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Most interesting hotel/hospital lineups

S

seatownmedia

Star Participant
Gotta say, some of mine are from days gone by. Back when cable systems had more free reign on what they could show.

Example #1: Redding, CA. In the 80's Redding CA ran a full boat of Bay Area stations. Not so today.

Example #2: Whitehorse, Yukon Territory. In the 90's ran the Detroit, MI market, and a station from Buffalo. This was also true in Northern BC in Chetwynd.

Example #3: Washington DC, Rockville, MD. All Baltimore and DC affiliates shown. (perhaps still in effect today)

Example #4: Western WA in Longview aired both Portland and Seattle.
 
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Back in C-Band Satellite days, you couldn't subscribe to affiliates, via satellite that were your local carriers. If you were in an area not covered, you had to find one that offered itself over C-Band. I suspect that's why Whitehorse had the Detroit stations. In remote Alaska, we had the Denver affiliates circa 1995. In 1990, all we had was RATNET (Rural Alaska Television Network) which rebroadcast a hodgepodge of network programming.
 
umfan said:
Back in C-Band Satellite days, you couldn't subscribe to affiliates, via satellite that were your local carriers. If you were in an area not covered, you had to find one that offered itself over C-Band. I suspect that's why Whitehorse had the Detroit stations. In remote Alaska, we had the Denver affiliates circa 1995. In 1990, all we had was RATNET (Rural Alaska Television Network) which rebroadcast a hodgepodge of network programming.
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Whitehorse was probably getting Detroit via CanCom, which provides the Detroit stations throughout all of Canada
 
Other than the motel in Virginia ( at Kings Dominion ) that offered the Washington DC channels rather than Richmond despite that city being so much closer remembering my traveling days of the 80s and 90s..don't remember really much in the way of the more interesting hotel line-ups..well there was that hotel on the boardwalk in Virginia Beach that did offer Baltimore's WBAL channel 11 but looking back that may had been a fluke.

Now back in the early 80s when my uncle who at the time had lung cancer was a patient at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville the motels we had stayed around that town I do remember most of them would NOT offer WVIR NBC 29 even though at the time that was the only local commercial TV station there. Took me a number of years ( actually almost 20 ) to find out why. In those days the city of Charlottesville had a very serious crime & drug problem which was unknown to most from outside the area. Even the nearby Richmond stations wouldn't report on it. Since UVA was and still is a BIG BIG business in that city there was a concern that if those visiting that city thinking that UVA would be a great school for their kids and if they would had known about the nasty stuff about Charlottesville, things they can find out by simply watching WVIR could be a problem so a good many of the local motels would simply not offer WVIR The fear was that the parents may consider having their kids attend a different school in a different city which would result in a loss of money for UVA and Charlottesville.. Of course today with the internet no city or town can really hide their dirty laundry from anyone and anywhere.
 
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umfan said:
Back in C-Band Satellite days, you couldn't subscribe to affiliates, via satellite that were your local carriers. If you were in an area not covered, you had to find one that offered itself over C-Band. I suspect that's why Whitehorse had the Detroit stations. In remote Alaska, we had the Denver affiliates circa 1995. In 1990, all we had was RATNET (Rural Alaska Television Network) which rebroadcast a hodgepodge of network programming.
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Distinctly remember a hotel in Dahlgren, VA (pop 1,000...Navy base town about 50 miles south of DC) had the standard King George Cablevision lineup with both DC, Richmond, and one Baltimore station (WMAR-TV IIRC).

The "main" hotel for government folks on orders out there at the time was a Comfort Inn...with the big 'ol dish on top of the building.

They did not do any of the local stations...I seem to remember a station out of Erie, PA, Raleigh, NC, a couple of Detroit stations. They also had the infamous "Denver Six" on there.

So east coast and west coast feeds to all the networks, plus about 20 additional early 90's C-band channels. That was fun when cousins would come to visit us and I could watch 9News from Colorado!

Radio-X
 
Pretty much every major hotel channel lineup is coming in from a satellite, being fed into a cabinet full of receivers, which then feed into a blender that allows 1 single receiver box to feed 1 "hotel channel" throughout every room of the hotel. Then multiply that by how many channels your property carries, and that'll tell you how many receivers you need to create a channel lineup.

