All our TV stations are off the air

[gar hi]

The TV stations we get over the air from Hilo originate from Honolulu and every one of them is gone.

On Wednesday 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5, 9.1, 10.1, 10.2, 10.3, 11.1, and 11.2 went off but they all share the same transmitter, so I thought it was just a repair issue.

But yesterday 5.1, 13.1, and 13.3 went off the air too and now they are all gone.

I've contacted 3 stations in Honolulu and I am still waiting for a reply.

There has been no unusual weather that could explain it.

All of them have never been gone at once since I've had TV starting back in 2017.

I'm hoping they didn't just decide to shut them down because of budget cuts or something but I can't imagine they would do that because many people rely on the over the air stations for news, especially now with the Coronavirus.

 

[louis_p]

I’ve noticed that TV signals will go dark for days at a time due to tower upgrades or unplanned outages. In my market, we had two stations (of the same owner/tower) go off air for 3 weeks and nothing was mentioned on the stations’ websites about it. The stations were available to viewers on cable and satellite without any problems. I have a UHF antenna for backup & emergency situations but I wouldn’t rely on OTA as my only source for TV.

 

[anotherguyTN]

That has been going on with stations going through the TV repack with either going off temporarily or at lower power. But it's ridiculous to not let viewers know when that is happening.

 

[gar hi]

I didn't know this happened elsewhere.

So I just checked the websites of the Honolulu TV stations and found this on the KITV website.


Engineers working to fix issues with Maui and Hilo transmitters

Due to equipment malfunction in Hilo and Maui, KITV viewers who watch over the air (OTA) will likely face interruption to service until equipment can be serviced.

Engineers are working hard to restore signal delivery.

Mahalo for your patience and please stay tuned to updates here.

https://www.kitv.com/story/42684056/engineers-working-to-fix-issues-with-maui-and-hilo-transmitters


TV is also available from the same company that's my internet provider but I decided long ago I will never again pay for that kind of service because I don't want to be paying for so many stations I never watch, especially the all 'news' channels that have become nothing but political propaganda over the past several years.

And then the specialty channels these days have programming that has nothing to do with what the theme of the channel actually is.

I've been quite content with just the OTA stations I get.

Normally when local stations are off the air, it's a great opportunity for DXing but not on this side of the Big Island where the mountainous land blocks any signals.

 

[cyberdad]

I don't remember an outage of this magnitude anytime or anywhere, including the year I lived in Honolulu.

But what I DO remember that happened in Honolulu on a daily basis (no kidding) was the "loose" schedule. By that, I mean shows basically started when the stations got around to it. This was 1964-65 in the days before satellites. All shows were scheduled to start at a certain time, actually reflective of the Central Time Zone. For example, Sunday nights, Ed Sullivan was scheduled for 7pm on KGMB-TV (Ch9) and Bonanza at 8pm on KALA (Ch2). In reality this usually meant the show would come on five or ten minues late. Maybe even later. Since things varied every night, sometimes if you were flipping channels, you might have to wait a few minutes after one show ended and your next show on another channel began.

Or, alternatively, you might miss a minute or two of that second show you wanted to catch.

The only thing that was certain is that shows almost never started at their scheduled time! If you really had a problem with that, you could call the station and talk to the engineer in charge of running the tapes, and he'd tell you when the actual start time would be (unless they decided to stuff in a few extra commercials). Nobody seemed to care. Including the viewers. After all, weekly series were shown one week later than the mainland. Stuff like sporting events came on a day late. It was definitely weird watching NFL football (usually the 49ers) on Monday afternoons after shool.

Ironically, the only channel that was even remotely close to schedule was the lone independent in town, KTRG-TV(ch13). I was in a Junior Achievement group with channel 13 and we were in charge of reruns of a now forgotten Western "Stagecoach West". The main things I remember about that were....1.) Getting clobbered by "Flipper", "Holywood Palace" and "Jackie Gleason" in our 6:30pm Saturday time slot. 2,) Starting on time. And, 3.) Getting a "no" on a frequent basis from would-be advertisers.

 

[gar hi]

The only thing that was certain is that shows almost never started at their scheduled time!

The irony there is that today, some networks start their programs a few minutes past the hour or half hour on purpose! LOL

 

[DavidEduardo]

I don't remember an outage of this magnitude anytime or anywhere, including the year I lived in Honolulu.

