Considering the amount of coverage given some recent news, I find myself in even less of any hurry to do anything about television reception.

With only simple indoor antennas, digital TV is right out. Analog is almost out. Yes, analog. See, the primary TV transmitters (in the USA) have all gone digital now, but the low power translator or relay stations have not. Some are digital, some are analog. For how long is unknown. There is no set schedule I've seen for ending analog transmission for low power and translators.

There are three places that are nearby (in country terms of "near") and they're all about 30 miles away. I have joked that the surrounding areas all serve Fairmont "equally poorly" and it turns out it's not all that much of a joke. It's pretty much true. The tower to the north or northwest is effectively invisible. The tower to the east shows an occasional hint that something might just be there. The tower to the west, with a crude 4-element beam antenna (cut for channel 14), just manages to indicate that there is a channel 16 and 45. A lot of snow, no color, and sound breaks squelch if things are just right. Each tower carries all the networks, so getting reliable reception from any one of them would take care of about everything.

A nice big roof-mounted antenna with a pre-amp would likely turn 16 and 45 into at least reliable reception and might turn a few other stations into possibles. Given the state of broadcast television content this is more a technical challenge than a great desire to view the programming. I don't foresee installing an outdoor antenna anytime soon. I am considering trying a good antenna in the attic and then someday it could be mounted outside. But even an attic antenna is a pretty low priority.

I did watch some TV today yesterday, but that was on DVD.

Current Mood: calm

Poll #3831 The Vast Wasteland
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

If you could only get one TV station, it would be an affiliate of

Current Mood: curious

"Instruments don't lie, but they can fib."

I got curious about TV channels the digital converter might detect as having signal but not have enough to be useful and so went through the channels listed for my location on AntennaWeb.org. It was promising. Each station I tried eventually switched from 'no program' to 'weak signal'. But the more I considered it, the less right that seemed. I then tried other channels and sure enough, every channel seemed to do the same thing. I tried channel 37, which is allocated to a protected frequency range and thus there are no stations transmitting on ch. 37. Even on ch. 37 I got 'weak signal' after a while.

The problem is one of poor indication. The "weak signal" includes effectively zero strength, which ought to be "no signal" but evidently that wasn't done. So that indication is useless for what I wanted to use it for: see if there was any signal just detected, but insufficient to display. There is a strength meter setup, but it requires some menu fiddling to get to. And it shows nothing at all, not even on ch. 12. That's not encouraging.

Current Mood: disappointed

The last reason I had for keeping cable went away, but that was a while ago. For how little I watch(ed) the expense was not justifiable (Jay watch{ed,es} even less) so a few days I ago I finally canceled the cable service.

Out of curiosity I set up a pair of rabbit ears and saw if anything had changed. Nothing had. The only signal was from channel 12 in Mankato and not very strong at that. Color, but snowy.

I do have a digital converter, for what it's worth. Right now, that isn't much. With just the rabbit ears channel 12 doesn't show at all and a box appears on the screen complaining either 'No Program' or 'Weak Signal' but shows nothing. Yep, that's digital. If you don't get it all, you get nothing.

I did make a point of watching when the final cutover happened. Channel 12 (KEYC) did it about 12:20 PM, during their noon news show. The newsreader announced that the analog signal would be ceasing in a moment and that folks might need to add the digital channel or have their converter re-scan, and then went on to the next story. A bit later the NTSC signal just disappeared and left things with the typical analog "snow" of the absence of signal.

It was sort of disappointing. Not that it happened, as that was known for some time. But there was nothing but a simple read announcement when it happened. No countdown or anything. I thought it would have neat if they had announced it as this post is titled, played the National Anthem, gone to a test pattern for a few seconds (maybe with a numeric countdown also shown) and then gone off-air. Ah well.

I suppose eventually I might set up a proper antenna (channel 12 is 204-210 MHz, so a little three-element beam shouldn't be a big deal.) and at least get channel 12 again. Though considering how much broadcast TV I've watched of late, I'm in no great hurry. I have tapes and DVDs. Radio (NPR/MPR) seems to cover news better and video can be had on the net.

