I bought a Lexington Herald Leader in an Aberdeen convenience store once.
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Lexington, KY (December 7, 1981)
- Thread starter Bluenoser
- Start date
Lexington to Paintsville is 120 drive miles.
That was likely FOXNET. Places that could not receive a FOX affiliate could get FOXNET off the bird. I my travels, I have stayed in some places that had FOXNET when they are in range of a FOX affiliate. Odd that it took Hindman so long to carry WDKY.
Aberdeen functions basically as a northern extension of Maysville.
I wonder if Martin cable had trouble picking up the WOWK signal since it's on vhf digital channel 10 with lower power.
It has been my understanding that for many years WOWK has always been third place in the local news ratings and WSAZ has always been first place in the local news ratings in the Charleston-Huntington tv market.
I say that folks in Floyd County would watch WSAZ news since WSAZ has always covered Eastern Kentucky news on that station for many years.
That's a thought. What I was going by, is that you have a CBS affiliate local to Eastern Kentucky, and below roughly Louisa and Sandy Hook, there is little point in having two CBS affiliates, especially since one is out-of-state and gives minimal news coverage to that area, while WYMT does about as good a job of covering Eastern Kentucky as it is possible to do. I was also impressed by EKB-TV's attempt in Pikeville at local news, it was very upscale in appearance, very understated, nice set, nice graphics and cinematography, but at the end of the day, I guess they just didn't have the resources, and were hobbled by being cable-only. I have to think this is what WEKT-51's news would have looked like, if they'd been able to get the ABC affiliation they wanted, and actually get the station on the air back in the 1980s.
WSAZ remains a legacy station in Eastern Kentucky all the way down to Morehead, Salyersville, West Liberty, and Pikeville (this going back to when they had that huge analog signal on an easily received low-VHF channel), and is the only C-H station that gives major attention to that area. To some extent, WSAZ, WKYT, and WYMT, all Gray stations, share resources.
I spoke of two arrays being used by Direct TV and Dish Network in Lexington, for the local channel reception.
The left pic is the Dish Network receive site on Forbes Rd and the right pic is the receive array for Direct TV on the WLEX tower on Russell Cave Rd. It's interesting to note that some of the UHF yagis have plastic weather shields on them.
The left pic is the Dish Network receive site on Forbes Rd and the right pic is the receive array for Direct TV on the WLEX tower on Russell Cave Rd. It's interesting to note that some of the UHF yagis have plastic weather shields on them.
Attachments
I got curious to see where the Dish Network site is, and it's near the intersection of Lisle Industrial Boulevard and South Forbes Road, in an industrial park area near a landscaping material yard. It's on the north side of town.
Here's another view (the large yagi that is apparently cut for WLJC OTA 7 is to the left, next to that exhaust pipe, hard to make out):
Goes to show one can’t assume anything — I assumed in this day and age, Dish and DirecTV would’ve imported locals via fiber. (Does my heart good to learn they actually use OTA for locals.)
Fiber would carry some kind of cost, whereas OTA delivery is free. (I refer to the technics, not to any retransmission fees they might have to pay, and which would ultimately be passed on to the subscriber.)
Anyone know where the OTA pickups for Dish and DirecTV are for the Denver market?
I understand what you're saying about having two CBS affiliates where the in state affiliate has better news coverage than the out of state affiliate.
Here's another thought that might make the most sense. It could be that WOWK wanted Martin Cable to pay a retransmission fee, and WYMT invoked must carry with no retransmission fee. And the management at Martin Cable is saying, "Hey, why should we pay to carry WOWK when we can carry WYMT for free, and WYMT is a better CBS station than WOWK!"
And if you live in a area that is between television markets, I wonder if the television networks are now requiring cable tv systems to only carry their network affiliate that is in the television market that the cable tv system serves.
Directv has a list here
This page is intended to help local television stations around the United States locate their Local Receive Facility.
Denver, CO
7579 West 103 rd Ave
Westminister, CO 80021
and Dish's list
Local Receive Facilities | DISH
www.dish.com
5701 South Santa Fe Drive,
Littleton, CO 80120
a simple google gave me both websites to view
Martin is in Floyd County, which is the C-H market, so WYMT couldn't invoke must-carry.
All counties fall into one and only one television market. So far as I am aware, the in-market network affiliate can claim exclusive rights for cable companies to carry only their station, unless an OOM station is on the significantly viewed list (per the FCC), or unless there is some kind of "grandfather" arrangement. Even then, again AFAIK, the OOM's stations simultaneous network offerings have to be blacked out, or covered over with the in-market affiliate's signal in that time frame. I don't know how Martin cable gets by with not carrying WOWK.
I stated Forbes Rd for Simplicity sake, but you are right.
Lisle Industrial Rd at S Forbes.
Until a huge fire several years ago totally destroyed it, all that area was the old Bluegrass Stockyards.
Everything around it burned.
But the Dish Network building was unscathed. Dish built a pretty robust building and I'm sure it wasn't cheap.
There's some new construction taking place there now.
Also note the white microwave dish on the far right mast. That's a recent addition so I'm betting they bring WYMT to this site via microwave.
That large yagi for WLJC is a monster when you see it in person .
Can you imagine the investment by dish to build one of these sites in every market they serve?
That is very interesting. I looked at the addresses on Google and Street View for the DIrect TV and Dish local receive facilities in Columbus, Ohio.Directv has a list here
This page is intended to help local television stations around the United States locate their Local Receive Facility.
and Dish's list
Local Receive Facilities | DISH
Direct TV has their Columbus facility at the old Ohio Bell office building on Indianaola Avenue. You can see an antenna on the roof of that building.
Dish has their Columbus facility on Dublin Road at the WSYX and WTTE tv station. You can see all kinds of antennas at that location.
I haven't been to Lexington in years, and at any rate, didn't have a feel for what was in the north end to begin with. I'd like to drive out by there, next time I'm up that way (don't know when that's going to be), and see those antennas first-hand, as well as the tower on the UK medical center.
You're probably right about the microwave dish and WYMT. Dumb question, if WKYT and WYMT have two-way microwave facilities (honestly don't know if they do or not), could the WYMT signal be sent by microwave from WKYT's facility on Winchester Road across town to the Dish site? I do know that during the recent floods, one of WYMT's newscasts appeared to be originating from the WKYT studios (and it was a WYMT newscast, not one of WKYT's simulcasts), so I am thinking that the WYMT studios on Black Gold Boulevard were either inaccessible, or at least hard to get to, so they just did WYMT's news from Lexington and microwaved it back to Hazard. Just a guess.
I've never understood the weather shields on the smaller yagis but the larger antennas are exposed.
Both the Dish and Direct site antennas have these. I know they were common on 2 meter communication antennas, but I've never seen them on cable headends.
Makes sense to protect the elements and connections from weather and corrosion but I can't help but think that those shields could attenuate the signal slightly...
And, of course, if I would stop and think about it for a second, WKYT does precisely that every day, in that at least two of their daily newscasts are simulcast on WYMT. Obviously they have some way (fiber, microwave, or satellite) to get their signal to WYMT, not to mention that WYMT's master control is there (this per Wikipedia).
There's no reason WYMT couldn't have its news originated from the WKYT studios, if need be.