Welcome to TV Garth!

Ever since I was a kid, I loved antennas and TV reception. It was always a thrill to hook up an antenna and see what stations I could get, and see if I could pick up anything from a far distance. With the transition to digital broadcasting happening, my love for OTA (over the air) reception came back and this blog will focus on what channels I'm able to receive via antenna from my home just outside of Toronto, Canada. Plus there may be occasional commentaries on shows that I see while adjusting my reception.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Reception Reports: A Mega Recap Of May 15-20 (Rochester & Erie)

May 15, 2009

On May 15th, I was beginning the first of two weekends attending the Inside Out Film Festival in Toronto. This night, I got home to Markham around 1am and saw strong signals from Rochester. I was also shocked to see a flicker of signal from Syracuse’s WSTM on RF 54, but it wasn’t strong enough to lock on. Before I could even hope for the signal to get stronger, a giant rainstorm took over washing away most of the tropospheric effects that were happening. Rochester’s WXXI and WUHF, though, valiantly tried to hang on through the rain.

Even Washington Week’s Gwen Ifill looks iffy about the rain interrupting the great run of reception.

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As well, Bernie Mac’s television daughter is sad about not getting to see reception from Syracuse.

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The signal was struggling, but I still captured this shot of WUHF’s public service announcement about saving polar bears. (They could cross promote with Amy Poehler and have charity plush toys called Poehler Bears!)

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Last, but not least I caught this awesome ad from 21-1 WXXI where they promote themselves as being “Rochester’s Partner In The Arts.” In a montage of classic dance numbers, they even threw in a clip of Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy, pictured below.

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May 17, 2009

As I was seeing a lot of movies downtown this weekend, I stayed over at my friend Anks’ place, and of course brought my OTA gear with me (a CM4040 indoor antenna, and my Zenith DTT901 Digital Converter Box.) The previous night, I raided a Toronto nostalgia shop called Dragon Lady Comics and purchased a whole bunch of old TV Guides that just happened to be from Rochester, NY. So it’s only appropriate that I picked up Rochester signals for the first time at Anks’ apartment the morning after. (I’m now dubbing his apartment the “Downtown Office” of TV Garth.) Anks gets incredible reception, as he lives on the 27th floor of his apartment building. (Things only get more amazing a week later, when I was able to pick up both Syracuse and Utica, NY stations from his place. They’re getting their own mega report very soon!) The interesting thing is that, at 27 floors up, WROC and WHEC seem to come in most easily of the Rochester digitals (I couldn’t get any of the others to come in.) While back home in Markham, WXXI and WUHF seem to come in for me most easily, where my setup is only about 12 feet off the ground.

Anks has an HD-Ready Sony Bravia TV, to which I hooked up my Zenith box and got the following shots of WHEC and WROC. Below is a shot from WHEC-DT (their weather subchannel) followed by an infomercial on WROC.

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10-1 WHEC was running the National Heads-Up Poker Challenge at the time.

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Meanwhile, 8-1 WROC was running more infomercials. I’d swear that the guy below looks like he’s upset and ready to tell Hugh Downs where to go, which is not cool! Like, imagine that this guy is some kind of nerdy genius, and Hugh Downs is getting all 20/20 on him and grilling him about whatever he’s trying to sell, so he gets flustered and explodes, saying, “Well, Hugh, I think you should just %&$& off!”

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After a day of seeing movies downtown, I got back home to Markham and found the “usual suspects” drifting in, better known as Rochester’s WXXI and WUHF.

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The following episode of George Lopez featured special guest William Hung at what looked like a backyard karaoke party. William was so excited to be there that he started pixellating with joy.

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Then came an awesome ad for the Rochester Red Wings baseball team, complete with mascot! This was followed by a great alternate logo for Fox Rochester!

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May 18, 2009

May 18th became another “Rochester Burst” day, where all of the Rochester digitals came in for me, as well as Erie’s WQLN. (This would actually mark the first of three days in a row that WQLN came in for me at night.)