Current Mood: calm

For some months now I've been taping episodes of the classic (pre-Paul McGann) Doctor Who for sistaur. I didn't get everything, nor is everything needed. She has many episodes on DVD. But I did manage to get some of the Peter Davison episodes, most of the Colin Baker episodes, and I was catching up on the Sylvester McCoy episodes. For a while, I was watching the tapes before passing them along.

sistaur has neither satellite nor cable, and is simply too far away to pick up Iowa Public Television directly. As Fairmont is served about equally poorly all TV networks, cable is pretty much a de facto thing here, and one channel is Iowa Public Television. IPT has aired Doctor Who for years. And unfortunately I hadn't been taping it for very long, or I might have built up a reasonably good collection.

March was IPT's "Festival" (aka beg-a-thon) which messed up the schedule some. I kept an eye on the schedule and adjusted timer settings accordingly. Then classic (but not the new version of) Doctor Who disappeared from the schedule. The "Festival" is over, but the Doctor hasn't returned to the schedule. I figured maybe it was just by month, but it's April now and I still see "There are no broadcasts currently planned. Please check back for future broadcast dates." when I check the schedule. This is annoying. At the very least, I'd like to see the remaining Sylvester McCoy episodes.

Current Mood: blah

I haven't tried to get an over-the-air TV signal here for a few years. Now that the big transition has been made - or is more in the process of happening - I'm tempted to see what signals are available. Analog, or digital. I would do that, though I am not expecting much, except... I can't recall where I put the antenna I didn't need for cable. It's not in the obvious places, alas. I don't believe I threw it out - I didn't expect to be on cable forever.

Current Mood: aggravated

Use a (non-dish) TV antenna? I'm curious, do you still have any analog signals or is it all digital for you now? Or is it a matter of having gone digital for a while and it just doesn't matter if there are analog signals or not?

Current Mood: curious

During our Christmas travels, jmaynard read one of the Monk books, based on the TV show, and then I did. I've also been watching Monk on the USA network when on the treadmill. While reading the books I wondered how much I'd like the TV show. Would the stuff that seemed funny to hear about or be skipped over be annoying to see on TV? Last night I got the answer: Yes.

Last night I watched Monk and overall it was fairly good for a TV show. But the dwelling on Adrian Monk's foibles got to be grating to the point I used the mute button for quite a bit of the show. Some of the commercials managed to be less annoying. That particular show might have been something of an extreme case as it involved Monk having been shot and how miserable he acts and makes others afterward.

One thing did strike me while reading the books. Monk has this thing about even numbers. He takes issue with the movie The 39 Steps for not going to 40. He dislikes a baker's dozen of things as 13 is odd. Yet his favorite clearer is Formula 409. That seems a bit strange. Perhaps that's been addressed, but I'm coming in late on things so haven't seen that.

There's a hold-up in the Bronx,
Brooklyn's broken out in fights,
There's a traffic jam in Harlem
That's backed up to Jackson Heights.
There's a Scout troop short a child,
Khrushchev's due at Idlewild,
Car 54, Where Are You?

Current Mood: silly

Even as a kid some things bugged me about some of the Saturday morning cartoons. The big, obvious departures from reality weren't a problem. Hey, these were cartoons and like Bugs Bunny says, "You can get away with nearly anything-- in an animated cartoon." It was the cartoons that tried to emulate reality that ran into trouble. One example was the Flintstones which I mentioned a few years ago. (Short version: Why didn't the rear axle fall out?) But recently I realized that a couple other dumb things I'd seen in some cartoons can now be explained.

One annoyance was that a tiny radio transmitter could be placed on a vehicle and and the vehicle then tracked. Tiny transmitter, sure. Tracking, sure. But at the time it would have required triangulation from at least two receiving sites, if conditions were ideal. But the cartoon (it was probably one of the many incarnation of Scooby Doo but I cannot say for sure) showed a single receiver, with a big display and showing a dot to follow. It might have even showed the local streets - clearly nonsense... at the time. Today it can be and is done. The tiny transmitter has a GPS receiver and the tracking receiver might as well have the data that a GPS navigation has.

