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John's good, but I'm partial to Tim Miller myself, in fact, I know him in passing, we used to go to the same church here in Columbia. He is now on WJBF in Augusta. Consummate broadcasting voice.
Bring back Mark Mathis!
Yes at least one station needs an entertaining clown for a weatherman. He used to be on WCCB Charlotte and I guess Bahakel also used him on WOLO in Columbia.
WBTV was originally the flagship station of Jefferson-Pilot and then Raycom. Now like WIS it is operated by Gray. But WSOC now has the overall better newscast from Charlotte; just my opinion. WBTV has the strongest signal, but WSOC has translators to fill in the gaps. WSOC is operated by Cox, whose flagship station is WSB channel 2 in Atlanta, home of Action News. I assume WIS remains the news leader from Columbia.
WIS does, indeed, remain the news leader, though WLTX is strong as well. I find that the Gray stations retain a little more individuality in their news packages and presentation, and there is also some variation even in the graphics packages, so you don't always automatically "feel" like you're watching a station from the same chain, as you do with Tegna. The dual Gray stations in the Lexington KY market (WKYT and WYMT), as well as Gray-owned WSAZ in nearby Huntington WV, would be examples of this --- to some extent they share news-gathering operations in eastern and northeastern Kentucky, but they still retain their own distinctive look and feel. The area stretching from Ashland to Vanceburg in northeastern KY, down to the I-64 area, are kind of a "no-man's land" for local news, too culturally and economically distinct from the rest of eastern Kentucky for WYMT to make sense there, yet too far afield for OTA reception of Lexington, and the lack of Kentucky coverage on WSAZ (and, even more, the other C-H WV stations) has been an issue from the time TV first entered that area. As I noted elsewhere, Ashland, despite its location, is pure, bleedin'-blue, "Kentucky to the bone" --- kind of like Windsor, Ontario is every bit as self-consciously Canadian, as Detroit is American --- and I am confident that, given their druthers, people in that area would far prefer Lexington TV to Charleston, with WSAZ as the "local" news station. The C-H stations know this, and in past years, have fought tooth and toenail to keep Lexington stations off the cable there, though they did have to relent and allow WKYT with simultaneous CBS substitution from WOWK-13 in Charleston (licensed to Huntington, but they moved studios years ago). I have always found network non-duplication sim-sub rules to be beyond ludicrous. Gotta keep those advertising dollars local! (Though it would be very uncommon for eastern Kentuckians to go to Charleston for shopping, Huntington yes, but Charleston, not even on the radar. I-64 to Lexington east is the world's longest umbilical cord.)
WSOC does have a strong translator network. I picked up the Crowders Mountain XLTR from atop Mount Mitchell when I took my equipment up there to see what I could get before they did the repack in 2019. When the pandemic lifts and my circumstances allow, I am going back up there to see what's changed since the repack. I have isolated the highest point (such as it is) in Richland County, just off Blythewood Road near the main I-77 interchange, a couple of miles from the "sweet spot" on the McDonald's parking lot, the high point is at Loner Road and Tobacco Barn Road, and have even ordered a new tripod from Amazon for a trip out there Thursday or Friday. Nothing like that Amazon Prime one- and two-day delivery, I even got some antenna mounts the very same day, presumably from their warehouse in Lexington County. Jeff Bezos runs one tight mothership.
^^^Please report back on your Blythewood trip and what stations you receive. And what type of antenna and amplifier you will be using. I think you can receive Charlotte signals from that location, as I remember the radio stations from Charlotte start to come in at that location. I have found that overall the Charlotte signals improved since the repack, as WCNC and WJZY both top mounted on their towers, and WSOC moved to a lower UHF frequency on RF19 and raised their height just a bit. But the WSOC translator on Crowder's Mountain moved from UHF to VHF-12, so you may need rabbit ears or a better VHF antenna to receive it. The small RCA ANT751 works good as a small High VHF antenna, and it is made by Winegard. I have it combined with a Winegard LNA100 inline amp and it pulls in RF12 reliably in Spartanburg, which is very good for low power VHF. Also my 8-bay antenna receives that RF12, so WSOC did a good job with a low power VHF signal using a panel style transmitting antenna.
One of these days I may visit that area, but I would probably have to check int a motel. And I understand the Super Kroger is in that general area, and I would like to see how their supercenter compares to Walmart. And perhaps stop at Rush's or Maurice's while I am down there.
Yes at least one station needs an entertaining clown for a weatherman. He used to be on WCCB Charlotte and I guess Bahakel also used him on WOLO in Columbia.
IIRC, long ago they would indeed do cut-ins with Mark Mathis doing the weather, presumably from Charlotte, yet reporting Columbia-area weather and not being explicit about where he was actually reporting from. I don't think that lasted long. But the guy is a real piece of work!
WOLO doing its newscast from WCCB studios in Charlotte was kind of silly. They never said they were in Columbia, and never said they weren't, but it just had a kind of "fake" feel to it, and it was common knowledge with WOLO viewers that this newscast wasn't actually coming from Columbia. Getting one's "local" news from studios out-of-town, and worse yet, out-of-state(horrors!), is something you would never "sell" Columbia-area viewers on, not for a minute. This is a fairly tight-knit community, especially to be as large as it is, and local is everything here. (Multiply that by a factor of 10 for Lexington County! "Out-of-state" definitely would not play out on "Number 1".)
