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Lexington, KY (December 7, 1981)

B

Bluenoser

from Lexington Herald-Leader via Newspapers.com

2 (27) WKYT-CBS
7 WTBS Atlanta
8 (18) WLEX-NBC
8 USA Network
10 (36) WTVQ-ABC
11 Home Theater Network
12 (46) WKLE-PBS/KET
17 ACSN
21 HBO
24 Cinemax
25 The Movie Channel
26 ESPN
28 CBN
29 SIN/CBS Cable
30 Nickelodeon/ARTS
*WOR New York airs late-night
31 SPN
32 CNN
33 TeleCable Classic Movie Channel
35 PTL Network
36 WGN Chicago

Lexington also had a microwave pay service, Centerstage, that carried programs from WTBS and Showtime.
 
ftballfan said:
Surprised by the lack of WDRB or WXIX as many of the surrounding counties carried one or both of them at this time
Click to expand...
I know. At one time, Lexington was at the far fringes of the Louisville and Cincinnati coverage areas --- it still is, they haven't moved any of the cities :giggle: --- and many homes there had 30-foot towers on the side, with huge VHF (and sometimes UHF) antennas to get Louisville 3/11 and Cincinnati 5/9/12. Until 1968, Lexington didn't have full-time affiliates of all three networks, so out-of-town reception was needed to get full-coverage in-pattern network schedules. Lexington was also a UHF island back when UHF tuning and reception were difficult. I don't know to what extent WDRB or WXIX were ever widely viewed in Lexington. The cable in Winchester and Mt Sterling still carry WXIX, and Frankfort cable carries most major stations from Louisville as well as a full complement of Lexington stations, they are Lexington ADI but as a practical matter are "neither fish nor fowl" when it comes to Lexington versus Louisville. Cincinnati is long gone from Frankfort cable.
 
WXIX (19) Cincy was a great regional superstation widely distributed at that time. Makes it more unusual unless they didn't want to pay the carriage fees.
 
WXIX was a blazing-hot superstation back in the day, they got as far east as Charleston WV, and were very popular in the Huntington-Ashland area. One year in the 1980s, they had 50%+ viewership in Boyd County KY, this per Television Factbook. After Fox started, carrying WXIX was pretty much pointless outside the Cincinnati market, though it was carried in Winchester, Mount Sterling, and Vanceburg.
 
But they did take WGN from the big dish. No regional station from Cincinnati which I'm sure would have had an audience in Lexington, but at least children got to wake up with Bozo.
 
ftballfan said:
Surprised by the lack of WDRB or WXIX as many of the surrounding counties carried one or both of them at this time
Click to expand...
The claim was "We can't receive a stable signal" as it was brought up. They did offer a preemption channel offering a good picture on Louisville channels including Channel 32. Telecable was really big on satellite delivery. Their head end was sparse.

Fill in the blanks
2 (27) WKYT-CBS
3 Govt access
4 News ticker (?)
5 Public Access
6 Local orig.
7 WTBS Atlanta
8 (18) WLEX-NBC
9 USA Network
10 (36) WTVQ-ABC
11 Home Theater Network
12 (46) WKLE-PBS/KET
13 School
14 Blank
15 KET ETC now KET2
16 UKTV
17 ACSN
18 ?
19 ?
20 Program guide
21 HBO
22 Library Access
23 Reuters Race Wire
24 Cinemax
25 The Movie Channel
26 ESPN
27 ?
28 CBN
29 SIN/CBS Cable
30 Nickelodeon/ARTS
*WOR New York airs late-night
31 SPN
32 CNN
33 TeleCable Classic Movie Channel
34 Shopper's Channel (Someone went out and logged prices and loaded into a MSI)
35 PTL Network
36 Network Preemption Channel later WGN
 
radiorob2.0 said:
The claim was "We can't receive a stable signal" as it was brought up. They did offer a preemption channel offering a good picture on Louisville channels including Channel 32. Telecable was really big on satellite delivery. Their head end was sparse.

