Crappy TV reception in motel rooms then and now!

[Tim from Springfield IL]

Then on another mid 70's venture, we stayed at a local motel in Kingston, Ont. VHF sets only...w/antenna system. But I recall being impressed with the reception since they got pretty much something on every channel 2-13. Kingston, Watertown, Utica, Syracuse, & Ottawa, I believe.

I've seen VHF-only sets whenever I've stayed with family at Holiday Inns even as recently as the late '80s/early '90s. At least at the ones I visited, most of them seemed to still pipe in the local cable system but only those channels between 2-13--back in the days when the cable VHF band still featured the likes of CNN, ESPN, TBS, etc. in most areas--as opposed to the proliferation of QVC and HSN on those channels in many areas within the next few years.

 

[Tim from Springfield IL]

There were two instances where I stayed with family at a then-recently built motel off I-70 in New Florence, MO (a small town about halfway between St. Louis and Columbia) in the late '80s and also in 1990. Both instances the motel relied on a MATV system, and their reception of St. Louis and Columbia/Jefferson City stations were not that great. But IIRC the MATV may have also been able to pull in some Quincy/Hannibal stations (WGEM-10 and KHQA-7).

And in my 1990 stay at that same New Florence motel, management provided each room with one of those Happiness TV guides (of which have been subjects of past classic TV listings on this board). The channel lineup in that guide was MEGA-impressive--in addition to St. Louis, Columbia/Jefferson City, and Quincy/Hannibal, the guide IIRC also provided listings for stations from the Springfields (Missouri and Illinois), Joplin, Cape Girardeau/Harrisburg/Paducah/Carbondale, Kirksville/Ottumwa, Jonesboro, AR, and even as far north as Peoria/Bloomington, IL (and I think possibly the stations from Decatur, IL and Champaign/Urbana if Springfield, IL was listed in this guide. Perhaps even Terre Haute too). Probably the biggest OTA channel lineup I have seen in one guide--even topping my then-previous observations of the vast channel lineup that I had seen in the late '80s in the Des Moines Register-Tribune Sunday TV inserts.

 

[mjlarochelle]

Then on another mid 70's venture, we stayed at a local motel in Kingston, Ont. VHF sets only...w/antenna system. But I recall being impressed with the reception since they got pretty much something on every channel 2-13. Kingston, Watertown, Utica, Syracuse, & Ottawa, I believe.

That was always a great area for VHF TV reception. My grandparents lived west of Kingston so I saw it for myself (as of 1990):

2 - CIII (Global) Bancroft
3 - WSTM (NBC) Syracuse
4 - CBOT (CBC) Ottawa
5 - WTVH (CBS) Syracuse
6 - CJOH (CTV) Deseronto
7 - WWNY (CBS/NBC) Watertown
8 - WROC (CBS) Rochester
9 - WIXT (ABC) Syracuse
10 - WHEC (NBC) Rochester
11 - CKWS (CBC) Kingston
13 - WOKR (ABC) Rochester

Only channel I never found anything on was Channel 12. Just a little too far away from Peterborough to get CHEX. CBOT came in rarely, often got nothing on Channel 4.

Heck of a lot better than my other grandparents in Northern Ontario, only got three channels up there - the local CBC and CTV affiliates, and TVOntario.

 

[RBW]

That was always a great area for VHF TV reception. My grandparents lived west of Kingston so I saw it for myself (as of 1990):

2 - CIII (Global) Bancroft
3 - WSTM (NBC) Syracuse
4 - CBOT (CBC) Ottawa
5 - WTVH (CBS) Syracuse
6 - CJOH (CTV) Deseronto
7 - WWNY (CBS/NBC) Watertown
8 - WROC (CBS) Rochester
9 - WIXT (ABC) Syracuse
10 - WHEC (NBC) Rochester
11 - CKWS (CBC) Kingston
13 - WOKR (ABC) Rochester

Ahh yes those were the days :-\ --- sadly just about gone thanks to our "need" to enter the all-digital world!
Canada's turn is just `round the bend!

 

[Scott2011]

While on a trip with my high school's jazz ensemble back in 2007, I remember my hotel roommates and I watching Jimmy Kimmel Live on WOTV Channel 4 from Kalamazoo. My roomies and I complained a bit about the bad reception on that channel. Since the hotel had about 40 or 50 channels available (including Showtime), I was really surprised that the reception was that terrible. I can't quite remember if the actual service that hotel had was from a local cable company or from a satellite provider such as DirecTV or Dish Network, but I'm inclined to believe the service came from a satellite dish knowing some of the horror stories I've heard about satellite reception on certain channels at certain times in comparison to cable.

 

[bpatrick]

Have to go back a looong way. In 1961 I spent a night
in Blowing Rock, NC, and couldn't get anything but WBTV
Charlotte. Two years later I spent a night in Manteo, NC,
and couldn't get anything but WTAR (now WTKR) Norfolk.
I still remember what was on that night in 1963: a revival
of Arthur Godfrey's "Talent Scouts" (now with Merv Griffin
as host), Jerry Van Dyke's disastrous game show "Picture This,"
and a variety show starring Jim Aubrey's mafioso buddy Keefe
Brasselle. I also remember a certain amount of confusion as to
time because Virginia was on daylight saving time and North
Carolina wasn't.

 

[FreddyE1977]

My worst experience was a long forgotten (1971) motel on the Indiana-Ohio line where one had to use rabbit ears to get 2 snowy Toledo stations from 60+ mi away.

I think I may have stayed in that same place in the 80's. They had cable by then but a really bare-bones lineup.
I had to fashion my own antenna out of a coat hanger to pick up the Fox station out of Toledo. This was off the
Gateway/Bryan exit of the Ohio Turnpike.

 

[ShawnHill1]

One of these days, I'm doing to buy one of those devices where I can watch local TV on my computer; before Circuit City went out of business a couple of years ago, they had a liquidation sale, and included they had the aforementioned program for under $100. They had one for HD viewing, and another for standard-def. As long as your computer had capable video, all you need is the software and an single-stick antenna (attached to an USB stick), and you're good to go.

I spent part of last week in Las Vegas for vacation, and I stayed at another Motel 6...the channels selection were no worse or better than the previous Motel 6s I stayed at while visiting Vegas each time. You had the local network stations (NBC, Fox, CBS, PBS, ABC, Univision, MyTV, CW, and Telemundo), four ESPNs (the mothership, the Deuce, News, and Classic), HBOs 1 and 2, the Turner Networks (CNN, HLN, TBS, TNT), a couple of Discovery networks (Discovery Channel and TLC), plus an EPG channel. The problem isn't so much the channel selections (it's not surprising to me at all, with all things considering), but the wiring is pretty old with some of it being frayed along the edges. It's to not mention that the televisions (at least the one in my room) were mid-to-late 1990s models...one of the rooms I walked past actually had a high-def TV on the wall. In fact, this particular Motel 6 looks to be renovating many of its rooms; two of the other rooms I saw were in the process of having its carpets replaced with hardwood floors, and it's probably a safe bet that they'll replace the TVs as well.