Another annoyance was the home computer or terminal that a kid had (this was likely Clue Club or another, similar cartoon) or had ready access to, that could be used to look up nearly anything, and quickly. Sure, like the kid would even have outside access - that would tie up a phone line, if it happened at all, and then it's just be to a BBS. And maybe 1200 baud. Maybe. This might have been the days of 300 baud (it's faster than 110, yay!) for the typical home/hobbyist modem. Of course we know that that changed. CPU speeds went up. Modem speeds went up, and then came broadband with DSL and cable. And then add real internet access, the web, search engines, and now "Google is your friend." The problem now is not getting access to information, but sorting it down to the useful pieces.

I'm sure there are other examples of modern technology making simplistic nonsense in old cartoons now an explicable or even expected thing. Those are just the two I recall bothering me, that can now be explained away as "being ahead of their time" rather than just being plot devices.

Current Mood: full

( Is it scary because it works? )

Current Mood: amused

I mentioned that show that Penn & Teller have a week or so ago. Today I found out just a bit more about it. The person in it still hasn't actually seen the episode, so there is no direct commentary on that. There is something mighty interesting about the release he signed, however. His words (emphasis mine):

The program started several years ago as a semi humorous debunking action, but I have only seen one of them. Last Fall, a crew was taping at the Carolina Ren Faire, and I happened to be one of the interviewees. Well, I should have known: The release form stated up front that they might edit, dub, or even fictionalize my appearance (and all the others, of course). But, I got assurances from the crew that, since Penn & Teller had got their start at a faire (actually the Minnesota faire), they wouldn't shaft us. I have received notes from several people who saw the program who state I was heavily edited, and essentially used to make us look bad. Since I haven't seen the program yet, no further comments, but it is clear that I was used, in some manner.

At least they were honest about their dishonesty, huh?

Current Mood: unimpressed

There's been a couple interesting posts on a_f_r, a group for those interested in renaissance faires. Last year there was a camera crew going around one fair and some interviews were done. A few days ago the result aired.

Before it aired this was posted:

Given the amount of stuff about faires in the media (including cartoons) which shows faire folk as either out of touch oddballs or downright crazy, this could be a chance for some more or less factual publicity about faires in general. On the other hand, the show has an interesting history and premise: It's basically a debunking effort, in which several sides of an issue are presented--and, thanks to careful editing (not to mention interviewing techniques) one side looks like total idiots, and the other looks like dupes, or, alternately, bunco artists. On the other hand, Penn & Teller have a history with faires. [source]

And after it aired:

As some of us feared, it was another lame "exposé" on those nutcases who like the faire scene. And, apparently I was one of the major figures quoted (completely out of context) establishing how big nutcases we are. [source]

A bit of editing and anything be can taken out of context and still be presented as true, and sadly find folks that will believe the result. And who better than magicians to misdirect?

Current Mood: unsurprised
Current Music: Anvil Chorus -- Glenn Miller

Some time ago I saw The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters. Except I did not see the thing mentioned in that linked. I saw the thing that the linked program was edited from. The original, full version is closer to a full 60 minutes (though I was once sure it was nearly 90 minutes) than the shrunken "television hour" of what most know. What happened? Disney did. Disney snapped it up and cut it down. I saw the original, uncut version made for PBS's American Playhouse. And it was hilarious.

Jean Shepherd (who also did A Christmas Story which I find not to be as good) tells the story of a small town American Fourth of July and the various stories and side-stories to it all. To fit within the one-hour commercial television slot, stuff was cut. Most of the major stories are still there, but enough little bits are cut that it's a shadow of what it should be. It's annoying. It's very... almost. Maybe if you haven't seen the original, full version the cut down version can be pretty good. But if you know there are bits missing, it's quite frustrating. It's a cinnamon roll without the cinnamon: The bulk is there, but it's not all there, the part that really makes it is missing. I'd like to see it again, but only if it's the complete thing.