Fill in the blanks
2 (27) WKYT-CBS
3 Govt access
4 News ticker (?)
5 Public Access
6 Local orig.
7 WTBS Atlanta
8 (18) WLEX-NBC
9 USA Network
10 (36) WTVQ-ABC
11 Home Theater Network
12 (46) WKLE-PBS/KET
13 School
14 Blank
15 KET ETC now KET2
16 UKTV
17 ACSN
18 ?
19 ?
20 Program guide
21 HBO
22 Library Access
23 Reuters Race Wire
24 Cinemax
25 The Movie Channel
26 ESPN
27 ?
28 CBN
29 SIN/CBS Cable
30 Nickelodeon/ARTS
*WOR New York airs late-night
31 SPN
32 CNN
33 TeleCable Classic Movie Channel
34 Shopper's Channel (Someone went out and logged prices and loaded into a MSI)
35 PTL Network
36 Network Preemption Channel later WGN
Click to expand...

I have a hard time buying that. Cable in Paris and Georgetown to this day carries several Cincinnati stations, and they still carry WXIX in Winchester and Mount Sterling, all of these similar distances as Lexington (maybe just a few miles closer as the crow flies).

I'm assuming microwave reception wasn't a possibility.
 
Maybe too many hills in the way for a steady WXIX signal, even on microwave.
 
crainbebo said:
Maybe too many hills in the way for a steady WXIX signal, even on microwave.
Click to expand...

Could be. That part of Kentucky is indeed hilly, not mountainous --- that doesn't start until you get past Irvine to the south ---but still quite hilly. Even back in analog days when many Lexington homes had those huge towers on them, Cincinnati and Louisville reception still wasn't all that good. When Lexington only had the two stations, WLEX and WKYT, they had to have huge antennas to get full in-pattern network schedules, and viewers were more forgiving of snowy or ghost-laden reception in those days, you pretty much had to be.

I wonder if the Cincinnati stations carried in areas north and northeast of Lexington are now delivered via fiber or some kind of online (or maybe even satellite?) connection. I do recall that when WCPO and WXIX were carried on Morehead cable, there were no signal issues I ever saw (my cousin lived there), but they might have had their headend on a high hill, and there are no such hills in Lexington. Put another way, the flat terrain might actually militate against getting a good signal over the hills of Grant and Scott counties into Lexington proper.

Don't know about Frankfort. It kind of sits down in a bowl, and from what I've heard, OTA reception has always been difficult there, WBLG/WTVQ even had to have a translator. Franklin County remained part of the Louisville TV market until 1983, this per Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook.
 
Telecable was about satellite delivery than OTA. It was possible, they chose not to utilize it. Channel 19 was a challenge with Channel 18 as a local but Channel 41 was quite possible. Before cable a large number of homes had high gain log periodic VHF and high gain UHF antennas atop 40 foot towers. The really blossomed in the late seventies and disappeared by the late eighties.

The cable systems around Lexington, except Winchester, were co-owned. Signals were microwaved from best reception locations within the system. Richmond had Lexington, Cincinnati and Louisville with the later two markets via their network.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
Telecable was about satellite delivery than OTA. It was possible, they chose not to utilize it. Channel 19 was a challenge with Channel 18 as a local but Channel 41 was quite possible. Before cable a large number of homes had high gain log periodic VHF and high gain UHF antennas atop 40 foot towers. The really blossomed in the late seventies and disappeared by the late eighties.

The cable systems around Lexington, except Winchester, were co-owned. Signals were microwaved from best reception locations within the system. Richmond had Lexington, Cincinnati and Louisville with the later two markets via their network.
Click to expand...
I see what you are saying about channel 19 (WXIX). That would indeed have been difficult with WLEX on channel 18.

