The story of Battle Creek television history

[kc8yqq]

I found this article in The Battle Creek Shopper to be interesting:

https://www.thebattlecreekshopper.com/ starts on page 26.

This is in the October 26 edition. After this week, you will have to read in in the Past Papers section.

[MWmetalhead]

Most syndicated programming on WUHQ looked like it was being played off a low quality VHS tape. Nice, dim picture with uber dull color and contrast. This continued even after LIN Broadcasting began operating the station.

[Ben Zonia]

WUHQ owes FCC rules for its existence and ABC affiliation. If the WZZM-TV tower wasn't required to be so far from WSPD-TV/WTVG, there wouldn't have been that large area still not covered by ABC. As it is, WZZM-TV is almost like part of the Northwest Michigan/almost Traverse City market, with WPBN and WWTV. In Mecosta and Newaygo Counties, WZZM-TV analog was close to city grade, and unless you were next to the Muskegon River, could be seen with rabbit ears.

[MWmetalhead]

WUHQ owes FCC rules for its existence and ABC affiliation. If the WZZM-TV tower wasn't required to be so far from WSPD-TV/WTVG, there wouldn't have been that large area still not covered by ABC.

Very true.

FCC rules also forced WZZM's translators in Battle Creek (channel 74) and even Kalamazoo (channel 12) off the air at various dates. I believe the Battle Creek station was forced off even before WUHQ signed on. The Kalamazoo station was forced off not long after WUHQ began broadcasting at WUHQ's request.

Thanks to FCC rules, WZZM was forbidden from being carried on cable in the Kalamazoo and Battle Creek areas for many years, and it was also forbidden from using a translator signal to rebroadcast its programming over-the-air.

However, WUHQ as a UHF station was allowed to overlap a portion of WZZM-TV's service area and faced no restriction at all relative to cable carriage in the Grand Rapids area.

WUHQ was the station that aired syndicated programming no else wanted during mornings, late afternoon and early evenings and was a useful ABC outlet for GR areas viewers when WZZM would preempt programming for Billy Graham Crusade telecasts.

[Ben Zonia]

WZZM-TV also required people near Grand Rapids to put up new TV antennas or get rotators to get all the stations. There was a separate antenna for Channel 13 in many cases. And they'd just gotten the antennas for the new facilities near Gun Lake. When WKZO-TV 3 solidly moved in to the Grand Rapids market, it forced WOOD-TV 8 to move to compete with a multiple city market station. The tower site they were at had only been used a few years.

[MWmetalhead]

Unless living behind a decent sized hill or in a low lying area with poor LOS, WZZM's analog signal was pretty easy to receive in the immediate GR area.

I always received a good signal with just rabbit ears from Wyoming.

After the station replaced its tower and antenna over 20 years ago, reception improved to "almost great" and was darn near as good as that of WOOD-TV.

From that same single story house, I can tell you that WWMT suffered from dancing diagonal lines syndrome (and also had horrible interference whenever a microwave, vacuum or power tool ran), WTLJ came in clear as a bell, WGVU, WXMI and WUHQ were almost as good as WTLJ but fluttered on windy days, WZPX had medium snow on one TV set but was almost crystal clear on the other set, and WLLA was nearly impossible to pick up on any TV.

On GR's lower west side, results were similar except WZPX was barely viewable and WTLJ suffered from horrible multi-path issues with its video signal (WGVU had only minor ghosting issues and remained very watchable).

[Trophyhead]

I recall the days of Barney Miller airing after the 11 p.m. news on 13, receiving same south of Lake Mitchell in Cadillac via rabbit ears. Morton Downey, Jr. was not my cup of tea. M*A*S*H was on 41 at an advantageous evening time in my days at Michigan State, and I recall Terry Ficorelli doing sports there, a stop in a career that saw him call hockey on the radio in Kalamazoo, Muskegon and Saginaw!

What's wild is that it's been 20 years since the newsroom in Battle Creek closed! I remember Jon Shaner more or less breaking in as a weatherman there, was it Michelle Edmonds as their last morning anchor? The article is about the technical/managerial aspects of the signals and I look more to the people who were on the air there.

[MWmetalhead]

Michelle Edmonds did a great job anchoring their morning newscast.

[andymuskegon]

if i recall properly, when cable first came along where i grew up, my friend a couple doors down had it and since not everyone had video games yet, they would play one on the tv in the afternoon called "power 41". he actually got the call one day and when cued had to say "pow pow pow" to get the game to fire. i don't remember if he won or not

[ftballfan]

WUHQ owes FCC rules for its existence and ABC affiliation. If the WZZM-TV tower wasn't required to be so far from WSPD-TV/WTVG, there wouldn't have been that large area still not covered by ABC. As it is, WZZM-TV is almost like part of the Northwest Michigan/almost Traverse City market, with WPBN and WWTV. In Mecosta and Newaygo Counties, WZZM-TV analog was close to city grade, and unless you were next to the Muskegon River, could be seen with rabbit ears.

Heck, WZZM was ABC for the southwestern portion of the Traverse City/Cadillac market (along with whoever the ABC affiliate was in Green Bay at the time along the lakeshore) until the dishes added local channels and 29&8 came under the umbrella of 7&4.

[edj]

Did WZZM consider moving their digital tower closer to GR? Would that even be allowed since the northern area would lose service?

[MasterB]

I know in the 80s Cablevision had WZZM, Apelphia Communications didn't have WZZM I got WUHQ/WOTV for ABC wasn't until winter of 2006 when Comcast added WZZM, for the few that had Comcast in Kazoo. Apelphia Communications did have WNDU & WSBT out of South Bend, WSYM FOX47 Lansing, WWOR out of NYC before they became a UPN station which was dropped on Dec, 31 1994. Apelphia Communications didn't ever have WKBD the Michigan's Superstation I only watched WKBD at my grandparents house if I was over or spent the night.

[Ben Zonia]

WLUK 11 was ABC in Green Bay for a long time. It came in strong during late evening tropo conditions across Lake Michigan.

[The Ol' Guy]

I somewhat remember Channel 41's very first 6 PM newscast. There was no audio for about the first ten minutes, then it popped in just before going over to the weather. One wonders if they only had one operational camera, as after the weathercaster pointed out national conditions on a map, he goes, "And not the state and local weather". A station slide pops up, but the mics were still hot. "Where do I stand?...over here? Okay..."(resumes visual) "And now the state conditions." Afterwards, sports. There was no real backdrop at all during the news and sports..just two guys reading scripts at the same podium. As a brand new station, we didn't expect much. It was fun to watch the station take its baby steps.