WTVG 75th Anniversary special

[radioandtventhusiast]

WTVG had its 75th Anniversary special yesterday. Diane Larson and Lee Conklin presented it and shared many great memories over the station's 75 years. Past personalities include Susan Ross Wells, Rebecca Regnier, and sports anchors Rob Powers, Joe Nugent, and Dave Holmes. A history of the station's ownership and logo were also part of the special, and archival news footage were also included. It was a great time capsule for a Toledo media institution.

[schmave]

They were my first choice for news during my UT years. I remember all the names you mentioned, and Stan Stachak was a staple in those days too. It looks like they have the full special as well as several clips on their website. Look forward to watching those.

[Ben Zonia]

For many years, analog WSPD-TV/WTVG 13 was directional, because it was coowned and couldn't overlap with WJBK-TV 2, also owned by Storer Broadcasting, so it had a null to the North. People complained that it wasn't nearly as strong as WTOL 11 around Detroit when they wanted to watch an NBC show preempted by WWJ-TV/WDIV 4. It wasn't until 2004 that it was licensed at 316 kW nondirectional, and by that time owned by and affiliated with ABC.

It's more complicated than that, but no other source refers to the directional antenna. Here is the DA pattern.



It was only about 39 kW to the North, and 316 kW maximum when it was directional and analog. The Grade B reached the center of Detroit, and slightly North of Dearborn and Ann Arbor. The Grade B of WTOL 11 reached to Warren and the inner suburbs North of 8 Mile.

[MWmetalhead]

When I lived on the south side of Ann Arbor, I could get channel 13 halfway decently with just rabbit ears. This was when they were still licensed directional. I suspect more "juice" was sent in the direction of Ann Arbor than pattern plots suggested.

13's picture was not as snowy as, say, WILX (from the Jackson area) or WUPW and was only a bit noisier than WTOL. I remember WTOL always having a dull color palette. That annoyed me. WTVG's video had much more "pop" to it and looked great.

I remember being surprised by how crappy WILX's signal was. For a full power VHF station located less than 50 miles away, reception was lousy. It was darn near as weak as WADL! I also remember being surprised at how spectacularly good 62's signal was (following their upgrade to 5 million watts).

[Ben Zonia]

When I lived on the south side of Ann Arbor, I could get channel 13 halfway decently with just rabbit ears. This was when they were still licensed directional. I suspect more "juice" was sent in the direction of Ann Arbor than pattern plots suggested.

13's picture was not as snowy as, say, WILX (from the Jackson area) or WUPW and was only a bit noisier than WTOL. I remember WTOL always having a dull color palette. That annoyed me. WTVG's video had much more "pop" to it and looked great.

I remember being surprised by how crappy WILX's signal was. For a full power VHF station located less than 50 miles away, reception was lousy. It was darn near as weak as WADL! I also remember being surprised at how spectacularly good 62's signal was (following their upgrade to 5 million watts).

On the North Campus, near where they were going to put the WUOM-TV tower, on the West side of buildings, WILX 10 was easily received on rabbit ears, better than WDIV 4. On the East side of buildings, 4 was better, and from upper stories, you could see the tower lights from Southfield on a very clear Night in the Winter. All terrain and building effects.

I don't know your exact location then, but if you put Saline, MI into TVFool, 13 is LOS and 10 is 1Edge, and 17 dB more than 10 at 30 feet. 10 is 6.4 miles further from Saline.

https://www.tvfool.com/?option=com_wrap ... 0c79320d7e

[rugratsonline]

When I lived on the south side of Ann Arbor, I could get channel 13 halfway decently with just rabbit ears. This was when they were still licensed directional. I suspect more "juice" was sent in the direction of Ann Arbor than pattern plots suggested.

I had relatives who live in Chelsea, and they could pull in WTVG like a local in the mid-1980s. They got the full slate of Detroit, Windsor, Toledo and Lansing channels, plus Flint's WJRT (which was snowy but still very viewable).

[Ben Zonia]

There's a sub off White Lake Rd. off US 23 in Tyrone Twp., that if you put the address in, it's line of sight for 50 or 60 miles around in every direction. People who live there just think they have a good antenna when it's not really, like one of those 360 degree antennas. They don't know why they have such good reception. On US 23, and near there, you can see tower lights from all over if you know where to look.

