• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Crappy hotel cable report - March 2, 2011

M

mjlarochelle

On the U.S. National board there have been a number of threads about lousy cable lineups at various hotels around the United States. Well, I've found one in Canada. Last night I stayed at a Howard Johnson in Barrie.

- CKVR was on Cable 3. CKVR also broadcasts on Channel 3 over-the-air. Signal, not surprisingly, was poor.
- The only CBC service was provided from CHEX Durham, which does not clear much more than the minimum CBC schedule. You would think they would have CBC Toronto available up there, especially with it being available locally on cable and OTA.
- Several channels had very poor signal quality, including TVO, OMNI.1, and some upper-tier channels. Other channels such as TSN had very low colour saturation.

To add insult to injury, the remote didn't work (even though the red light on the remote lit up when pushing buttons), and on the TV itself, the "down" channel button didn't work. That meant the only way to change channels was to press the "up" button on the set.

If you ever go to that hotel for some reason, don't let them try and sell you the room with the broken window.

Oh well, at least they had CTV. I stayed at a hotel in Toronto last year that didn't get CFTO or any other CTV station on cable.
 
That sounds terrible!

Did they get ANY U.S. channels at all?? ???

I had two seaparate stays in Niagara Falls, Ont. late last year. What amazed me was that the Ramada, got the U.S. networks from Boston. Having lived in Maine for 20 years, I was very comfortable with chs. 4, 5, & 7 from Boston. So it was a treat to watch the news at 11. Other than those, I'd say their overall cable selection was pertty good.

My second Falls hotel was..............are you ready?.............. Howard Johnson's! Here, they had cable, instead of satellite, and the Boston locals were naturally replaced with Buffalo. Their overall choice was much slimmer than the Ramada. Their TV wasn't as nice either. Then again, we're kinda comparing apples & oranges... since HoJo was HALF the price of the swankier Ramada.
 
When I was in Montreal in 2001 I stayed at the Hotel Auberge Universel, which was just a short walk away from Olympic Stadium. This was only one of two motels I stayed in Canada whose television was not sourced from cable.

As for what I got:

NBC and CBS came from Detroit (WDIV & WWJ), presumably from Star Choice (Shaw Direct).
ABC came directly off the air (WVNY Burlington) -- in consequence, this was the only US channel that was not simsubbed.
Fox came from Boston (WFXT), presumably from ExpressVu (Bell TV).
Don't know if it offered PBS.

The rest of the lineup was a selection of local and specialty channels, via cable and satellite, plus The Movie Network and Super Ecran -- as for CTV, it carried CFCF for part of my stay, but along the way, that signal disappeared for some reason.

The big surprise is that the hotel offered ESPN, off the American satellite -- how they managed to smuggle ESPN into Canada, I have no idea.

The other place whose TV was not sourced from cable was a small motel east of Sarnia, Ontario in 1999 -- no cable or satellite, just aerial television. With their main antenna turned towards the south, I tuned in to the local CBC, Radio-Canada, CTV, TVO and Global transmitters, plus most channels from London, Windsor, Detroit and Toledo. Of course, if they had something onmidirectional, I could've also gotten stations from Cleveland and the Flint/Tri-Cities area (WNEM ch.5 came in faintly).
 
That's very odd. A hotel in Barrie, very much in the Toronto GTA, does NOT have CBLT 5 on its channel line up? OK, a check of a map shows Barrie is about as far from Peterborough (home of CHEX-TV) as from Toronto. But you'd think a hotel in Barrie would have an antennna pointing to Toronto so it could pick up CFTO, CBLFT, Global, TVO, City-TV, etc. from the CN Tower. So it could easily have CBLT as well.


Gregg
[email protected]
 
Also, how could CHEX Durham be available in Barrie anyway? The station's channel 22 signal broadcasts from Oshawa at only 5.5kw.
 
You know what? Howard Johnson has always been awful in many markets.
Niagara falls was bad. No City TV, and the remote was broken there too. (hmmm...)
The tv did not work. They switched it with one from the next room over.
(hope who ever stays there doesn't need a tv! lol)

There were many other reasons to hate that place, but I'll just stick to the basics.
TV switch ---> don't they ever test their TV's before offering the room?
cable ----> picture quality poor on many stations. selection only around 19 or 20 stations, and no City TV.

Hey MJ! Which hotel had no CTV in Toronto? I'd like to stay there for the next superbowl so I can get the American commercials!!! (if CTV carries the Superbowl next year!)
 
Yeziknoradio said:
Hey MJ! Which hotel had no CTV in Toronto? I'd like to stay there for the next superbowl so I can get the American commercials!!! (if CTV carries the Superbowl next year!)
Click to expand...