How well I remember those huge antennas on Lexington homes! I didn't live there but visited quite a bit, and always marveled at them. Google Street View indicates that they're all but gone now, you will see one of them once in a great while but that's about it. They are holdovers from when Lexington network offerings were meager (no ABC until 1968, and WBLG/WTVQ was a joke for many years) and UHF reception was difficult, due as much to sub-par, poorly selective tuners as anything else. Louisville 3/11 and Cincinnati 5/9/12 were more solid and easier to receive, assuming you could tease out a watchable signal over 70+ miles of rolling terrain. There's no need to do that anymore.
 
ftballfan said:
The weakness of WTVQ (along with UHF ABC's in Knoxville and the Tri-Cities) also explains the somewhat surprising popularity of WLOS in southern Kentucky into the 1980s
Click to expand...
WLOS had the high-elevation tower on Mount Pisgah that could put a decent signal at least into the high elevations of southern Kentucky, and was able to have a combination of cable and translator coverage all the way up to Manchester, Williamsburg, Corbin, and even London. Not sure what the signal looked like, by the time it had come that far, but eastern Kentuckians had long learned to be very forgiving of weak and snowy signals. In its heyday, WLOS served as an ABC "superstation" for six states, with a coverage area stretching from London KY to Newberry SC, including rimshot coverage into the western Charlotte exurbs (Gastonia et al). That's a huge signal.
 
IM42A said:
I see what you are saying about channel 19 (WXIX). That would indeed have been difficult with WLEX on channel 18.

How well I remember those huge antennas on Lexington homes! I didn't live there but visited quite a bit, and always marveled at them. Google Street View indicates that they're all but gone now, you will see one of them once in a great while but that's about it. They are holdovers from when Lexington network offerings were meager (no ABC until 1968, and WBLG/WTVQ was a joke for many years) and UHF reception was difficult, due as much to sub-par, poorly selective tuners as anything else. Louisville 3/11 and Cincinnati 5/9/12 were more solid and easier to receive, assuming you could tease out a watchable signal over 70+ miles of rolling terrain. There's no need to do that anymore.
Click to expand...
They blossomed in the late seventies. Lexington sits on a plateau so reception was possible. Friend of mine had the package seen everywhere with a log periodic VHF and yagi UHF amplified and split to four sets. Channel 19 was a challenge but WCET was a decent picture with a little snow. Same for Channel 32 and 41 from Louisville.
 
radiorob2.0 said:
They blossomed in the late seventies. Lexington sits on a plateau so reception was possible. Friend of mine had the package seen everywhere with a log periodic VHF and yagi UHF amplified and split to four sets. Channel 19 was a challenge but WCET was a decent picture with a little snow. Same for Channel 32 and 41 from Louisville.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't have thought WCET, but if it could have gotten past WKLE-46 on those lousy radio-dial-like tuners that existed before they started putting detent UHF tuners on sets, it was probably possible with a little doing. I even heard of people being able to get Dayton 2 and 7, but that would have been a real hat trick.

Those antenna towers on people's houses were glorious. I have to imagine that Pieratt's could have done a land-office business if they did antenna installations (don't know if they did or not). I remember their commercials with the Barnstable twins (the Doublemint girls). They were quintessential 1970s. I guess I'm really showing my age there.
 
IM42A said:
Could be. That part of Kentucky is indeed hilly, not mountainous --- that doesn't start until you get past Irvine to the south ---but still quite hilly. Even back in analog days when many Lexington homes had those huge towers on them, Cincinnati and Louisville reception still wasn't all that good. When Lexington only had the two stations, WLEX and WKYT, they had to have huge antennas to get full in-pattern network schedules, and viewers were more forgiving of snowy or ghost-laden reception in those days, you pretty much had to be.

I wonder if the Cincinnati stations carried in areas north and northeast of Lexington are now delivered via fiber or some kind of online (or maybe even satellite?) connection. I do recall that when WCPO and WXIX were carried on Morehead cable, there were no signal issues I ever saw (my cousin lived there), but they might have had their headend on a high hill, and there are no such hills in Lexington. Put another way, the flat terrain might actually militate against getting a good signal over the hills of Grant and Scott counties into Lexington proper.

Don't know about Frankfort. It kind of sits down in a bowl, and from what I've heard, OTA reception has always been difficult there, WBLG/WTVQ even had to have a translator. Franklin County remained part of the Louisville TV market until 1983, this per Broadcasting and Cable Yearbook.
Click to expand...
Yes, in the late 1970s, the Lexington newspaper reported WTVQ operated a translator in Frankfort. One of the related news articles indicated the translator operated on channel 58.
 


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