Signal Strength

[Radknowski]

Listening to the Sabres-Blackhawks game on WGR, the station is phasing out more than ever at the Radknowski Listening Post near McKinley Parkway in beautiful downtown South Buffalo. Normally the signal is solid, even on night pattern. So it's to the mancave in the basement to watch the game on MSG... and there's Kevin Sylvester, who never ceases to make me chuckle because he reminds me of Little Eddie Munster. I'm probably in the minority on this, but Jeanerret sounded better when he was calling "radio-only" games... 'course, he's no slouch either way.

Maybe the weather's affecting 550... all one inch (so far) of that big snowstorm that we're supposed to get in Buffalo and Rochester. You can't listen to a newscast on WBEN without hearing about White Armegedon this weekend. Sure, it's their responsibility to inform the public, but they sound almost giddy talking about "the possibility of 16 inches of snow..." Bet the WBEN suits wish this snow storm happened last weekend while the Fall book was still on because they would have received quite a nice ratings bump from it.

According to the Arbitron website, the book ended Wednesday at midnight and the Winter book won't begin until January 10th. Come to think of it, there were no major storms or power outages in this Fall book and the Sabres were merely average, as a result WBEN and WGR may not get the big numbers they received last Fall. Guess we'll find out more sometime in late January.

Game on!

 

[SirRoxalot]

You were able to retreat to the basement mancave? In a Polish household with Christmas only 10 days away?

I thought for sure that Mrs. Radnowski would be slaving over the "spare" stove in the basement, turning out chrusciki, oplatek, pierogi, sledze, golabki, pierniki, paczki, makowiec, and babka.

 

[ThePickleReport]

Listening to the Sabres-Blackhawks game on WGR, the station is phasing out more than ever at the Radknowski Listening Post near McKinley Parkway in beautiful downtown South Buffalo.

I get a lot of that at night as I make the trip from O.P. into Buffalo. Pretty typical for me.

 

[Philip_Airtime]

In another blog, I actually defended the media for its coverage of winter storms. But now I'm starting to think some of us in this business ARE over-hyping the arrival of such storms. It's 10am Sunday morning, and I'm looking at an inch or two of snow on the ground. We actually changed our plans -- went food shopping and to church on Saturday because of the the "impending doom" we were facing. Fortunately, I didn't allow the storm to change my Saturday night plans to attend a holiday party.

Though this is a radio board, permit me to criticize the TV stations for their constant running of inane cancellations in the outside border of the TV screen. Here I'm trying to enjoy Saturday Night Live, and I'm forced to read for the 25th time that a spaghetti dinner is cancelled in Eden. Why does the vast, vast majority of the viewing audience who are not affected by that cancellation forced to read about it all night long? It distracts from the enjoyment of the programs we're watching. It's okay to put on major cancellations like school closings or the closing of a mall or cancellation of a Philharmonic concert. But put the rest on the web and tell viewers to check there. The same holds true for radio with their long, boring list of cancellations! Who cares that Uncle Oskie's kielbasa making class is cancelled tonight. (Apologies to Radnowski)

I realize forecasting the weather is a tricky science and that this storm tracked farther to the east than originally expected. I don't blame the weather forecasters. But I think those of us in decision-making positions need to rethink the blanket "we're doomed" coverage that we're seeing before storms arrive. Deliver the official pronouncements from the National Weather Service. That's important. But leave out the hype!

 

[Radknowski]

Guess I touched a sensitive nerve... Uncle Oskie, Aunts Helen & Sophie not withstanding.

First, getting to the signal strength issues previously mentioned: This will sound crazy, but I noticed that there are so many Christmas lights in my neighborhood, it's a wonder JetBlue hasn't attempted to land on my street, mistaking it for the main runway at Buffalo-Niagara International. I think the weather, the lights, the massive and grotesque blow-up snowmen, nativity scenes, carrolers and who knows what else might have adversely affected the reception on my Cheezisaki AM-FM tabletop radio.

Now to the weather issues: I made alternate plans for the weekend, but I made those plans not from the TV or Radio weather forecasts... no, my changes were based on scientific input... notably Aunt Sophie's bad ankles and lumbago, which, over the past 12 years have signaled barometric shifts and bad weather better than any Accu-Weather meteorologist with a PhD!

Seriously, I too changed plans after repeatedly checking the NOAA and Accu-Weather websites. Great sites, BTW. Both predicted severe weather. While they didn't get it 100% correct, there's still plenty of time remaining for the weather to get ugly today and tomorrow, so I'll continue to trust their advisories.

Now to the TV stations, the crawls and the hype: What a tsunami of crap! Agreed, Phil. Who needs to know that Uncle Oskie isn't holding his award-winning classic kielbasa fest? Seventeen people at best (and that includes the seven guys he saw at Polish Villa II just Friday... the ones who said "I'm naht cahming if da wehthur is bedd!" Even Uncle Oskie has the smarts to have a phone tree, email and text messaging to the 17 people who might have planned to attend. You'd think these organizations would know and do the same. I laughed out loud when I saw a crawl for "Little Missy's Dance Recital" being canceled... you'd think they'd get the word out by phone rather than call in to the Mighty Channel 4 Closed Now hotline. Just plain senseless. No?

One more thing about TV land, before returning to radio, I would have found it really funny, as a kicker at the end of the newscast, they set up a bit with, "We asked one Western New Yorker how he was preparing for the big storm, here's what they said..."

Roll video with some lunatic little theatre actor in a frenzy screaming "Gotta get to Valu... ayyyyyyy... need widshield washer fluid nowwwww.....ayyyyyy!"

To radio: I mentioned WBEN in the earlier post, but I have to give them credit. They actually sounded reserved when I tuned them in later last night. Maybe they were instructed not to make it sound like "THE WORLD IS GOING TO END TOMORROW MORNING AT 7:23 SO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE PLENTY OF BREAD, MILK AND ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN SKIM OF THE SHELVES OF WEGMAN'S IN ONE FELL SWOOP!!!"

Uh, sorry for the yelling, though I think you got the point.

BTW Rox, there is no 3 ton Magic Chef in our basement. Just the same, "Mrs. R" is politically astute enough to refrain from cooking/baking holiday treats for as long as Aunts Helen and Sophie are alive and capable of cooking anything with the potential of stinking up the(ir) house for the next three days.

It's all about peace on earth... and mostly peace in the family. (stupid emoticons)

 

[SirRoxalot]

Free!

Hey, if you're the proprietor of "Little Missy's Dance Recital", you probably consider the endlessly-repeated crawls on "Close 2-4-7 Now" as free advertising. If you could only get them to include your phone number...

I guess that you could always piggy-back on your neighbor's unsecured high-speed WiFi Internet connection and listen to the Sabres on-line. It might be more reliable than the Cheezisaki if you have decent speakers.

 

[Unregistered]

you should be able to get WGR if you live within buffalo's city limits....unless you live near power lines....i've hear WGR clear well past syracuse before, though there is a dead-zone between henrietta and victor where the twin set of transformer towers between niagara falls and utica parallel the north side of the thruway....

 

[SirRoxalot]

You obviously haven't tried listening to them at night. But thanks for dredging up a post from 2003.