Current Mood: nostalgic

I was surprised a couple nights ago when bronxelf IMed me, asking if we got Comedy Central and saying that Jay was on South Park. jmaynard didn't know anything of this, but I did manage to find Comedy Central on the local cable system, just in time to see a brawl where various internet sensations were killed off. The Tron Guy was done in by a panda.

We now have a tape of the episode, and we both watched as that episode aired again last night so we've now seen it in full. Jay has posted about it. As the bit at the opening of show says, the voices are "impersonated... badly." I've suggested to Jay that he might want to record some, though not all, of the lines as if he was doing ADR and let people compare.

As for the show itself, I think it just confirmed that, other than this appearance, I am not really missing anything by not watching it. Annoyingly, some fragments of the dialog and irritating voicing has been stuck in my mind as a bit of an earworm. That, fortunately, is fading.

And no, I am not looking to get or make a panda fursuit.

Current Mood: surprised

I watch TV as a distraction while on I'm on the treadmill. As a result I wind up watching some things I would not otherwise. Tonight I wound up watching something on "Peak Oil" on the History channel that was generally factual with more sensationalism than I care for. I could stand that, it was entertaining if for the wrong reasons.

After that, I switched to Discovery which had a show about the Three Gorges Dam in China. This wasn't bad, at first. Then the narrator got to the electrical generation part of things and it was quite distracting as he kept saying "turban" rather than "turbine." This was bad enough, but when he got to a line about the section of the dam where the generators were located as being "where the electricity is stored" I just couldn't take it any more. Generators and turbines do not store electricity. I don't blame the narrator for that blunder, but some writer is an idiot.

Between the writer and narrator it was enough to make me think of putting a battery in a head-wrap. The result would be what was being talked about: electricity stored in a turban.

Current Mood: grumpy

Before Mystery Science Theater 3000 and before Elvira, there were other local productions where older B movies were shown. There was a short-lived, I think, one in the late 1970s from a TV station in Wausau, WI that was on sometime on a weekend afternoon. But the one I remember was a late-night thing on channel 11 in Green Bay, WI for a while in the 1980s.

( Aim the antenna for Green Bay, adjust the fine tuning... )

Current Mood: nostalgic

In this post Wil Wheaton relates some of the strangeness that was Dr. Gene Scott. While I didn't see him on UHF TV in L.A. I did see him on C-band satellite where he was just as strange.

Gene Scott was allegedly a TV preacher, though when thinking it over it's hard to say if he really was a TV preacher or a parody of a TV preacher - or maybe both. He would seem to sit in a chair for hours and ramble on about whatever struck him at the moment. Sometimes he'd have some tune played. This tune might be something you'd expect. But it could just as easily be something you wouldn't expect, such as Kill Some Piss-ants for Jesus (So help me, I am not making that up). He might, when the tune was over, talk about it, or talk about anything else, or just have it played again. And again.

I forget if he ever took callers or if he only dealt with letters, but one response to a critic stands out. The critic stated that Gene was fleecing his followers. His reply was something like, "That's what a shepherd does with a flock."

I stayed up way too late last night, making sure the VCRs taped the Jimmy Kimmel show. $!#% ballgame throwing the schedule off. I got the show taped, though I likely clipped a bit of the intro on both tapes. $!#% ballgame throwing the schedule off.

The result is that I'm tired today. Tired enough to resort to drinking a can of Mountain Dew for the caffeine. Now I'm sort of awake. I'm still tired, but the nerves seem to be firing a bit more, if that makes any sense. It's interesting to watch myself appear to be awake but still not feeling like I'm really awake. The last time I really noticed this was in college after pulling a rare all-nighter and using way too much caffeine. I felt caffeine's other, non-stimulant, effects for a few days after that. I hope that doesn't happen this time - those effects are rather annoying. So no more caffeine for me today. Maybe I should have had something other than a Mountain Dew.

( Music abuse )

I think I'll take a nap after supper tonight.

( Preserved comment(s) )

Current Mood: not really awake
Current Music: "Mother's Little Helper" - internal twisted versions