This is pretty cool

[Mr Tony]

Ingredients

-2 Tivos with different zip codes loaded in them (reason behind this)
-1 8 bay UHF antenna with preamp mounted on roof
-night fall so the "distant" station comes in
-a "satellite" TV station that defies logic.

What do you get?
the same program on 2 different "full power" RF stations 150 miles away. On the "mothership" and the "satellite" feed

Where I am KCCW 12 is the "local"...but its 56 miles away (tvfool) NW of me in Walker, MN (near Bemidji). The mothership (WCCO 4) is 92 miles away dead south in Minneapolis. Have the antenna aimed south (to get AntennaTV) and can get WCCO CBS 4 (RF32) just fine. But somehow KCCW, which is on RF12 (the 8 bay is a UHF only with **minimal** VHF) and is basically 160 degrees the other direction is coming in fine. This makes no sense. But then again 12 comes in when the antenna is facing SW (they are NW of me)

Tivo Roamio with Minneapolis zip on WCCO 4 for the 10:00 news


Tivo Series 3 with Brainerd zip on KCCW 12 for the same 10:00 news

 

[Mr Tony]

now a couple notes.....yeah I know there are some areas where a station broadcasts on 2 different RF stations (Minneapolis has an example like that)...but they are usually in the same town. Not 150 miles apart

Why the 2 different zips? Easy. One for the local stuff (when the antenna is aimed west or SW) and the other mainly for the Minneapolis subchannels. The only station that is common on both zips is 41 (Ion). So if I load a Mpls zip in both then I would get "no programming" on the local CBS and PBS. If I put in the "local" zip then the Mpls subchannels have no info

 

[kofi123]

15+ years ago this would have been even cooler since KCCW would've had slightly different content than WCCO. You could have been watching the 10 PM news and had the choice of watching the WCCO programming all throughout or the KCCO/KCCW news and weather cut-in that aired over the top of WCCO's B-block and weather. Along with that, local commercials on the two stations would have been different. At the time, KCCO generally aired different commercials than WCCO, and KCCW often would air different commercials than KCCO.

I know about the latter because I have always been able to receive both KCCO and KCCW during the 25 years I've lived in the Brainerd area. Every once and a while back in the 1990s and early 2000s, I would put KCCO on one TV and KCCW on another and take note of the different commercials they would each air. All other programming would be the same between the two stations, as far as I remember, with one notable exception. Up until 2001-2002, WCCO still signed off for a few hours each Saturday and Sunday morning. This meant that KCCO and KCCW signed off then as well. The neatest part about this to me was that all three stations aired a different sign off message rather than one single one that identified all three stations. I never actually got to see what WCCO aired, but I remember the KCCO and KCCW sign offs being rather different from each other, with both having numerous shots of each station's tower, transmission facility, and studio (in the case of KCCO).

Ironically, I finally found my recording of the KCCW sign-off a couple of months ago after years of looking. I had "lost" it due to my poor labeling of VHS tapes back in the day. Unfortunately, I never recorded the KCCO sign-off, though in hindsight I really wish I would have.

 

[Mr Tony]

I knew about the cut ins because KSAX in Alex did the same thing until that was discontinued too. I remember when I stayed at my uncles in Elbow Lake they had KSAX on 5 in SD but for HD it was KSTP (as 42 wasn't HD at the time). So you had the option of staying with Mpls news and weather or tune into the "local" stuff

I never could get KCCO here even in the analog days (in all honesty I guess I never really tried). We always had KCCW so I didnt know about the different commercials.

You still in the Brainerd Lakes area?

 

[radio]

Did I gather that the devices you're tuning-with only scan what they "know" to be broadcast from the zip code, and don't look for just "any" available signal at the time of scanning? Maybe I read something in to what you wrote.

 

[Mr Tony]

Did I gather that the devices you're tuning-with only scan what they "know" to be broadcast from the zip code, and don't look for just "any" available signal at the time of scanning? Maybe I read something in to what you wrote.

Tivo's mainly go by a zip code that you enter when you set it up. It does "scan" originally for all available stations. The issue is they use Tribune listings (like zap2it, dish and directv do). If there are any stations that arent in that Tribune's "zip code" it shows "no info available" in the guide. You can also manually add a station by typing in the number (like 18-1) and it will put it in the system but say "no info"

So as example my Tivo HD which is set up for "home" (Brainerd) shows in the listings
7 KCCO CBS
12 KCCW CBS
16 ABC (analog)
22 KAWB PBS
26 FOX
39 FOX (analog)
41 KPXM ION
42 KSAX ABC

Whats funny is if I put in Baxter which is butt up against Brainerd (you actually dont know you're in Baxter unless you look at the sign) they dont list 41 in the listings (which I can get all the time).

My Tivo Roamio I use for Minneapolis stations at night. Thats pretty much it. One day I accidentally hit "22-1" on it and now the local PBS is loaded in there. It says no info available for all of the subchannels

 

[radio]

Makes sense, now! I thought, "wow, that's kind of odd!" Especially given the way signals carry and don't carry these days. We'd have a tough time here with deciding what zip code to use!

 

[Mr Tony]

We'd have a tough time here with deciding what zip code to use!

your actual zip for Ionia shows stations from GR, Flint and Lansing

(I just typed in the zip on zap2it and looked. Whatever shows on there is what the Tivo would get)