But what I DO remember that happened in Honolulu on a daily basis (no kidding) was the "loose" schedule. By that, I mean shows basically started when the stations got around to it. This was 1964-65 in the days before satellites. All shows were scheduled to start at a certain time, actually reflective of the Central Time Zone. For example, Sunday nights, Ed Sullivan was scheduled for 7pm on KGMB-TV (Ch9) and Bonanza at 8pm on KALA (Ch2). In reality this usually meant the show would come on five or ten minues late. Maybe even later. Since things varied every night, sometimes if you were flipping channels, you might have to wait a few minutes after one show ended and your next show on another channel began.

The issue there was that most shows arrived by plane on tape. Sometimes they did not arrive on time, so stations often ran network shows two weeks late just to have a backup. All that use of pre-recorded material from the network meant that synchronization was performed mechanically in Honolulu. Often, things you thought were live were actually from one or two weeks before.

There was, apparently (and I am told by the former GM of KGMB) live broadcasting of news and certain shows sent over the undersea cables and, later, by the early big dish satellites. It was expensive. But lots of other shows were taped, mostly due to the time zone differences but also the expense.

Radio, in the pre-TV era, used transcriptions or even live broadcasts using shortwave relay services.

We had the same sort of situation with the lone English language TV station in San Juan in the 70's. Everything was delayed except one live news show done by cable but they eventually dropped it due to cost. Live sports (Like the World Series), on the Spanish language channels, was done by the huge satellite dish at Cayey and was enormously expensive so very infrequent.

 

[KeithE4]

But what I DO remember that happened in Honolulu on a daily basis (no kidding) was the "loose" schedule. By that, I mean shows basically started when the stations got around to it. This was 1964-65 in the days before satellites. All shows were scheduled to start at a certain time, actually reflective of the Central Time Zone. For example, Sunday nights, Ed Sullivan was scheduled for 7pm on KGMB-TV (Ch9) and Bonanza at 8pm on KALA (Ch2). In reality this usually meant the show would come on five or ten minues late. Maybe even later. Since things varied every night, sometimes if you were flipping channels, you might have to wait a few minutes after one show ended and your next show on another channel began.

I had family in Honolulu in the late '60s thru the mid '70s. From when I visited them in '72, I remember taped/filmed network shows being aired on a one-week delay, but anything live (news, sports, & the Today Show, for example) airing either live or on a tape delay. Sports was always live, such as NFL football games starting at 8 AM. IIRC, they went through the Early Bird satellite for the live stuff, but regular network programming was still flown in from LA.

 

[gar hi]

Back in the 70's when the Philadelphia stations were local and I had a big antenna on the roof for the New York stations, I remember the audio quality of the prime time network shows was noticeably better on the New York stations compared to the Philly ones.

I guess that was due to the relatively primitive means of transmission they had then compared to now.

As we know, the network shows originate from New York on the east coast.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I had family in Honolulu in the late '60s thru the mid '70s. From when I visited them in '72, I remember taped/filmed network shows being aired on a one-week delay, but anything live (news, sports, & the Today Show, for example) airing either live or on a tape delay. Sports was always live, such as NFL football games starting at 8 AM. IIRC, they went through the Early Bird satellite for the live stuff, but regular network programming was still flown in from LA.

Early Bird activated in late '65 IIRC, and was deactivated just before the decade ended. If you see pictures of it, it was not very large. And it was positioned over the Atlantic, so I don't think that one was serving Honolulu.

It was the Lani Bird satellite that served Hawaii.

Television. The earliest Island television broadcasts appeared late in 1952.Test patterns were transmitted by KONA-TV beginning November 17.Scheduled programming was instituted by KGMB-TV on December 1. Thefirst color transmission was by KHVH-TV, on May 5, 1957. Cable televisionwas pioneered in Hawaii by Kaiser-Teleprompter, beginning April 20, 1961.Live television to and from the mainland was inaugurated November 19,1966,when KHVH-TV used the Lani Bird communications satellite to bring theMichigan State-Notre Dame football game to Hawaii.13

https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/101/JL13113.pdf

The link goes on to show the progress of satellite delivery to Hawaii.

