Did they get Zapped by Lightning?

[wxctintern]

Did WSAH TV 43 get zapped by lightning? Their "studio" and tower are located in Seymour. Ever since I got home from my neighbor's house at 6:45PM last night, there have been three blue lines accross the screen on WSAH. They are still on the air running Shop @ Home Programming. I know it's not my TV that got hit becuase it's not on any other channels and I noticed the lines on WSAH on the extra TV we don't use that's kept in the closet not connected to electricity or cable. We don't know many of our neighbors, but the few we know say WSAH has those lines on their TV too.

 

[DonReelSteal]

Mr. Clark:

Why do you ask such silly questions?

With their Good Luck, You know the answer to that is without a doubt..

YES

 

[wxctintern]

Yeah looking at the history of Channel 43 they sure have had lots of bad luck. In the 50s as WICC, co-owned with WICC radio they had a robot that got arrested in New York City. And then they burned down in 1957 and remained dark until the 1980s. And then two deals to sell the station recently fell through one to some Spanish Language Shopping Network and one to the Azteca America Spanish Network.

 

[Les]

> Did WSAH TV 43 get zapped by lightning? Their "studio" and
> tower are located in Seymour. Ever since I got home from my
> neighbor's house at 6:45PM last night, there have been three
> blue lines accross the screen on WSAH.

Are you watching off-air of on cable?

I've been stuck with cleaning up after a few lightning strikes
and have never seen or heard of a symptom like you describe. Almost
always a serious strike will totally take out some piece of
equipment...not necessarily the transmitter...but not generate
stuff like that.
<P ID="signature">______________
Happiness is like beer....you don't really buy it, you just rent it.</P>

 

[wxctintern]

Cable. Cox Cable Channel 8 to be specific. And as of this writing everything's fixed.

 

[TXengineer]

> Almost
> always a serious strike will totally take out some piece of
> equipment...not necessarily the transmitter...but not
> generate
> stuff like that.

I've seen the EAS Chyron Codi do that when there is a power hit. If they have one of those inline.

 

[Les]

> I've seen the EAS Chyron Codi do that when there is a power
> hit. If they have one of those inline.

Ah! Those hadn't been invented when I moved out of TV engineering and
into sales/marketing. I note below that he was watching on cable which
makes me wonder if something in their lashup went nuts. Would be
interesting to hear from off-air viewers to see if any of them noticed
it.

Last Chyron I worked with was programmed with about 16 front panel
toggle switches! Then a TeleMation Compositor which was programmed
with paper tape. Yup, I'ze old!
<P ID="signature">______________
Happiness is like beer....you don't really buy it, you just rent it.</P>

 

[rugrats1]

> Yeah looking at the history of Channel 43 they sure have had
> lots of bad luck. In the 50s as WICC, co-owned with WICC
> radio they had a robot that got arrested in New York City.
> And then they burned down in 1957 and remained dark until
> the 1980s.

Before being burned off the air, the station offered $100 to anyone who calls in to say they watch ch.43. No one called.

> And then two deals to sell the station recently
> fell through one to some Spanish Language Shopping Network
> and one to the Azteca America Spanish Network.
>

They were also supposed to be a Pax station (as WIPX), but that never came to be.

 

[TXengineer]

> Last Chyron I worked with was programmed with about 16 front
> panel
> toggle switches! Then a TeleMation Compositor which was
> programmed
> with paper tape. Yup, I'ze old!

The old Chyron that I used would do a lot of funny things on the air during a thunderstorm or lightning hit.

Everything from blue horizontal stripes, to this very colorful full screen thin vertical lines that almost looked like a rainbow test pattern.

And even erroneous charters as well...