Vacation Reception Reports: Las Vegas, NV Part 3 (March 26-29, 2010)

Greetings TV Garth readers! This is Part 3 of my coverage of the over the air TV I observed in both Las Vegas, NV and Santa Maria, CA during a family vacation in late March. Click here to read Part 1 and Part 2. This entry concludes the trilogy and covers my return to Las Vegas, NV!

My family and I left Santa Maria, CA and returned to Las Vegas, NV to conclude our vacation. We stayed at a wonderful place called Summer Bay Resorts which became a "home away from home" for a few days. And with any "home" I stay in, I'm quick to set up an antenna and digital box as pictured below!



March 26th

One neat thing I saw upon returning to Vegas was a Taxi cab equipped with a mini TV showing highlights from ABC News! They featured one of my favourite ABC personalities, Vinita Nair.




Back at Summer Bay, my rabbit ears and Magnavox box were set up just in time to see another wacky commercial with an animated CGI car on KVMY. (I'm noticing more and more ads with real people being blended with questionable CGI animated figures....)



KVBC's NBC Universal Sports subchannel on 3-3 was offering live coverage of the World Ice Skating Championships and I saw Olympic gold winning Canadians Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir skate again! They didn't dance quite as well as their Olympic performance, but I really don't see how they could top that one!



I also saw an ad for Terrible's Hotel & Casino, which I got a shot of on the way to the airport before we left.




KVVU (FOX Las Vegas) has a weather subchannel on 5-2, and I was a bit surprised to see that Saved By The Bell (with Mark Paul Gosselar in drag below) fulfills their E/I requirements. Seriously? Saved By The Bell....educational???



The big news of the weekend was the "Showdown In Searchlight" aka the Tea Party With Sarah Palin. KVBC's promo was pretty visually appealing, though, with a saloon styled poster.



My tropo TV reception is always made more enjoyable by an appearance of Half and Half with a diva glare from Telma Hopkins. And here she is in Vegas on KVCW!



Here's a great, wacky commercial showing the stars and moon encouraging viewers to grab a snack and "Laugh All Night" with KVMY - My TV Vegas!




Las Vegas' CW also showed an ad for an important cause - AIDS Walk Las Vegas, which was held recently!



I took this pic of Ricky Martin on KLAS' subchannel 8-2 LATV, and thought "Wow...haven't seen him in awhile." The video involved Ricky dancing around and appearing on various billboards, being shirtless and pouring milk on himself. (You know, the usual...) Then when I got back from vacation I found out that he officially came out! Whooo!



March 27th

KVBC's newsteam included Gerald Ramalho and weatherman Jerry Brown. I forget who it was, but there was one Vegas weathercaster who got crazy intense about rabbits and how they should be roasting on spits (since a bunny was shown on the week's weather grid for Easter.) It was that weird kind of "funny" where you're not sure if you're supposed to laugh, or expect an invitation in the mail announcing their wedding to fellow rabbit lover Glenn Close. Maybe I just came in on the joke at the wrong time.... On a total sidenote, I love the NBC binder in the middle in the pic below!



KVBC was announcing the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Best of Las Vegas awards. That weekend I checked out Krave nightclub, which won for Best Gay/Alternative Bar!




I got to see the handsome Blake McCoy again and he won my heart with his coverage of the Tea Party in Searchlight, NV. After talking to a correspondent, he looked at the camera with a (Mc)Coy, knowing smile and asked "Did she just call them teabaggers?"



They were also covering the Tea Party rally on KLAS with the equally dashing Chris Saldaña.



In fact, I quite enjoyed both KTNV and KLAS newscasts. Both stations featured upbeat, enjoyable personalities who delivered the news, but weren't afraid to laugh and have fun! (Pictured below are KTNV's Ashlee Demartino with Blake McCoy, as well as KLAS' Chris Saldaña and Michael Berk.)




The competition for TV Garth's Favourite Las Vegas Newscast was heating up! It would be really exciting to see Chris Saldaña and Blake McCoy wrestle each other for domination....er....of the Las Vegas news ratings! That's what I meant.




Surprisingly Bottom Line is an investigative feature on KTNV and not a new reality show with women vying to be chorus girls in Las Vegas.



