|
|
|
• DIGITAL TV TRANSITION OF 2009 AS RECEIVED AND RECORDED IN • Channel 6 #1 • Ohio, Colorado, Florida TV DX EXPO pages and images are owned, maintained, and |
|
• Nightlight is a station that aired continuous (looped) DTV Transition information beginning on June 12, 2009 (except for emergency and severe weather alerts). Although Nightlights were allowed to operate until July 12, only a small number remained on the air until that date. Nightlights used various types of local IDs. • Transition Highlight photographs display local DTV Transition information that was broadcast on or prior to June 12, 2009. This includes a variety of on-air Transition-related material. These stations left the air or switched to Nightlighting by midnight on June 12. |
| The Final Days of Analog TV in the USA |
|
MY LOCAL KTAL-6 AND CAPTAIN TALLTOWER My local KTAL-6 discontinued analog broadcasting on April 16. In the 1950s, KTAL had the tallest TV tower in the Shreveport - Texarkana market. In fact, KTAL was the first TV station in this market. It is said that the call letters stand for "TALL tower." Others say the calls are for Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana. In the early 1960s, KTAL aired a daily, afternoon local kids' program entitled "Captain Talltower." The captain was an astronaut-type character who showed old "Flash Gordon" movie shorts (featuring Buster Crabbe). KTBS-3 and KSLA-12 built new towers near Oil City in the 1960s that were considerably taller than KTAL's tower in Vivian. In addition, Oil City is closer to Shreveport, whereas Vivian is closer to KTAL's actual city of license, Texarkana. Therefore, KTAL's signal was inferior to that of KTBS and KSLA in the southern part of the market. As a result of KTAL's inferior signal, it was always fairly easy to receive E-skip and strong tropo through KTAL-6. Floaters and overtakers were common. The DX shown below was received after KTAL vacated channel 6. (Although I remember watching KTAL-TV sign off, I cannot find a recording of that event. If a recording is ever found in my collection, I will upload a photo to this page.)
Captain Talltower is mentioned on this page about local children's programs
|
|
WSYX-6 Columbus, OH via E-skip 1 May 26 and June 12, 2009 |
May 26
 A DTV Transition-related message on "www.abc6onyourside.com/dtvfeedback" |
May 26
 This is a commercial for Dave Fox Remodeling. Note that the conversion message covers the lower one-third of the screen continuously during programming and commercials. |
|
WSYX-6 was running a message at times on the lower portion of the screen on Transition Day. It was not the message above, and it mentioned an "experiment." Unfortunately, the signal was never good enough to read well or photograph well. I did manage a photograph of WSYX-6's weatherman Dana Turtle on Transition Day. Note the "ABC6" logo lower left. |
 June 12 |
|
KREZ-6 Durango, CO via E-skip 2 6.17 KW RELAYER OF KRQE-13 ALBUQUERQUE, NM May 26, 2009 Ugly Pictures of an Interesting New Log!
KREZ-6 Durango and WLFM-6 Chicago were my only new analog U.S. logs via E-skip on channel 6 after KTAL left the air. The pictures below contain my first and only ID material from |
|
A crawl across the top concerning the DTV Transition was not up continuously, so I had to make do with a poor quality signal during the crawl. I saw the crawl only once during the short reception. The CBS eye logo is lower right on a soap opera. The crawl shows addresses on Central SE in Albuquerque and on Cerrillos in Santa Fe. It also contains 1-888-CALL FCC and 1-888-TELL FCC. KREZ's signal was soon overtaken by Denver's PBS powerhouse KRMA-6 (see the Baby Bop photo in the KRMA section on the following page). |
1606 Central SE, Albuquerque "1606 CENTRAL SE-ALBUQ..."  |
"...SE-ALBUQUERQUE & ..."
 |
"... UERQUE & 4250 CERRILLO ..."
 |
|
4250 Cerrillos, Santa Fe " & 4250 CERRILLOS SANT..."  |
1-888-CALLFCC or TTY 1-888-TELLFCC "...CALLFCC OR TTY 1-888-TE..."  |
|
Nightlight WTVJ-6 Miami, FL via E-skip 3 May 28 and June 22, 2009 |
 |
 Note WTVJ's "6" logo lower right. |
|
The first two pictures don't actually contain any DTV-related content. Yet, this signal from The other three images show WTVJ-6 Nightlighting a couple of weeks later. The continuous, easy-to-read text ID made WTVJ a very DXer-friendly Nightlight. WTVJ was one of the best of the best. |
 |
 |
 |
|
Nightlight WKMG-6 Orlando, FL via E-skip 4 June 22, 2009 |
|
Oddly, WKMG-6's crawl at the top of the screen would move a while and stop a while. It was especially impressive when the crawl stopped on the "MG" of the WKMG calls and a telephone number. If Murphy's Laws of DXing had not been in play, the crawl might have stopped with all four letters on the screen. In spite of Murphy, I have some pictures of what was a rarely IDed station for me. Of course, I am sure, the staff of WKMG was not happy with the malfunctioning crawl. The "LOCAL 6" logo was not displayed full time. WKMG-6 was one of the few Nightlights received here that used the NAB show in which Mike DiSerio wore a suit. |
 Note the stuck (unmoving) crawl |
 |
 Spanish |
 The crawl has stopped on |
|
|
|
Return to
index page of
TV DX EXPO |
|
TV DX EXPO pages and images are owned, maintained, and |