TOM RIELAND

I often seem caught in a twilight zone between the digital future and my old friendly analog past. The other night I was coming home late and decided to surf AM to tune in the Packers/Bears game. It brought me back 30 years, when I was a weekend DJ at a station, WCOW (really), in Sparta, Wisconsin. I would work until midnight and drive the 40 minutes home listening to AM stations in Chicago (WLS, 890), Little Rock (KARK, 920) and the Mutual Radio Network out of Miami, which had a hotshot radio host named Larry King. The same Larry King who started a show at CNN in 1985 (he’s not nearly as good an interviewer as he was on radio).

The AM signal skips around at night and the so-called AM superstations can be picked up far and wide. I was able to listen to my Packers overtime loss listening to the New Orleans station (WWL, 870). By the way, the reason WOSU 820 goes to low power at night is because the FCC designated WBAP 820 AM in Arlington, Texas as a clear channel station, which means they can send out 50,000 watts at night. Apparently, even a full power 820 signal in Columbus might interfere with this station in Texas.

Contrast my AM surfing with this social media tidbit from CNET News:

Google will be mapping Santa Claus’ trek from the icy North Pole to rooftops around the globe on Christmas Eve. But this year, good girls and boys can track their gifts via mobile phones and Twitter, too. Starting at 3 a.m. PST on Wednesday, a Google Map with Santa’s current location will be displayed on the NORAD Santa Web site, operated by Google and the North American Aerospace Defense Command. Google will be displaying high-resolution “Santa Cam” video of the gift-laden airborne sleigh. And for the first time, people can track Santa’s journey on mobile phones with Google Maps for Mobile and follow him on Twitter by adding “@noradsanta.”

I think I’ll send Santa a twitter suggesting he surf the AM dial and let us know what cool stations he can pick up.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 17th, the leadership of all of the commercial television stations in Columbus gathered at WOSU to take part in a special phone bank.

At 7:30 that evening, the Columbus broadcast stations posted a slate on the screen for five minutes, which basically said that if you are seeing this, you need to do something or your television signal will go away in two months. The screen was only transmitted over-the-air to analog viewers throughout central Ohio.

This was part of a statewide and national effort to signal the change to digital television and provide information to those unaware of the federally mandated switch on February 17th. What happened? Well, the phones at WOSU didn’t ring off the hook as expected, at first. The national phone bank hired to handle the calls was designed to provide information about common questions and then send viewers to the local phone bank. Unfortunately, the national phone bank was overwhelmed by calls starting at 7:30 pm and many people could not get through.

Working with Christine Merritt of the Ohio Association of Broadcasters, the local managers decided to bypass the national phones and promote the local number with a crawl on the screen. Once the crawl showed up, the phones started going strong and we counted about 350 calls over an hour or so period.

Many of the callers wanted to know if the federal coupons were available and we had that information at the ready. Others had the converters, but had signal issues and we discussed placement of antennas. There are folks who have been getting analog TV fine who will have to invest in an outside antenna to get digital signals. There are so many converter boxes out there that it was most difficult to help people with those issues, but the folks we had here did their very best.

It’s likely we’ll try this again on January 12th, so stay tuned for a post about that evening. Remember that while many have cable or satellite in Columbus, there are an “estimated” 100,000 households who have over-the-air free TV as their primary provider. That translates into over 200,000 people. And that doesn’t even count those of us with over-the-air on our third televisions.

A side note — my 15 year old daughter asked me last night to fix her bedroom TV, which gets over the air digital TV with a zenith converter box. She wanted to watch WOSU Create, which she has become addicted to. I simply moved her rabbit ears antenna about three inches (toward our tower in Westerville) and things cleared up nicely. I wish all the digital TV issues were that easy!

Apply online for government coupons to help buy converter boxes: www.dtv2009.gov
Troubleshoot some antenna issues at www.antennaweb.org

A glimpse behind the scenes of the telephone action at WOSU when the analog signal was shut down briefly:

The annual WOSU holiday party included a wonderful potluck with staff, board and friends, who brought boxes of canned goods to contribute to the Mid-Ohio food bank as entry to the party. It was also an opportunity to honor a few of our own. We have two awards honoring staff, who are nominated by their colleagues and then chosen by a committee of past winners and board members. The first is called the I. Keith Tyler Award, named for the long time educator and trailblazer in educational radio at Ohio State. This year’s award went to our 30 year veteran as TV Station Manager, Ed Clay, who is retiring this summer.

The second award was formed just a few years ago after I learned about the career of Robert C. Higgy (pictured at right). We decided a technology achievement award was most appropriate for our organization. The 2008 honoree is Mike Meadows, Chief Engineer for WOSU Radio, who was instrumental in assuring the technological success of our new radio studio complex. We were blessed to have join us that evening Mr. Higgy’s daughter, who lives in Athens.

Let me tell you just a few things about the amazing Mr. Higgy. A Columbus boy, he was just 16 years old when his electrical communications expertise was put to work. He was called by Ohio State to help teach WWI soldiers about communications. By the time he graduated from OSU, he had put WOSU AM on the air (1922). It was one of a handful of educational stations on the air in the early 20s and the station was the first in Columbus. It originally had the call letters WEAO, which stood for Willing Eager Athletic Ohio.

By the late 20s, he had wired the campus to broadcast 300 lectures every school year and began radio broadcasts of the Buckeyes from Ohio Stadium. Higgy went on to put our FM station and TV station on the air, before retiring in the early 1960s after 42 years of service.

Robert Higgy’s legacy will live with us forever. And I just wanted you to know a bit about one of the giants whose shoulders we stand on today at WOSU.