Sarah Palin was all over the news being called the "rock star" of the Tea Party gathering that weekend.



Tedd Florendo on KLAS was my favourite weatherman from the Vegas market. He was energetic and likeable during his forecasts. (And no rabbit hatred from what I could tell...)



March 28th

More fun with advertising, as I caught an ad on KTNV for Chad Golightly, and took a pic of his billboard that same weekend!




There was also a commercial for Circus Circus, which is followed by a pic that I took when I passed by their building!




Though I didn't see her live, American Idol Finalist Mikalah Gordon popped up on KVVU, rounding out a weekend where I saw finalists Trenyce and David Hernandez live at Krave nightclub! (The captioning hilariously calls her "American Mikalah Gordon"...)




Either it's the premise for a great new game show, or just a report about Ann Coulter, but KVBC titled their report "Conservative Or Controversial?" Look at the graphic - it's amazing! It was technically "CanCon in the US" as the stories were centered around Ann's talk at an Ottawa University getting canceled. (KVBC's Gerald Ramalho, below, introduced the story.)



During Earth Hour, I was watching TV and taking pictures....sorry.....



PBS (KVLX) was showing a great Nature special about mating habits of various creatures, including the spiders below.



March 29th

Other notable Vegas news personalities were Tina Patel on KTNV and Sophia Choi on KVBC (right along with that Vegas backdrop again!)




I really Juanted to see more of this solider! There was a ceremony in Las Vegas welcoming back some of the brave women and men who have been serving in the Army.



It was a great vacation, but unfortunately by March 29th, it was time for us to be leaving Las Vegas.



Special mention goes to KGNG, which I haven't photo recapped yet, but is a Vegas home shopping station that had SIX digital channels! I might recap them if I get around to making "Vacation Channel Guides" for Las Vegas and Santa Maria. All in all, I had a wonderful trip and enjoyed seeing what OTA reception looked like in cities I would never be able to catch at home! (Unless I finally achieve a digital E-Skip with Las Vegas' KVBC, which broadcasts on RF2...fingers crossed...heh...)

Click here for the full Flickr gallery of vacation reception for March 20-29, 2010!

Stay tuned to TV Garth for more reception reports and TV related fun!

Vacation Reception Reports: Las Vegas, NV and Santa Maria, CA Part 1 (March 20-23, 2010)

Greetings TV Garth readers! This post is long overdue, but last month I went on a family vacation to both Las Vegas, NV and Santa Maria, CA. Along with the usual travel essentials, I packed two antennas and a digital converter box so I could experiment with over the air reception during the trip. The antennas I brought were my homemade rabbit ears, and the CM4040 Indoor-tenna. The box was a new Magnavox digital converter that I bought specifically as a "throw around" box, since the Zenith DTT901 is a DXing treasure and I don't want to risk damaging it. (In fact, using the Magnavox box during the trip also showed me that any box without a signal meter makes it much tougher to "hunt" for stations. However, it does work well and has great picture quality.)

The trip began with a flight from Toronto to Las Vegas, where we stayed in the Hampton Inn for one night before heading on to Santa Maria, CA for a few days to visit my Grandma, and ending back at Las Vegas to close the week. The flight was slightly ahead of schedule, and we made it to the Hampton Inn just before the 11pm news. Within minutes my antenna was out, the Magnavox digital box was plugged in, and surprisingly Hampton Inn had flat screen TVs in their rooms! (This trip also pointed out that it's trickier to get good pics of OTA TV reception from CRT televisions!)

March 20 (Las Vegas, NV):



Oh deer....KVBC's subchannel 3-2 ("Untamed Sports") was airing a show called Deer Camp. Surprisingly, it's not a peppy musical where Disney's hottest teens befriend a magical deer that helps them put on a show. This Camp involves the killing of these fine animals!



However, the show still attracted Lindsay Lohan to let people know what Camp-ing is all about with a rugged hunting daddy! (Wait...that's not Lindsay?)



I knew I was in Vegas when I saw a naked man running around on a PBS subchannel (10-3 KLVXSD2). He was tastefully censored with a giant blur, though.



Also letting me know I was in Vegas? KVBC's report on sex trafficking in the city! Oh my heavens. How young you talkin', indeed....



