In the first entry about my trip I totally forgot to mention the amazing antenna I saw a few streets away from my Grandma's house. I did some investigative research and found out it belongs to this Ham Radio enthusiast. Take a gander at this baby:
March 24 (Santa Maria, CA):
My Grandma knew I was itching to visit Radio Shack (I was hoping to pick up a new antenna during the vacation.) So we went there and I bought a moderately sized UHF antenna. I initially wasn't going to buy it, since I've been looking for a better VHF antenna to add to my collection. But it was $34.99 and looked neat, plus I was hoping to pull in Santa Barbara's KEYT (which became more of a goal throughout the week, despite being a relatively paltry 35 air miles away from my Grandma's house.) Below is the antenna, assembled and hanging off one of Grandma's brooms at the top of her garden.
My Grandma also surprised me by taking me to visit Santa Maria's CBS station, KCOY! I had printed out the directions to the station and hoped to visit, but had no idea my Grandma was already planning on taking me there. (I guess she figured I liked the station after seeing me leap in front of her TV to take pictures of it...heh...) KCOY also runs Santa Maria's FOX affiliate, KKFX-CA, which is a low powered analog station and the digital subchannel of KCOY. (The FOX 11 branding comes from the station's cable position.)
I went inside and asked about station tours. There was an awesome, friendly receptionist who gave me contact info for a station employee that arranges tours. (Unfortunately, they were short staffed that week, so no tours were being done.) The receptionist was also able to take some pics of me inside the station's lobby, which made my day! She said a lot of people like to pose with the FOX American Idol banner.
I also wasn't COY about asking her to take a pic of me with the KCOY carpet!
When I was leaving the station I noticed one of their news trucks outside!
Across the street was the Santa Maria office of KSBY, the NBC affiliate based in San Luis Obispo.
I happily posed with their office logo.
I was also excited to find one of their Action News vehicles!
The action back at my Grandma's place included seeing trashy court shows en Español via KPMR's Telefutura subchannel 38-2!
After assembling and attaching my new Radio Shack antenna to a broom (as seen earlier this post) I was finally able to capture Santa Barbara's KEYT! I thought it was funny that in Markham I can pick up Buffalo stations pretty regularly at 87-92 miles away, but in Santa Maria a station 35 miles away was an elusive goal. Heh... It was still exciting for me to finally get it, though!
I spotted Tracy Lehr's bold sense of retro fashion during the KEYT news!
The gang problem in Santa Maria - not so funny. The graphic used by KEYT in their story about it - hilarious!
Later that evening, I watched the American Idol results show on KCOY's subchannel 12-2. I normally see this at home too, but this time I got to vote! Crystal Bowersox for the win! I found it more torturous to watch in real-time, though. Even the KCOY receptionist said she had it taped on her DVR when I told her I'd watched the previous night's ep. Seriously....the DVR makes it so much easier to speed through the show's gratuitous filler.
Here's KCOY's news set shown during the FOX 11 10pm newscast.
I also surfed some of the low powered analog stations that night, and stumbled across what I think is Santa Maria's K46GF (which is a repeater for Los Angeles' KWHY, a Spanish language independent station.) The man below was offering guidance, and he'd probably hate me for wanting to go into a confessional booth with him for all the wrong reasons.
It was much easier to identify Santa Maria's KPXA-LP on Channel 49 with the station ID running across the screen. They're a TVA affiliate, which appears to be the Tele Vida Abundante network.
March 25 (Santa Maria, CA):
I really enjoyed seeing this host on KPMR's subchannel LATV on 38-3. (Nope...no cabin fever at all during this vacation....)
During March Madness I was rooting for Syracuse! Funnily enough, I felt like Syracuse was my "home team" since I watched Syracuse's WSYR a lot during last Summer's tropo season.
Even in California I couldn't escape Canadian phenom Justin Bieber. The one thing that does make me smile is that the phrase "Bieber Fever" makes me think of a raunchy joke Margaret Cho made during one of her comedy tours.
The Santa Maria news was covering the town hall meeting about gang violence being held at the Abel Maldonado Community Youth Center. Oddly enough I took a pic of that building earlier in the week when my family and I ate at the nearby Ambrosia restaurant. The upside down Ice Cream cone on the building looked interesting to me.
It was nice to see Santa Maria wasn't immune to wacky commercials, as seen in the ad for Johnboy's Towing below. Even some commercials in Las Vegas had loopy animated cars...is this becoming a trend?
What better time is there to run a commercial for Diamond Adult World than during a rerun of The Office? They advertised "casual wear for guys and gals" because the first place that pops into my mind when I think casual wear is an adult superstore.
I used to think of Santa Maria as the sleepy little town that my Grandma lived in until I took a look at these scary stats about gang violence! Eeeks! I was having flashbacks to when I saw Detroit's news last Summer.
KCOY's Adam Racusin was reporting live from the Ice Cream Cone building...er...I mean, the Abel Maldonado Community Youth Center!
Dr. Joseph Centeno was my Grandma's surgeon! My family has his card on our fridge here at home! The ad he appeared in was for the Marian Medical Center.
This was an ad for Santa Maria's Nissan Mazda dealer, which I didn't get a pic of, but I did get a pic of Edwards Cinemas which is right next to it and mentioned in the ad!
During the sports report, KSBY's Andrew Masuda (pictured below on the right) was bantering with Tony Cipolla about a baseball team's performance and said "I forgot how hard they could pound it." I bet that's not the first time they've heard that one!
That concludes the Santa Maria leg of my vacation coverage. Stay tuned to TV Garth for the final chapter in my over the air vacation adventures, because what happens in Vegas...ends up on TV Garth!
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