For example, channel 50 in our hotel is AMC. All I have to do is walk to the back of the hotel, go in the equipment room, find the box marked "50" and flip the receiver to a different channel. Wala! New channel lineup. Since everything is now required to use an external box for reception of the signal, for both cable and satellite, it's become an industry standard, almost overnight.

The exception, of course, would be the seedier properties, where there's no telling how they are receiving their programming. That, and the "premium services" channels. Those are a different animal, all to themselves.
 
The Erie station was WSEE (CBS). That feed actually was different than OTA on ch 35 Erie...local stuff was blotted out by paid programs and 800 number ads. Plus that Caribbean weather segment they have every night.
Raleigh on satellite would have also been CBS, WRAL-5 (now NBC).
Surprised they were getting Detroit stuff on satellite in the clear...those were all encrypted to Canadian subscribers only, on one of those Anik satellites.
RATNET - Wasn't that the same thing as the Alaska Satellite TV Project, and later ARCS? Rural villages and towns in AK get ARCS on little ANALOG, no less, translators. They air a variety of programs from the major networks plus PBS. The Denver Six were carried on Satcom C1.
 
Radio-X said:
Distinctly remember a hotel in Dahlgren, VA (pop 1,000...Navy base town about 50 miles south of DC) had the standard King George Cablevision lineup with both DC, Richmond, and one Baltimore station (WMAR-TV IIRC).

The "main" hotel for government folks on orders out there at the time was a Comfort Inn...with the big 'ol dish on top of the building.

They did not do any of the local stations...I seem to remember a station out of Erie, PA, Raleigh, NC, a couple of Detroit stations. They also had the infamous "Denver Six" on there.

So east coast and west coast feeds to all the networks, plus about 20 additional early 90's C-band channels. That was fun when cousins would come to visit us and I could watch 9News from Colorado!

Radio-X
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The funny thing about the "Denver 6"....since the local Denver TV stations today is mostly staffed by younger folks mostly under the age of 50 ( KCNC's weatherman Ed Greene is a rare exception ) tell them today that there was a time when one could watch Denver TV say in Florida or Maine many of them won't believe you. One of my partner's clients works for KMGH. One day I was telling him about how back in the 90s I could watch KMGH in West Virginia. He says to me "..yeah right..whatever !! " and started to laugh. He didn't believe it. Not really surprised there. Back in the early 90s working at a radio station in Harrisonburg, Virginia we were able to get KSFO/KYA ( then oldies ) from off the bird. Apparently someone at a radio station in Raleigh, North Carolina was listening to them as well as one day I can remember hearing some jock at KFSO/KYA on the air saying that he had just got a call from Raleigh saying they are listening to KSFO/KYA and then the jock started calling him a "liar" and made a crack about weird people calling up their radio station saying "crazy" crap.
 
hamster said:
The funny thing about the "Denver 6"....since the local Denver TV stations today is mostly staffed by younger folks mostly under the age of 50 ( KCNC's weatherman Ed Greene is a rare exception ) tell them today that there was a time when one could watch Denver TV say in Florida or Maine many of them won't believe you. One of my partner's clients works for KMGH. One day I was telling him about how back in the 90s I could watch KMGH in West Virginia. He says to me "..yeah right..whatever !! " and started to laugh. He didn't believe it. Not really surprised there. Back in the early 90s working at a radio station in Harrisonburg, Virginia we were able to get KSFO/KYA ( then oldies ) from off the bird. Apparently someone at a radio station in Raleigh, North Carolina was listening to them as well as one day I can remember hearing some jock at KFSO/KYA on the air saying that he had just got a call from Raleigh saying they are listening to KSFO/KYA and then the jock started calling him a "liar" and made a crack about weird people calling up their radio station saying "crazy" crap.
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Even in 2016, there are still some remote areas out west that still get at least one of the "Denver Six" on cable. KRMA has cable carriage in parts of Texas and Missouri (especially where there isn't a local PBS member). Some areas of Montana still get KMGH and/or KDVR on cable.
 
ftballfan said:
And looks like many of their translators have CPs to convert to digital
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correct. On the ARCS page they mentioned going digital in 2015 but that apparently hasnt happened. I wonder if they would add anything to the mux like PBS or 360NOrth (which has gov't stuff)?