^^^Please report back on your Blythewood trip and what stations you receive. And what type of antenna and amplifier you will be using. I think you can receive Charlotte signals from that location, as I remember the radio stations from Charlotte start to come in at that location. I have found that overall the Charlotte signals improved since the repack, as WCNC and WJZY both top mounted on their towers, and WSOC moved to a lower UHF frequency on RF19 and raised their height just a bit. But the WSOC translator on Crowder's Mountain moved from UHF to VHF-12, so you may need rabbit ears or a better VHF antenna to receive it. The small RCA ANT751 works good as a small High VHF antenna, and it is made by Winegard. I have it combined with a Winegard LNA100 inline amp and it pulls in RF12 reliably in Spartanburg, which is very good for low power VHF. Also my 8-bay antenna receives that RF12, so WSOC did a good job with a low power VHF signal using a panel style transmitting antenna.
One of these days I may visit that area, but I would probably have to check int a motel. And I understand the Super Kroger is in that general area, and I would like to see how their supercenter compares to Walmart. And perhaps stop at Rush's or Maurice's while I am down there.
Thursday's weather is going to be kind of bogus, but Friday is supposed to be better. I ordered a new tripod on Amazon today and it should be here Thursday. I'll be using this GE antenna:
For what it is, it's actually pretty good. I won't be using an amplifier. Strangely enough, I was able to get WJBF 90% of the time here in northeast Richland from my patio, about 15 feet up, with no amp. Due to their instability on a tripod with pole mast, I took down the two antennas today and removed the GE antenna for road-trip DX instead. The mast actually fell as I was taking it down, but it fell on top of my curbside recycle bin, didn't damage the antennas one iota. I muttered to myself "the Lord surely looks out for idiots like me, He made enough of us!". I told my son, who helped me today, if an antenna ever slips and starts falling, just let it go. You can always buy a new antenna. Not worth putting life and limb at risk just to save a cheap antenna.
I just now re-scanned for the bobtailed Stellar Labs yagi UHF corner reflector that I reduced down to <1 meter. All the full-power locals are in with clean signals, though for some reason WKDC-LD-50-16 has been eluding me lately. The Daystar programs aren't my religious persuasion, and thus I have no real "need" for the channel, but it would be nice to know what's going on. Per rabbitears.info they have relocated from the short tower out near Columbia International University (Monticello Road area) to the WOLO stick. Nothing here.
I haven't been to the Super Kroger out at Killian, I didn't even realize it was anything more than a "regular" Kroger. I usually just go to Food Lion or Walmart on Two Notch Road.
After the first of the month, if my finances allow, I am seriously considering getting the Televes 148881 high-VHF/UHF Ellipse from Lowe's. It barely falls within the safer 1-meter length parameter for OTARD compliance.
The Televes Ellipse is a good compact antenna and has the built in preamp with automatic gain control. But I would get the version you cited with the VHF dipoles.
The Televes Ellipse is a good compact antenna and has the built in preamp with automatic gain control. But I would get the version you cited with the VHF dipoles.
That's what I intend to do. The VHF/UHF Ellipse is harder to find than the UHF-only model. In fact, I could have gotten the UHF Ellipse for about $60, when factoring in Chase Visa Rewards points and a $20 coupon, and was tempted to do it, but I said no, if you're going to do this, do it right the first time, even if it costs more. Columbia actually now has two VHF stations --- who saw that coming? --- and who's to say there might be even more in adjacent markets, on top of the ones that are already there (but WRDW is moving to UHF and WBTW-13 Florence will likely follow suit). I wish they had just made all digital TV UHF, like in the UK (they actually made that transition years ago, in analog days, cute little antennas on every home in the UK), but as I've noted elsewhere, there was probably some kind of business reason for it.
To step back from the infinitely interesting subject of antennas and DX TV reception (if you like that sort of thing, and I do), does anyone know who the WLTX reporter is, who has an apparently New Zealand accent (if I had to guess) and was reporting on COVID last night? I first wanted to tag the accent as British, but there was something just a little different about it, and she pronounced the short "e" sound as a long "e", such that, for instance, "weather" would sound like "WEE-ther" and the name "Heather" would sound like "HEE-ther". Listen to New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern (who is not at all difficult to watch, from a man's perspective) and you'll see what I mean. She's not listed on the WLTX "meet the team" web page.
The reporter said her name at the end of the clip, but she said it so fast, I didn't catch it. Not sure how well distinctly non-American English-speaking accents would be received by US viewers --- I like them myself, but Americans aren't used to hearing their news reported that way. There was once a reporter with an extremely strong Australian accent who did the sports (I think it was) on a Jacksonville station, and it was kind of surreal. Canadian accents are so subtly different as to escape notice, and maybe it's just because I know the backstory, but Ted Koppel's speech sounds vaguely British, kind of like "British English spoken with an American accent".
Why is Judi Gaston still reading the news from home?
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