I was a bundle of nerves until Blake McCoy's handsome mug popped up on 13-1 KTNV's news!



KTNV does a segment called Postively Las Vegas, and I was positively enjoying their OTA TV at this point! (Interestingly, Las Vegas is one of the few markets where most of their major digital stations are on VHF.)



Weatherman Jerry Brown was over on KVBC with a familiar backdrop on Las Vegas news sets - a montage of the Vegas strip. I'm still torn about whether it looks totally fabulous, or a tad too gaudy.



KTNV sidesteps this issue by using a sleek, modern set, and occasionally putting up the Vegas strip scenery on a screen in the background.



March 21 (Santa Maria, CA):

We arrived in Santa Maria the next day, and I was just as quick to set up the antenna and digital box. March madness was in full swing via Santa Maria CBS affiliate 12-1 KCOY! I still remember KCOY (and NBC station KSBY) from all the times I've visited my Grandparents since I was a kid.



Here's KCOY's Arturo Santiago in a promo for the station! (I would actually visit them later in the week!)



Great logo shot of KCOY!



Connie Miller is not only a cancer survivor, but she knows how to rock a fluorescent purple wig!



This kid is unwittingly the poster child for Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution in a commercial for the wonderfully named Fatte's Pizzas!



I had an awesome co-worker named Lauris, so this ad for Laurus College reminded me of him. (Or as I'd like to think of it, they needed to school people with his awesomeness!)



Ad for the Santa Maria Utilities Dept, with their iconic "All America City" sign followed by one of my shots of the sign during my trip!




I certainly pondered many things about KCOY's cute weatherman P.J. Javaheri. Below is a shot of him during the "P.J. Ponders" segment, where he discusses the dry spell in Santa Maria (something I could really relate to...)



One really cool OTA channel they had in Santa Maria was 29-1 KQMM-LD, an MTV affiliate of sorts. They call themselves MTV Tres and broadcast bilingual programming from MTV. They would show popular programs and subtitle them in whatever language was not being spoken. (For example, the English language shows would be subtitled in Spanish, and vice versa.)



March 22 (Santa Maria, CA):

It would be great if this guy's answer started with "Love..."



Despite being back in the "closet" around my Grandma during this vacation, there were numerous gay references in pop culture that found me during the trip. Below is a scene from a show on KQMM-LD (MTV Tres) where a gay couple adds a third to their relationship, and after much drama, adds a fourth to balance everyone out!



There was also local news en Espanol via 33-1 KTAS, pictured below. (The only OTA Spanish language station I've picked up at home is Cleveland's WQHS, and I don't think they broadcast local news.)



March 23 (Santa Maria, CA):

Ellen promo on San Luis Obispo's NBC station KSBY. (They had a Santa Maria office, which I visited later that week.)



By now you can probably tell I was fan of KQMM-LD. Here we have some Latin hunks with tight shirts, tight jeans, and infinite wisdom in their chat below!



I was surprised that there were quite a few analog stations still up and running in the Santa Maria and Central Coast area in California. Below is K16FC, which is a San Luis Obispo based translator for Los Angeles' PBS station KCET.



I bought a 50 foot cable wire at Best Buy during the trip so I could test my antennas outside! I tried my trusty home made rabbit ears at the top of my Grandma's garden, seen in the pic below.



With the rabbit ears outside, I picked up one Santa Barbara station that I couldn't pick up from inside the house: 38-1 KPMR, a Univision affiliate. However, none of my antennas at this point could pick up Santa Barbara's ABC station KEYT.



One of the subchannels of KPMR was 38-3 "LATV" showing the fabulous program "El Glam Show" below. (See what I mean about gay references finding me, even in small town America...)



KSBY's news featured my California based namesake below. This Garth's last name is eerily similar to mine!



Here is the KSBY news set, along with their slogan "Balanced News You Can Trust."



That concludes Part 1 of my Vacation Reception Report on over-the-air TV from Las Vegas, NV and Santa Maria, CA. Stay tuned to TV Garth for Part 2, which chronicles my visit to both KCOY and KSBY! (Well, KSBY was more of a "stand in front of the sign and pose" but it's still a visit in my books!)