WXXI kicked off the night with an American Experience special about Robert Kennedy, while WUHF had a Friends episode with Phoebe getting into a jam with a hot guy!

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Memorial Day was coming up soon, so many of the commercials were promoting related sales events.

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This month’s Golden Apple Award goes to Craig Bodensteiner! The award is presented by News 8 WROC (WUHF’s sister station.)

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Speaking of News 8 WROC, here they are as their signal started to flutter in not long after WUHF’s Golden Apple ad. They were showing Craig Kilborn, and also showed a fantastic logo for their Time Warner HD channel shortly after!

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Soon, I was picking up strong signal on Erie’s WQLN, so I tried picking up the Fox station from Erie, WFXP on RF 22. Below is a shot of the signal trying to come in. It was going pretty high on the signal meter, but still couldn’t lock.

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And here’s Erie’s 54-1 WQLN, just beginning the American Experience episode about Robert Kennedy that WXXI had shown earlier.

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Just for fun, here’s an alternate take on the PBS Create logo, as seen on 54-2 WQLN-S1.

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If I didn’t know that the commercial below was part of the infamous “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” series, I would think that it was a show about modern dance. She looks like she’s doing a warm up exercise before getting ready to strut her stuff. Think of it - it could be an ongoing new series that crosses Golden Girls with Fame!

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And on 31-1 WUHF we have Bernie Mac’s TV daughter just totally Diva-ing it up a notch. Sass, boa, folded arms (with bracelets) and an adorable chapeau!

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Bernie Mac looks horrified that his daughter may soon be kidnapped by Disney and turned into a billion dollar empire!

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I kept wondering why Erie’s WFXP was having such a hard time coming in, so I tried tuning it in on my Panasonic tuner and saw the problem right away. Oshawa’s CHEX-TV was coming in with a stronger than usual analog signal, effectively blocking the Erie digital signal. But I still got a neat shot of their logo, and they brand themselves “Channel 12” after their cable position in Oshawa.

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Meanwhile, over on 54-3 WQLN-S2 they were running Tavis Smiley. And 54-1 WQLN was running commercials for other upcoming PBS shows.

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It was nearly 5am, and all of a sudden WHEC, WHAM, and CW-WHAM started to come in!

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10-1 WHEC showed a commercial for the Today Show doing a story about The Cosby Show, followed by a commercial about WHEC’s children’s programming. WHEC-DT (Weather) was also showing more DTV transition commercials.

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13-1 WHAM was airing ABC’s America This Morning with Jeremy Hubbard and Vinita Nair. Note the cool translucent 13 WHAM bug at the bottom right next to the ABC logo.

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The commercial below uses the wonderfully atrocious rhyming slogan: “Hurt In Car – Call William Mattar.”

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It was 5am and it was time for all the morning news shows on the Rochester stations. Below is a smorgasbord of shots from their newscasts. (Including a visit from Governor Paterson at the REOC – The Rochester Educational Opportunity Center!)

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I always enjoy throwing some pics of the sitcom Half & Half into my Reception Reports. This time, instead of a Diva glare from Telma Hopkins, we have a pic of the fabulous Alec Mapa.

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Meanwhile, the 1980s were alive and well with some amazingly big hair courtesy of the Learn To Read series airing on WXXI.

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Next on WROC, A Touching Rescue….featuring two men laying on on the ground. I really can’t top that.

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And WOW does anchor Rebecca Leclair look angry over on WHEC! It’s like she’s having a Sue Simmons moment or something. I’m sure it was coincidence, and she was just doing a plain report. But can’t you imagine her saying “What the %&%^&^ are you looking at?”

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Get your Saturday Night Fever on with “The Prom Page” on the Rochester Homepage!

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More Half & Half on WUHF, with star Rachel True. A very sincere name if you ask me.

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WROC was doing a story about counting calories, but all I could think of was how delicious donuts would be at that moment.