Park Inn, on Highway 27 between the 409 and Rexdale. They had a very limited channel lineup, if I recall correctly only about 25-30 channels.

CHEX Durham is now carried on Rogers Digital Cable across Ontario and has been offered in Barrie-Orillia on cable for the past few years anyways, so it was probably sourced through one of those means. There was no CBLT on the hotel lineup. They did get two U.S. channels, WUTV and WKBW from Buffalo. Couldn't find any others.

I once stayed at a motel near Barry's Bay, Ontario, which received all its television from a master VHF antenna, plus TSN via satellite. The problem was, they pointed one antenna at Camp Fortune near Ottawa and a Channel 5 antenna at Pembroke. Channels 4, 9, and 13 from Ottawa were very fuzzy and no UHF stations from over there came in, so CHRO Pembroke was the only clear signal.

According to TV Fool, with a 30-feet omnidirectional antenna, that area should be able to get Global (Channel 2), CHRO (Channel 5), and CBC Ottawa (Channels 3, 19, 59). Global didn't come in at all, and none of the three CBC transmitters were watchable.
 
Yeziknoradio said:
You know what? Howard Johnson has always been awful in many markets.
Niagara falls was bad. No City TV, and the remote was broken there too. (hmmm...)
Click to expand...

Back in the US, I've stayed at a Hojo in St. Augustine -- while the remote and TV worked, the channel selection was limited (sourced from Dish Network) and there was no NBC or PBS (around here, WTLV and WJCT, respectively). Of course, I've never had luck getting WTLV, which was a no-show at a Quality Inn in St. Aug, and a Motel 6 in Jacksonville (all getting channels from Dish Network).


M.J. said:
Yeziknoradio said:
Hey MJ! Which hotel had no CTV in Toronto? I'd like to stay there for the next superbowl so I can get the American commercials!!! (if CTV carries the Superbowl next year!)
Click to expand...

Park Inn, on Highway 27 between the 409 and Rexdale. They had a very limited channel lineup, if I recall correctly only about 25-30 channels... They did get two U.S. channels, WUTV and WKBW from Buffalo. Couldn't find any others.
Click to expand...

That being said, you won't watch the Super Bowl at the Park Inn next year -- NBC is the next network to get it, and as WGRZ is not available either, so much for that. Ditto for 2013, when it comes to CBS (and WIVB).
 
I was in Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago, and had WTLV (and the rest of the market's OTA lineup) via the local cable company (Cox, IIRC) at the Suburban Extended Stay on Phillips Highway. The cable lineup in Jax even includes WUFT-5 from Gainesville...
 
Scott Fybush said:
I was in Jacksonville a couple of weeks ago, and had WTLV (and the rest of the market's OTA lineup) via the local cable company (Cox, IIRC) at the Suburban Extended Stay on Phillips Highway. The cable lineup in Jax even includes WUFT-5 from Gainesville...
Click to expand...

Actually, I believe Comcast is the cable franchise for Jacksonville.
 
azumanga said:
Actually, I believe Comcast is the cable franchise for Jacksonville.
Click to expand...

That sounds entirely plausible. I wasn't paying much attention. (And, as usual, I was traveling with my own OTA DTV/DVR setup, so the cable in the room was gravy.)
 
M.J. said:
Park Inn, on Highway 27 between the 409 and Rexdale. They had a very limited channel lineup, if I recall correctly only about 25-30 channels.
Click to expand...

Park Inn has CTV. It's a fairly new place too, but yes, only 25 or so channels.
The channel missing is CTV News channel! I find that odd!
 
Yeziknoradio said:
M.J. said:
Park Inn, on Highway 27 between the 409 and Rexdale. They had a very limited channel lineup, if I recall correctly only about 25-30 channels.
Click to expand...

Park Inn has CTV. It's a fairly new place too, but yes, only 25 or so channels.
The channel missing is CTV News channel! I find that odd!
Click to expand...

That's a change then. It was March 2010 I was there, they had CTV News Channel but not CTV. Extra surprising since it was right after the Olympics.
 
That being said, you won't watch the Super Bowl at the Park Inn next year -- NBC is the next network to get it, and as WGRZ is not available either, so much for that. Ditto for 2013, when it comes to CBS (and WIVB).
[/quote]

You may not watch the Super Bowl anywhere next year due to the lockout. I hope the NFL is on lockout until 2014.
 
dxtrfn said:
That being said, you won't watch the Super Bowl at the Park Inn next year -- NBC is the next network to get it, and as WGRZ is not available either, so much for that. Ditto for 2013, when it comes to CBS (and WIVB).
You may not watch the Super Bowl anywhere next year due to the lockout. I hope the NFL is on lockout until 2014.
Click to expand...

yes that strike will mess many things up. It won't matter what hotel you stay in. No game is no game!
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom