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living near two time zones?

S

skippercollector

In the analog days, before cable, what areas of North America could you live in that could pick up signals from two different time zones? That is, if you missed a show the first time around, you could watch it later? Or watch it earlier?
Are there any areas in Cable-Land now that include local stations from two time zones?
Are there any areas in NA that can pick up digital signals from two different time zones?
I realize that this question is basically moot today because there are a billion different ways to watch a missed show, but I am still curious.
 
In the mid '70s I spent a summer with my brother who lived in eastern New Mexico. If you missed a show on one of the Amarillo-area stations, you could catch it an hour later on an Albuquerque station.
 
Back in the 80s I can remember staying at a motel along I-70 in Goodland, Kansas. Goodland is in the Mountain Time Zone but the motel offered as I can recall quite a bit of TV from Wichita ( Central Time ) but the motel had offered a number of channels from Denver ( Mountain time of course ) as well. I do remember the motel offered KMGH out of Denver on their TV as I can remember seeing Bertha Lynn ( longtime KMGH personality ) on the TV. Unfortunately we weren't there long enough to take advantage of missing a show from Wichita and catching it later out of Denver. I also don't remember if the TV was hooked up to Goodland's local cable or if the motel had their own antenna either. It's been a very long time.
 
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I never lived on the border of two time zones, but I did live in the Ohio-Michigan-Indiana tri-state area.
And Indiana did not recognize daylight savings time before 2006. In the summertime you'd have to
be careful what radio station you were listening to, because if you were tuned to Indiana and went by
the time they gave you'd be an hour early for everything.
 
The west coast of Michigan could (and may still today with a good enough antenna) pick up stations from Green Bay and/or Milwaukee, which is in Central Time while that part of Michigan is in Eastern Time.

Eastern/Central doesn't make much of a difference time-zone wise as prime time is the same on both stations.
 
WOWO News Time, 4:02, 5:02 in Ohio and Michigan.
That was before 2006 when Indiana reluctantly went on Daylight Saving Time. During the non-DST time of year, the northwest corner of Indiana was on Central Time. I remember hearing WKVI. Knox, Indiana, say "8:00 Central, 9:00 Eastern". CKLW may be the only station which had time checks going both ways. Before Michigan went on DST, Ontario was ahead. (9:00 in Windsor, 8:00 in Detroit). In 1974, when the U.S. made its ill-fated attempt to go on year-round DST, but Canada did not, it was "5:00 in Windsor, 6:00 in Detroit.

I live just an hour from the Central time line in Tennessee these days. Really one distant rimshot from the Crossville area makes it into parts of the Knoxville market and they may do dual time checks in the morning. Cumberland and Fentress Counties gets all of the Knoxville TV stations and none from Nashville, so "Live at Five at Four" is actually at 3.
 
Bullhead City AZ/Laughlin NV/Needles CA, where not only are there two time zones during the winter, but two different prime time schedules all year round.

Laughlin is part of the Las Vegas market, which runs its prime time shows at the same time as the West Coast: 8-11 PM. The other side of the Colorado River is part of the Phoenix market, and runs its prime time schedule 7-10 PM. Those in Laughlin or Needles that are within range of the Bullhead City translators of Phoenix stations can watch their favorite shows one hour earlier in the summer, and two hours earlier in the winter. Arizona residents that are up late can watch the Las Vegas 11 PM news at midnight during the winter, after watching the Phoenix newscasts at 10.

It's the closest thing to the "Fast Time/Slow Time" of 1960s Indiana that I've ever seen.
 
I wonder if any of that were possible in sections of northern or eastern Maine? I would think some New Brunswick TV stations (Atlantic Time Zone) ran some of the American shows on CTV, Global or whoever.
 
Not OTA, but the stations of Spokane (Pacific Time) have since the 1970s been the default American network affiliates for Alberta (Mountain Zone) cable systems. Even before then stations as far in the Mountain Zone as Great Falls Montana aired Spokane affiliates via cable.
 
hamster said:
Back in the 80s I can remember staying at a motel along I-70 in Goodland, Kansas. Goodland is in the Mountain Time Zone but the motel offered as I can recall quite a bit of TV from Wichita ( Central Time ) but the motel had offered a number of channels from Denver ( Mountain time of course ) as well. I do remember the motel offered KMGH out of Denver on their TV as I can remember seeing Bertha Lynn ( longtime KMGH personality ) on the TV. Unfortunately we weren't there long enough to take advantage of missing a show from Wichita and catching it later out of Denver. I also don't remember if the TV was hooked up to Goodland's local cable or if the motel had their own antenna either. It's been a very long time.
Click to expand...

do the Denver stations really cover far Western KS?
 
nomadcowatbk said:
do the Denver stations really cover far Western KS?
Click to expand...

Back in the 80s I believe the Denver stations had a translator near Burlington, CO which is just over a 100 miles from Goodland, Kansas. Myself I am leaning towards the motel were getting Denver thanks to those big satellite dishes.
 