I know KYUK in Bethel went digital back in 2012 and carries PBS on -1, ARCS on -2, 360North on -3 and KYUK on -4. I dont know what is on KYUK as they dont post a schedule. Maybe some PBS and local stuff
 
Most chain hotels now have either DirecTV or Dish Network. It's amazing how quick things have turned. We used to go to a lot of chain hotels when I played quiz bowl around the southeast, especially 2006-10, and most of them either had LodgeNet or the actual cable lineup.

We were in one in the Philadelphia area (actually in Mt. Laurel, NJ) which had DirecTV in the lobby, but Dish Network in the rooms. And it wasn't an actual Dish Network receiver. DirecTV in the hotels I've been in is usually the basic lineup. They carry all the ESPNs and FS1, but not MLB or NBCSN.

It is convenient for those in large markets because you can get every local station they provide. This often wasn't the case a few years back.
 
charlestondxman said:
Most chain hotels now have either DirecTV or Dish Network. It's amazing how quick things have turned. We used to go to a lot of chain hotels when I played quiz bowl around the southeast, especially 2006-10, and most of them either had LodgeNet or the actual cable lineup.
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many hotels of cheap chains like Days Inn and Motel 6 carry the local basic cable lineup, which includes ESPN, ESPN2, and even the main HBO, but often not FS1, and only the local stations in HD and often those are not programmed into the channel memory
 
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in 2002, a hotel in Van Buren MO had the local small basic cable that had WNBC but the other network affiliates were from the Springfield (MO) and Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg-Mt Vernon and Jonesboro (AK), also noticed it had CMT but not MTV
 
nomadcowatbk said:
in 2002, a hotel in Van Buren MO had the local small basic cable that had WNBC but the other network affiliates were from the Springfield (MO) and Paducah-Cape Girardeau-Harrisburg-Mt Vernon and Jonesboro (AK), also noticed it had CMT but not MTV
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New York City's WNBC ?? On cable in Missouri ?? How ?? Then again way back in the early 1980s my parents had stayed at a motel ( now demolished ) in Breezewood, Pennsylvania and they swore up and down for years that the motel had offered channels from Buffalo. I can remember my dad ( RIP ) claimed that he can recall watching Irv Weinstein which in those days meant WKBW. Considering that the motel was in the southern part of Pennsylvania far away from Buffalo how could this motel pick up WKBW television ?? The old WKBW radio..of course but WKBW-TV ??
 
hamster said:
New York City's WNBC ?? On cable in Missouri ?? How ?? Then again way back in the early 1980s my parents had stayed at a motel ( now demolished ) in Breezewood, Pennsylvania and they swore up and down for years that the motel had offered channels from Buffalo. I can remember my dad ( RIP ) claimed that he can recall watching Irv Weinstein which in those days meant WKBW. Considering that the motel was in the southern part of Pennsylvania far away from Buffalo how could this motel pick up WKBW television ?? The old WKBW radio..of course but WKBW-TV ??
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Breezewood is in the Altoona market (IIRC) and it didn't have an ABC affiliate at the time.
 
ftballfan said:
Breezewood is in the Altoona market (IIRC) and it didn't have an ABC affiliate at the time.
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True but I still wonder how on earth did they manage to get a TV signal from Buffalo all the way to Breezewood ?? And why WKBW channel 7 since Philly, Baltimore, Harrisburg, DC, Scranton and Pittsburgh were closer and all of them have ABC affiliates ??
 
Not a hotel per-se, but Carnival cruise ships have some form of DIRECTV and offer Miami locals (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC but no CW/My) on all of their ships, along with a few in-house channels, and your standard CNN, Cartoon Network, ESPN, TBS, TNT, TCM, and a few others IIRC.
 
hamster said:
True but I still wonder how on earth did they manage to get a TV signal from Buffalo all the way to Breezewood ?? And why WKBW channel 7 since Philly, Baltimore, Harrisburg, DC, Scranton and Pittsburgh were closer and all of them have ABC affiliates ??
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I think it is because markets that border Canada have more satellite options, as they tend to serve Canada in a widespread way. I have mentioned this before, but when I was in far northern Yukon Territory, (moving to Alaska), I noticed that the local US stations that were piped in were from Detroit and Buffalo. Seemed weird at the time, but I get it now. Same with Northern British Columbia, all Detroit/Buffalo. When you get further south in BC it is Seattle, or in Alberta, Spokane.
 
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