Topeka TV Over-The-Air Changes

Been a long time since I've done a post devoted to over-the-air television reception or changes in the offerings.  Two reasons for being dilatory.  First, much of my energy these days is taken with other tasks and concerns and second, in my local market (Topeka) there simply wasn't much happening with free TV.  

Until last Saturday.  

The week prior I noticed a crawl indicating on or after July 3, please re-scan your television if you watch via antenna.  No other details.  The station's website said the same thing.  

But I knew a couple of things were in the works.  Thanks to the ever-useful Rabbitears.info site two of the local channels had to make a switch.  And in the past month KSNT's site featured a story on the new construction for KTKA's tower.  (For those not familiar with this market, all of the network outlets are owned by two corporations.  WIBW is owned by Gray Communications and the others belong to Nexstar. Thus the NBC, ABC, Fox and CW stations are under the same local umbrella.  This is why one station can report on the happenings with another and not have suits screaming about giving the competition free publicity.)  

Why did these stations need to move their channels?  One word: repack.  

Explanation for the curious.  The FCC, over the course of many years, eliminated removed the frequencies available for TV broadcast and sold the spectrum space to wireless providers.  This began in the late 1980's with channels 70-83 but it's likely no one noticed given these high channels saw almost no use save for translator stations.  Then with the analog shut-off in 2009 the channels broadcasting on 52-through 69 had to move to a lower channel or go off the air completely.  Shortly afterward channel 51 also got axed.  Over the past few years the FCC did another spectrum auction and now stations broadcasting on channels 38 through 50 are undergoing the "move or go off the air" routine.  Using a term I consider spin, this auction is referred to as "repack."  Bottom line--TV stations are being shoehorned into an ever-smaller chunk of available channels.  Since KTKA was on channel 49 and KTMJ broadcast on channel 43 I knew these eventually had to make the move.  

Last Friday night that move happened.  

So I get up last Saturday morning and sure enough, no signal on KTKA or KTMJ, although the latter never did give us a constant watchable picture here in the Manhattan area given it's a low-power station and broadcast from PBS affiliate KTWU's tower in northwest Topeka.  KTWU is the shortest of all area transmitter towers and their signal remains sketchy around here even though KTWU is a full-power operation broadcasting on channel 11.  

So...do the rescan and what a nice surprise!  While KTKA remains a constant and adequate signal the real treat was vastly improved reception of KTMJ.  Three bars (out of five) on the signal strength meter and no dropout or pixellation.  Nice to know I can enjoy the subchannels featuring Grit or Laff without concern of losing the signal before the movie or program ends.  According to FCC information KTMJ's transmitter location moved to KTKA's tower, which is taller and a bit closer to those of us near Manhattan.  Even without a significant increase in power this transmitter change is providing a much-improved signal to antenna viewers such as me.  

To the engineers and management:  Thank You!!!

The Movies (Stay-At-Home Viewing Part Three)

Last entry was about the TV shows, now on to a flick update. 

Yesterday, courtesy of Prime, I caught "Mommie Dearest," a film I recall getting a lot of attention at the time of release but which I never saw.  Until now.  

It falls somewhere between my desire to enjoy older movies and my guilty pleasure of viewing movies that are "so bad it's entertaining."  

It turned out to be another one of those films that had me stating to Geogal as the closing credits rolled: "Now let's watch a comedy."  

Last Thursday the child and I watched "2001, A Space Odyssey" for the second time.  Undoubtedly this is a film that is slowly growing on me (not unlike "Contact").   My history of watching it is detailed enough it warrants its own separate entry on this blog.  

Two Sundays ago all three of us enjoyed "Where'd You Go, Bernadette?"  While eternal reviews are mixed I can't argue with the film's overall thesis:  All of us are gifted to do certain things, and don't try to shove a square peg into a round hole!!

A look at the DVD queue shows titles such as "Citizen Kane," "Marty" and "Downton Abbey."  I expect some quality viewing time in the near future.