 

[KeithE4]

Early Bird activated in late '65 IIRC, and was deactivated just before the decade ended. If you see pictures of it, it was not very large. And it was positioned over the Atlantic, so I don't think that one was serving Honolulu.

It was the Lani Bird satellite that served Hawaii.

Television. The earliest Island television broadcasts appeared late in 1952.Test patterns were transmitted by KONA-TV beginning November 17.Scheduled programming was instituted by KGMB-TV on December 1. Thefirst color transmission was by KHVH-TV, on May 5, 1957. Cable televisionwas pioneered in Hawaii by Kaiser-Teleprompter, beginning April 20, 1961.Live television to and from the mainland was inaugurated November 19,1966,when KHVH-TV used the Lani Bird communications satellite to bring theMichigan State-Notre Dame football game to Hawaii.13

https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/101/JL13113.pdf

The link goes on to show the progress of satellite delivery to Hawaii.

Early Bird had a really good antenna.

OK, wrong Bird. At least I didn't say Lady Bird (it was too early for Larry Bird).

 

[radioman148]

I had family in Honolulu in the late '60s thru the mid '70s. From when I visited them in '72, I remember taped/filmed network shows being aired on a one-week delay, but anything live (news, sports, & the Today Show, for example) airing either live or on a tape delay. Sports was always live, such as NFL football games starting at 8 AM. IIRC, they went through the Early Bird satellite for the live stuff, but regular network programming was still flown in from LA.

When I was in Honolulu in the 70s the network shows were delayed by a week. I discovered this when I turned on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and couldn't understand why they were showing the same episode I saw the week before. I quickly found out why when I watched a few other network shows.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Early Bird had a really good antenna.

OK, wrong Bird. At least I didn't say Lady Bird (it was too early for Larry Bird).

In any case, it was better than being given the bird.

 

[DavidEduardo]

As we know, the network shows originate from New York on the east coast.

Do you mean now or back then?

Network entertainment shows increasingly originate from the West Coast, but news is from DC or NYC in most cases; there is backup on the West Coast in case of failure or emergency. In fact, we saw NYC local stations doing their news from LA in the early period of the Coronavirus.

Morning live shows are NYC, the rest of the day they are West Coast for the most part.

Of course, in the 50's and 60's, we saws shows like Ed Sullivan and other variety shows almost all from NYC. Network radio distributed between LA, SF, Chicago, NYC and, even Detroit (Lone Ranger, for example... we know Detroit is part of the "old west").

On a separate subject, I think we will see a lot of changes in the way networks operate after the pandemic is over. There is so much talk about moving out of NYC and even LA that likely some of that will actually happen. But much of the talk is, I think, bluster with political overtones and a side order of tweets.

 

[gr8oldies]

Network Master Controls are still in New York or has that changed?

 

[installLSC]

I went digging on Newspapers.com (amazing resource by the way), and the Hawaii ABC affiliate always broadcast Monday Night Football on tape delay until Monday night Hawaii time, only stopping when the game went to ESPN in 2005. The station also delayed many sports events well into the 90s to get it into a better time slot.

 

[tvnut]

Early Bird activated in late '65 IIRC, and was deactivated just before the decade ended. If you see pictures of it, it was not very large. And it was positioned over the Atlantic, so I don't think that one was serving Honolulu.

It was the Lani Bird satellite that served Hawaii.

Television. The earliest Island television broadcasts appeared late in 1952.Test patterns were transmitted by KONA-TV beginning November 17.Scheduled programming was instituted by KGMB-TV on December 1. Thefirst color transmission was by KHVH-TV, on May 5, 1957. Cable televisionwas pioneered in Hawaii by Kaiser-Teleprompter, beginning April 20, 1961.Live television to and from the mainland was inaugurated November 19,1966,when KHVH-TV used the Lani Bird communications satellite to bring theMichigan State-Notre Dame football game to Hawaii.13

https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/101/JL13113.pdf

The link goes on to show the progress of satellite delivery to Hawaii.

David beat me to it with the first use of Lani Bird, but the rest of the story is as interesting.

This was effectively a test of satellite TV to and from Hawaii. Lani Bird was supposed to be geosynchronous but something went wrong at launch so it ended up in an elliptical orbit. That weekend happened to coincide with the satellite's visibility to Seattle and Honolulu at game time. The dishes tracked the satellite through the sky, like Telstar and Early Bird, but for longer periods.

