first time catching anything from Indiana!) However, the picture didn't fully decode and I had to leave for work by 2:30pm.
By the time I came home at 11pm, though, Indiana was fully booming in along with Michigan and Ohio! I caught full decode of South Bend, IN's WSBT (RF22), as well as WNDU (RF42), and WHME (RF48). They are all roughly 386 miles away from me!
WNDU on RF42 is one of the few NBC stations I’ve seen that includes a standard definition subchannel.
WSBT on RF22 has two subchannels, including “SBT2” on 22-2 (showing a local basketball game when I saw it), and a weather station on 22-3!
WHME on RF48 had what would be dubbed “Gospel Huxters” over on DXing From Lincoln County, AR. They were going on about something like sending $1000 as a financial seed for the Lord. If I had $1000 laying around, I don’t know if I’d want to send it to questionable guys who are sitting in front of a “paradise” backdrop. Hmmm…. Same program was running on the main and subchannel of the station.
I was lucky enough to catch part of the newscasts from both WNDU and WSBT! I love watching local newscasts when long distance tropo comes in! First up was WNDU’s news with Joel Schipper and Angelo Di Carlo below.
I also saw a bit of WSBT’s news with Diane Daniels below.
Later in the night, I was totally blown away by catching Lansing, MI's WLNS on RF36. Channel 36 is normally CITS, a semi-local analog station from Hamilton, Ontario. (Never dreamed I could get a digital signal over top of a station that close to me, especially one that was 271 miles away!)
I got to see the repeat of WLNS’ nightly newscast, with anchor Ann Emmerich, including a great shot of Lansing at night!
I was blown away again when South Bend's WNIT stomped over CITS' digital signal on RF35!
Two stations from Detroit, MI also came in over semi-local Buffalo, NY stations! I got WTVS on RF43 over Buffalo's WNED, and WKBD on RF14 over Buffalo's WUTV!
There were also catches of many Ohio PBS stations including Bowling Green's WBGU on RF27, Toledo's WGTE on RF29 and Akron's WEAO on RF50!
Below is a round up of other stations that showed up during the night:
Detroit, MI’s WJBK (FOX) on RF7, with a repeat of their late news.
I also caught Akron, OH’s WVPX for the first time on RF23 (weirdly enough this is the same RF channel as another ION station, Batavia, NY’s WPXJ!)
Cleveland, OH’s Univision station WQHS showed up on RF34.
Kalamazoo, MI’s FamilyNet station WLLA came in on RF45 (this totally drowned out Detroit, MI’s WDIV for the most part, despite strong reception of many other Detroit stations.)
Flint, MI’s FOX station WSMH arrived on RF16 with Wanda Sykes.
Sunday Jan. 17 - Monday Jan. 18th
In the early hours of Sunday morning, I topped Fri's DX record with a few seconds here and there of WMBD (RF30) from Peoria, Illinois! It is approx 571 miles from me, and my current DTV record!
I felt like a kid again when I got to see some children’s shows on Sunday morning! First up was the wacky Keys’ Kids on Detroit, MI’s WMYD (RF21).
Willa’s Wild Life popped up on South Bend’s WNDU with some charmingly retro animation.
There was also some animated Sabrina The Teenage Witch on South Bend’s WSBT!
The picture below needs to be on a poster, or on a shirt! The WNDU wraparound makes it appear that the bird is saying “16 Brings It Home.” (The bird is actually from a PSA about safety that had nothing to do with WNDU.)
I was tired, and still hadn’t gone to bed, but kept observing the tropo – especially when I saw that both WNDU (RF16) and WDIV (RF45) were running Sunday morning newscasts at 8am!
WNDU had the very cute “The Weather Could Be Verse” feature with Gary Sieber below, filling in for their regular meteorologist who was on maternity leave.
WDIV rolled in with Bisi Onile-Ere and Andrew Humphrey for Local 4 News Morning. Their news wasn’t scary this time! They were talking to the Mosaic Youth Theatre and the reporting was surprisingly upbeat!