Back to the North Campus, there was an MATV with a distribution amplifier with an antenna pointed toward Southfield. It was pointed completely the wrong direction, but you could hear the audio from WJRT 12 but could not see the picture.

[schmave]

You could pull in Detroit, Flint and Lansing easily from that location right? Toledo would be a tougher battle.
In the analog days, my uncle 20 minutes southwest of Lima could get WTVG if the conditions were favorable. I don't remember him ever pulling in the other Toledo stations. I lived on the 15th floor of Parks Tower my freshman year at UT, so when I depended on an antenna of course the locals were cinch catches, but even then it always felt like 11 and 13 had the two best signals.

[Ben Zonia]

Toledo stations would be weaker from that Tyrone Twp. location, but at least in the analog days, with a decent antenna, you could have received at least 11 regularly. It's about 75 miles away. 13 because of the DA would be weaker.

In Mecosta and Osceola Counties at higher elevation, you could get 3,5,6,7,8,9,12, and 13 GR quite well in analog with a decent antenna, and 2 and 4 from Detroit intermittently, and even with a hand held portable if you walked to a clear intersection at fairly high altitude except 2 and 4. That was a similar distance as Toledo stations from Tyrone Twp. except for 7,9, and 13 GR, which were much closer.

[MWmetalhead]

4 and 7 always came in great (especially 7), 2 was prone to some electrical interference (annoying diagonal lines) and a bit of snow, and 20, 31, 50 and 62 all came in great at all times. 56 was almost as good as the above but did have a bit of graininess.

9, 11, and 13 were decent and nearly equal with each other. 24, 30 and Windsor's 32 were a little noisier but still decent. 10, 36 and 38 required effort to tune in and were quite snowy. Couldn't get color on 6 despite the picture not being that snowy and audio from WEMU fought with WLNS's audio. The picture on the WLNS translator on 67 was snowy but watchable but the audio was mostly white noise. That translator had deferred maintenance and frankly served no purpose. Could never get 12, 28 or any Lansing area UHFs.

[schmave]

Even from the high-rise dorm I mentioned earlier, where I had a north-facing room, 2 would come in occasionally. I am not sure about 4, 7 or 9. I didn't try for them all that often given that we got all four on cable, plus WKBD. This was off an older tube TV with one of those circular antennas.
50 came in and I think 62 was there, but I never watched 62 for anything given that WTOL was and is a pretty good CBS affiliate, plus without the NFL rights then there was no bonus game to catch from Detroit.
I'd love to DX from up there now in the digital era. I'd probably get something different from rooms facing in every direction at that height.

[Ben Zonia]

The Channel 67 translator in Ann Arbor was not so much to view in Ann Arbor, as it was to comply with the Channel 6 Interference requirements, to put the affected population less than 3000 when they increased from 10 watts. It's under Section 73.525.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/73.525

Maybe some people watched MSU sports on it, like some people used to have long Channel 6 antennas near Detroit. It could also be viewed under sports black out rules before they closed the loophole so that stations had to be even further away.

[CurlyHoward]

Even from the high-rise dorm I mentioned earlier, where I had a north-facing room, 2 would come in occasionally. I am not sure about 4, 7 or 9. I didn't try for them all that often given that we got all four on cable, plus WKBD. This was off an older tube TV with one of those circular antennas.
50 came in and I think 62 was there, but I never watched 62 for anything given that WTOL was and is a pretty good CBS affiliate, plus without the NFL rights then there was no bonus game to catch from Detroit.
I'd love to DX from up there now in the digital era. I'd probably get something different from rooms facing in every direction at that height.

when I first moved to Toledo in 2006, I could get 62 snowily on rabbit ears and would sometimes watch it for better NFL games (ie, not beholden to the godawful Browns and Bengals teams of the time)

[ChrisWL1980]

I had an old '70s era color TV in my bedroom when I lived in Saline and found Toledo stations came in much better OTA than Detroit (my other TV had cable, but since our cable system had only Detroit stations the only way to watch Toledo was OTA). Also I remember having quite a bit of trouble with the Detroit VHFs. I was surprised that TVO 32 came in okay but CBET 9 was barely watchable.
Back to the special... I watched it online. It was okay, I liked the vintage promos, but I think they focused too much on the last 35 years. I would have liked to see more about the early years (the WSPD-TV era).

[radioandtventhusiast]

I'm wondering if they didn't talk nearly as much as the WSPD era because many of the people from that area are no longer around.