Comsat wanted to generate trans-Pacific business, so agreed to test the bird with domestic network programming (it was usually an international service). Tests Friday from near Seattle to Comsat's Paumalu dish and then to Hawaii Telephone worked (front page news in the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin), so the game was on. Because it was a non-commercial test, the Michigan State-Notre Dame game, live at 8 a.m., didn't include the commercials ABC showed to the rest of the country. Likewise, the following day's CBS telecast of a Packers-Bears game at 8:45 a.m. on KMGB was sans commercials.

The rest of the sports weekend was delayed telecasts. Saturday brought an AFL game from the previous week, and Sunday featured two week-old NFL games following the live show.

There's more. Hawaiians went back to watching games a day or more late. But less than two months after the Michigan State-Notre Dame game (the famous 10-10 tie) came the first Super Bowl, on CBS and NBC. Lani Bird was in the wrong spot in the sky, so live TV was out. In this case, jets from Los Angeles flew individual reels of tape for the two network affiliates, and the race was to get to the station and cue up the tape that evening.

The expectation was for a 7 p.m. telecast (about six hours after kickoff), but fog at LAX prevented the first jets from leaving on time. When the first tapes finally arrived, KGMB began to screen CBS's telecast at 8:45 p.m., skipping the pregame show. KHON helicoptered the first NBC tape from the airport and started at 9 p.m. – with the half-hour NBC pregame show.

Wrote Hal Wood of the Honolulu Advertiser, "That gave KGMB-TV a one hour head start and by the time KHON-TV got underway with the game, the score already was 14-7 for the Green Bay Packers over the Kansas City Chiefs on KGMB-TV."

Concluded Wood, "Next year – Lani Bird."

He was right.

 

[2 Trailer Trucker]

Network Master Controls are still in New York or has that changed?

Nexstar has a big master control in Indianapolis that they purchased from LIN last year.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Network Master Controls are still in New York or has that changed?

I believe "master control" is an obsolete term. Various control centers can take over management of distribution for a network, even shifting seamlessly between individual shows.

 

[DavidEduardo]

David beat me to it with the first use of Lani Bird, but the rest of the story is as interesting.

This was effectively a test of satellite TV to and from Hawaii. Lani Bird was supposed to be geosynchronous but something went wrong at launch so it ended up in an elliptical orbit. That weekend happened to coincide with the satellite's visibility to Seattle and Honolulu at game time. The dishes tracked the satellite through the sky, like Telstar and Early Bird, but for longer periods.

Comsat wanted to generate trans-Pacific business, so agreed to test the bird with domestic network programming (it was usually an international service). Tests Friday from near Seattle to Comsat's Paumalu dish and then to Hawaii Telephone worked (front page news in the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin), so the game was on. Because it was a non-commercial test, the Michigan State-Notre Dame game, live at 8 a.m., didn't include the commercials ABC showed to the rest of the country. Likewise, the following day's CBS telecast of a Packers-Bears game at 8:45 a.m. on KMGB was sans commercials.

The rest of the sports weekend was delayed telecasts. Saturday brought an AFL game from the previous week, and Sunday featured two week-old NFL games following the live show.

There's more. Hawaiians went back to watching games a day or more late. But less than two months after the Michigan State-Notre Dame game (the famous 10-10 tie) came the first Super Bowl, on CBS and NBC. Lani Bird was in the wrong spot in the sky, so live TV was out. In this case, jets from Los Angeles flew individual reels of tape for the two network affiliates, and the race was to get to the station and cue up the tape that evening.

The expectation was for a 7 p.m. telecast (about six hours after kickoff), but fog at LAX prevented the first jets from leaving on time. When the first tapes finally arrived, KGMB began to screen CBS's telecast at 8:45 p.m., skipping the pregame show. KHON helicoptered the first NBC tape from the airport and started at 9 p.m. – with the half-hour NBC pregame show.

Wrote Hal Wood of the Honolulu Advertiser, "That gave KGMB-TV a one hour head start and by the time KHON-TV got underway with the game, the score already was 14-7 for the Green Bay Packers over the Kansas City Chiefs on KGMB-TV."

Concluded Wood, "Next year – Lani Bird."

He was right.

That's a marvelous story and gives a great picture of TV there in that era. Please post more like this!