The Rest of The Story with Indiana's confusing time situation was that prime time was 8-11 in the fall and winter months and 7-10 during Spring and Summer. That all changed when the General Manager of WTHR-13, Indianapolis, discovered he could take a prime-time Mountain Time feed of NBC and it would be 8-11pm EST/CDT. Soon everyone in Indianapolis had the same schedule (by the clock) all year by delaying network programming during the spring and summer. When I worked in Lafayette, we used three one-inch machines, rolled 45 minutes apart, to do the delay (what a pain). Terre Haute, South Bend and Fort Wayne soon followed, and that gave some places that could receive other markets 2 chances to see everything-Richmond, Indiana got both Dayton and Indianapolis, some parts of western Ohio got Fort Wayne along with Dayton or Toledo.
 
hamster said:
Myself I am leaning towards the motel were getting Denver thanks to those big satellite dishes.
Click to expand...

yup back in the day you could sub to the Denver 5 (Big 4 + KWGN) then it became the big 6 (PBS added) then at the end the Denver 8 (My and a 2nd PBS added) with the big dishes. That is how Denver's market could stretch into northern Wyoming and Western Nebraska. There weren't a full set of nets there so for cable purposes they got Denver. In fact until the late 2000's (2006 or 07) Glendive, Montana got FOX & ABC on cable via Denver stations (they now get Billings nets imported)

edit: their card in 08 verified that
(I clipped just the lifeline part of it at that time. I tried to upload the pdf but file was too big)

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Prescott Joe said:
I stayed in an OAKLEY, KS hotel in September 2015.
The local cable company carried Denver's and Wichita's
main channels. There were also a few stations available
that supposedly covered Colby and Oberlin, KS as well.
Click to expand...

Both the Colby and Oberlin stations are satellites of Wichita stations.

As far as I know, KBSL (satellite of KWCH, which operates on Central Time) has some cable carriage (and can be viewed OTA) in parts of eastern Colorado (Mountain Time).
 
on cable if you live in Eastern MT depending on the stations you get there is a quirk on 2 stations

KXGN 5 in Glendive (CBS main/NBC sub) on the CBS (5-1) they do CBS programming from 6-9 Mountain time. This goes back decades when they were a CBS/NBC station. CBS prime time from 6-9 and "best of NBC" from 9-10.
The NBC sub is basically a sub of KULR 8 in Billings and NBC is 7-10 Mountain time

HOWEVER....over in Western North Dakota the CBS (KXMD) and the NBC (KUMV) both stations do 7-10 Central programming for their nets. But since Williston is in the Mountain time zone (and both those stations are in essence satellite stations of the Minot stations) those folks see it from 6-9.

So what does this all mean?
Glendive proper has on cable NBC from KXGN-DT2 and KUMV. So on KUMV programming runs from 6-9 Mountain time and on KXGN-DT2 its 7-10. So on cable you can watch Fallon at 9:30 on KUMV or 10:30 on KXGN-DT2

Now if you live in an area (say Sidney) that has both KXGN and KXMD your prime time is from 6-9 on both. Now KXMD at 9 has the news then Colbert at 9:35. KXGN has an hour of "Millionaire" then the news (from KTVQ in Billings) at 10 then Colbert at 10:35.
 
unclehonkey said:
on cable if you live in Eastern MT depending on the stations you get there is a quirk on 2 stations

KXGN 5 in Glendive (CBS main/NBC sub) on the CBS (5-1) they do CBS programming from 6-9 Mountain time. This goes back decades when they were a CBS/NBC station. CBS prime time from 6-9 and "best of NBC" from 9-10.
The NBC sub is basically a sub of KULR 8 in Billings and NBC is 7-10 Mountain time

HOWEVER....over in Western North Dakota the CBS (KXMD) and the NBC (KUMV) both stations do 7-10 Central programming for their nets. But since Williston is in the Mountain time zone (and both those stations are in essence satellite stations of the Minot stations) those folks see it from 6-9.

So what does this all mean?
Glendive proper has on cable NBC from KXGN-DT2 and KUMV. So on KUMV programming runs from 6-9 Mountain time and on KXGN-DT2 its 7-10. So on cable you can watch Fallon at 9:30 on KUMV or 10:30 on KXGN-DT2

Now if you live in an area (say Sidney) that has both KXGN and KXMD your prime time is from 6-9 on both. Now KXMD at 9 has the news then Colbert at 9:35. KXGN has an hour of "Millionaire" then the news (from KTVQ in Billings) at 10 then Colbert at 10:35.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but Williston is not in the Mountain time zone. It is in Central Time. Now Dickinson, ND is in the Mountain Time Zone, and their stations are sattelites of Bismarck, in the Central time zone, so prime time programming is 6-9.

So you would have this same thing in a town like Beach, ND and I believe Wibaux, MT right by the Montana/North Dakota border. They would get KXGN, but also KXMA and KQCD from Dickinson, so on the NBC side KQCD would be 6-9 and KXGN NBC 7-10
 
ah son of a whore I keep forgetting that...I keep thinking western ND is Mountain time ;)

But the point is in those locations where they get NBC or CBS from both states there is a difference ;)

looking at channel listings for Beach, ND they get KXGN CBS alonf with the Dickinson locals (no KXGN-DT2)
Wibaux is odd as they have KXGN CBS, NoDak NBC & FOX, Billings ABC and both MT & ND PBS
http://www.midrivers.com/catvdocs/Wibaux MegaVue Legal.pdf
 
Northeast Nevada is in Pacific Time, but is in the Salt Lake City DMA (Mountain Time). However, most systems there carry at least one Reno station. Prime time would be two hours different between stations (6-9 on the SLC stations and 8-11 on the Reno stations)
 
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