Later, I clicked back over to WNDU to see Alana Greenfogel and Gary Sieber.
The super wave of tropo seemed to be winding down in the afternoon to early evening period. However, after 10pm signals started lighting up again. Detroit came back in with WMYD on RF21. They were showing Cold Case Files, which always weirds me out. This episode is nothing to salivate over, in my opinion.
There was also reception of Flint, MI’s WFUM on RF28 (which is now a satellite of Mount Pleasant, MI’s WCMU.)
Then Lansing, MI came again with WLNS *again* overriding the analog CITS on RF36!
I also got one crazy result that was so short-lived I only got PSIP in my Panasonic TV. RF29 was erratically blinking on my Zenith DTT901, so I switched to my Panasonic tuner to see if it would decode. It stored as Kokomo, IN's WTTK (451 miles from me.) Not a full decode, but the calls did get stored in the TV. (It mapped as 29-1 WTTK and 29-2 THIS TV.)
Later in the night between 1-3am approx, I was shocked to get two Dayton, OH stations! WRGT came in on RF30 when I was on the phone with my friends Mr. A and Marsha. (Mr. A had just returned from a cruise, and is well informed of my DX obsession. So when I said on the phone, "WRGT what the heck is this?" He replied "Just take pictures and we'll look it up." Marsha then checked Wikipedia and said “Dayton?” Then Mr. A expressed surprise that I was getting Dayton, Ohio in the "dead of Winter." Heh...) WRGT also has THIS TV as a subchannel on 45-2.
I also caught Dayton's NBC affiliate WDTN on RF50, which was showing a Dense Fog Advisory at the bottom corner of the screen.
A little later, WRGT was also running weather advisories – over top of the Magic Jack infomercial!
It seemed that Ohio was getting hit by Fog warnings all over, as WEWS on RF15 was also showing advisories by the time the station popped up again. (Even World News Now anchors Eric Horng and Vinita Nair look concerned about the fog!)
Between 4:30-5am Dayton faded off, but Cleveland remained and I was getting good results with WEWS on RF15, WKYC on RF17 and WQHS on RF34. I finally got to see sizable chunks of the newscasts on WEWS and WKYC!
Check out the WEWS montage below with anchor Pete Kenworthy, and some coverage of Haiti benefits and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Soap hunks were being advertised on WQHS below.
Jason Nicholas was on hand to provide weather on WEWS (W.O.W. for short) with Canadian cities London, Toronto and Leamington represented on various maps below!
Here’s a montage of the WKYC news, with Mark Nolan and Hollie Strano. (Including a mix up where the caption “Rescue Efforts” appeared over a picture of Martin Luther King, Jr.)
If it wasn’t clear at this point, there were still warnings about fog as evidenced by the giant text on WKYC’s weather subchannel below.
WKYC really seemed to be promoting Hollie Strano in ads and on-air captions encouraging viewers to add her on Facebook. Mark Nolan appears in the second pic with the WKYC newsroom behind him.
WEWS was taking part in the special event Help For Haiti.
Below is a great shot of the 5 On Your Side logo, from the WEWS news.
As I was ready to pass out from tropo-induced sleep deprivation, I caught one of my more regular long distance catches – Rochester, NY’s WXXI on RF16.
By 6:30am I was exhausted and wrapped things up. I left my digital box on RF12 and Erie, PA's WICU came in sometime after I went to bed (saw it stored on the box after I woke up.)
So that about wraps up the historic (in my books) tropo blast of January 2010! Stay tuned to TV Garth for more Reception Reports! As well, check out these links to my full Flickr sets filled with tons of pictures from this awesome event:
Friday Jan. 15, 2010 - Full Flickr Set
Saturday Jan. 16, 2010 (Part 1) - Full Flickr Set
Saturday Jan. 16, 2010 (Part 2) - Full Flickr Set
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