Marvelous May with Utica, Syracuse and a shout out from WKTV’s Don Shipman!

Greetings TV Garth readers. I’ve been really behind on updates, but wanted to share this quick report about my May 13, 2010 reception! There was an intense burst of reception from Utica, NY’s WKTV (RF29) and Syracuse, NY’s WSYR (RF17). I’ve picked up WKTV a couple of times in the past few months, but haven’t gotten WSYR since Sept. 2009! But what made this day incredibly exciting was that I got a shout out ON AIR from Don Shipman during WKTV’s newscast! I recently interviewed Don, and twittered him about my reception this day. He then gave a shout out on air and even mentioned my other tweet about flipping through Syracuse stations!!!! I was flabbergasted and amazed! Full report coming soon! Meanwhile, check out some pics and video below!

The tweets:

The video:

The pics:

WKTV (RF29) at roughly 222 miles away from me with Newschannel 2 At Daybreak!

WSYR (RF17) at roughly 174 miles away from me with The Morning News on Newschannel 9! (Complete with snazzy banners on the sides!)

One big news event was President Obama’s visit to Buffalo, which was being covered on both stations!

Stay tuned to TV Garth for more TV related goodness!

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: Santa Maria, CA Part 2 (March 24-25, 2010)

Greetings TV Garth readers! This is Part 2 of my coverage of the over the air TV I observed in both Las Vegas, NV and Santa Maria, CA during a family vacation last month. Click here to read Part 1. This entry is all about Santa Maria and includes my visits to stations KCOY and KSBY!

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!