A Thursday Night In The Shack....

KEJB-DT 43 El Dorado AR receivd at Star City AR at 10:47pm. Time on the displayed PSIP (sent by the station) is incorrect. Aspect ratio is bastardized 14x9 instead of proper 4x3 for this 4x3 program (South Park) and local ads. I'm damn sure "debt relief" companies are going to fork over serious jack for HD commericals. The Cancer of Stretchovision Spreads Forth: From TNT to TBS, to the A&E/History Channel networks to AETN, and recently KARZ (during MNTV programming) and now KEJB (which I don't receive 24/7 due to that stations weak signal).

Sometimes, I pine for the days when DTV was to the general public something to do with drag queens. Back only a few short years ago, aspect ratios were done correctly, logo bugs were placed outside the 4x3 safe zone, and there was a ---- dare say it, an elite air to getting DTV/HDTV. Those days are gone. We've got TV stations mucking up aspect ratios so they appear to be "HachDee", folks thinking that stretched image=HD, and mearly slapping an "HD" logo on the screen guarrentees that the stations programming is HD. The TOH ID just flashed up for KEJB and the cropped 14x9 image showed the callsign but the COL (El Dorado) was NOWHERE TO BE SEEN!!!

Tuesday August 25 Was One For The Books....For Some

The DX community was a flutter on Monday evening/Tuesday all day in the midwest and parts of Southern Ontario over the record-setting tropo event. While this blogger never saw the eye watering and popping openings, those in Northwest AR got in on the action. One HDTV viewer reported reception of WCFL-DT Chicago in Eureka Springs AR. Well known Ontario DX'er and host of the DX Info Centre website Bill Hepburn logged a NOAA Weather Radio station in Harrison AR. While he was hearing Harrison, I was doing good just to hear the one on Mt Nebo in the Arkansas River Valley (on the same frequency). The unusual conditions improved during Tuesday afternoon: I was starting to get Kansas City, Columbia MO/Jeff City MO, Western IL, and Oklahoma City. The next morning, conditions returned to "normal".

A Modest Morning (August 27)

KLRA-LP 58 was still displaying a "no signal" message in the upper-left hand corner. Greenville LPTV/gospel huxter W42CY was in with a weak signal of TBN programming. WMAO-DT 25 (23-n) was booming in, and WXVT-DT 15 was decoding. The DTV station from Monroe LA on channel 8 (KNOE-DT) was lurking, but not decoding.