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WHAM’s morning news carries ABC’s money report featuring World News Now’s Vinita Nair.

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Below is a great shot of Downtown Rochester on WHEC’s “metro cam” (and also a clear reminder that I was up very early / late.)

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The following two pics are the signal meter on my Zenith DTT901 showing me that Syracuse was trying hard to come in on RF 54 (WSTM) and RF 17 (WSYR), yet neither was strong enough to lock on. (However, my dreams came true a week later when I picked them up from my friend Anks’ place in downtown Toronto!) From Markham, though, they’re just a tad too weak to break through.

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It was now 5:45am, and I knew I should probably have been on my way to bed, but I loved seeing the Rochester traffic cam in daylight on WHEC-DT.

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My reception journey continued past 6am, as I was hoping for Syracuse to break through, but settled for some more shots of Erie’s WQLN airing Maya & Miguel on 54-1, and Your Brush With Nature on 54-2 WQLN-S1. (Is it me or does the “child model” on Your Brush With Nature look sort of Lindsay Lohan-esque and ready to pout her way to a record/movie/tabloid deal?)

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May 19, 2009

On May 19th, WXXI was coming in with some very French programming on the air.

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Erie’s WQLN also made an appearance this night, marking the second of three nights in row that I would receive it. They were showing Tavis Smiley, who was interviewing Steve Martin (who brought along his banjo!)

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31-1 WUHF also made a brief appearance, and here’s Nissan’s ad for the National Tent Event.

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Later on WQLN, Tavis Smiley was interviewing Earth Wind & Fire! From left to right are members Philip Bailey, Verdine White, and Ralph Johnson. (The next day I heard the awesome song “Easy Lover” by Philip Bailey blasting over my local mall’s radio station.)

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PBS Create (seen here on 54-2 WQLN-S2) features their personalities dressed in aprons adorned with the network’s logo in promos between shows.

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Below is a shot from the DTV transition commercial with the guys from This Old House. That looks a lot like me on nights like this!

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PBS reminds us that these programs are funded by viewers like us! (Seen here on 54-1 WQLN.)

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I noticed The Victory Garden had a great overdramatic program description that emphasized the words FIND, CREATE and STIR! But my favourite part is how the second picture shows the description saying “STIR up some tasty concoctions when Michel Nischan shows you…” And it stops there, right above his jeans. I was all “He shows you what???”

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May 20, 2009

May 20th marked the third day of receiving Erie’s WQLN, along with more WXXI from Rochester (once again making me think that for whatever reason, PBS stations engineer some strong signals that often reach well beyond their normal audience!)

Below is a shot from World Focus on 21-2 WXXI-W.

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And here’s Erie’s WQLN once more!

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I almost fell off my chair when I looked up at the screen during Rick Steves’ Europe Classics on 54-2 WQLN-S1 and saw what looked like a men’s bathhouse on screen. Go Stockholm!

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This was later followed by a promo for Donna Dewberry’s One Stroke Painting. Er….um……

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My mind officially fell into the gutter when thinking about Rick Steves’ male sauna, One Stroke Painting, and the lyric “in my own two hands” as featured in a PBS sing-a-long commercial shown below. I guess even PBS gets raunchy in the wee hours of the evening.

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So of course, since I was tarnishing PBS’ rep with my innuendo and dirty mindedness, they had to sober me up with a historical special called WW II: Behind Closed Doors.

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By 6am, though, WQLN was back to more lighthearted fare with Maya & Miguel on 54-1, as well as Your Brush With Nature on 54-2 WQLN-S1. Though I wish I’d scrolled down to catch the second half of the Maya & Miguel program info, as the first half makes Maya sound like a judgemental busybody!

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And there you have it – a “Mega Report” covering reception from May 15th to 20th! This is paving the way for the very special reports about Syracuse and Utica coming very soon! So stay tuned to TV Garth for the Central New York explosion!