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Fox 66 or is it just me?

Discussion pertaining to Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Midland, Mt. Pleasant, and Michigan's thumb region.
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otrfan
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:52 pm
Location: Lansing

Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by otrfan »

I live in Lansing but I have Flint's Fox 66 as a backup to Lansing's Fox 47 on my TVs. However this week my TV is airing programming from the Charge Network and something called the TBD network on 66.1. Is it just me and my goofy TV or has something changed? BTW Charge isn't so bad. Older action shows from previous decades but TBD looks like a rehash of runner-up TIc Tok and Fail Army videos that didn't make the first cut with a music bed behind it.

Maybe it's a daytime-only thing with Fox programming in the evening and I just hadn't noticed it before. I even rescanned two of my TV's just to see if the order of virtual channels had changed or something.

Anywho...
jmeltonwx
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 7:34 pm

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by jmeltonwx »

otrfan wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:20 pm I live in Lansing but I have Flint's Fox 66 as a backup to Lansing's Fox 47 on my TVs. However this week my TV is airing programming from the Charge Network and something called the TBD network on 66.1. Is it just me and my goofy TV or has something changed? BTW Charge isn't so bad. Older action shows from previous decades but TBD looks like a rehash of runner-up TIc Tok and Fail Army videos that didn't make the first cut with a music bed behind it.

Maybe it's a daytime-only thing with Fox programming in the evening and I just hadn't noticed it before. I even rescanned two of my TV's just to see if the order of virtual channels had changed or something.

Anywho...
This would be related to the ransomware attack that hit the Sinclair stations this past weekend. Fox network programming and news is running.
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NoozDude
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Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:35 am
Location: Looking for Roadrunner

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by NoozDude »

otrfan wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:20 pm I live in Lansing but I have Flint's Fox 66 as a backup to Lansing's Fox 47 on my TVs. However this week my TV is airing programming from the Charge Network and something called the TBD network on 66.1.
Otrfan: This may further explain jmeltonwx’s response to your post as to what’s happening with 66.1 (and all of Sinclair Broadcasting.)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -cybergang
otrfan
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:52 pm
Location: Lansing

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by otrfan »

So I'm still confused. Isn't there an actual master control anymore? It seems as though the feed from Fox could be brought in via satellite or over the internet or in a worst case scenario picked off an antenna and relayed from the Lansing or Detroit Fox affiliate and patched directly into the MCR switcher and onto the 66 transmitter. I know back in the 80s Fox 47 Lansing used to be able to pull another stations air signal of an antenna as a backup for high stakes football games in case we lost control of the satellite dish 25 miles away. I don't know if we ever used it. But we had it as a back plan. A couple of patches and the game could continue.

I've not been in an MCR in a few years. Is everything totally automated and coming from a server without any human interaction now?
sinklair
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Joined: Sun Dec 08, 2019 11:59 am

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by sinklair »

Otrfan: Fox doesn’t supply daytime programming. Most of the daytime programming you see on Fox 66 is syndicated. Our Master Control is still having issues downloading and playing out syndicated shows, which is why they are airing Charge TV.
otrfan
Posts: 12
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2006 3:52 pm
Location: Lansing

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by otrfan »

Thanks for the update. I knew things had changed operationally.
organman95
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Joined: Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:49 pm

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by organman95 »

otrfan wrote: Thu Oct 21, 2021 7:12 pm So I'm still confused. Isn't there an actual master control anymore? It seems as though the feed from Fox could be brought in via satellite or over the internet or in a worst case scenario picked off an antenna and relayed from the Lansing or Detroit Fox affiliate and patched directly into the MCR switcher and onto the 66 transmitter. I know back in the 80s Fox 47 Lansing used to be able to pull another stations air signal of an antenna as a backup for high stakes football games in case we lost control of the satellite dish 25 miles away. I don't know if we ever used it. But we had it as a back plan. A couple of patches and the game could continue.

I've not been in an MCR in a few years. Is everything totally automated and coming from a server without any human interaction now?
I haven't heard of anyone using a backup antenna to pull a sister station for network programming in years. I wonder if that's is even possible anymore with ATSC.
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Calvert DeForest
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Joined: Thu Dec 02, 2004 5:14 pm
Location: The corner of US-16 and M-78

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by Calvert DeForest »

organman95 wrote: Fri Oct 22, 2021 4:27 pm I haven't heard of anyone using a backup antenna to pull a sister station for network programming in years. I wonder if that's is even possible anymore with ATSC.
That's standard operating procedure at our house. We don't have cable and use a rotatable rooftop aerial for OTA. Having multiple channel sources comes in handy when propagation doesn't cooperate (or I'm just too lazy to walk over and spin the antenna).

Where I live we can pull in WSYM, WXMI and WSMH for Fox. WILX, WOOD and WEYI for NBC. WLAJ, WJRT and WOTV for ABC. WLNS, WNEM and occasionally WWMT for CBS. WKAR, WCMU and WDCQ for PBS. We can always find a stable feed from somewhere.

A lot of syndicators have migrated from satellite to IP distribution as it saves the cost of transponder time. It's an efficient model provided network connections are reliable and protected against security breaches such as what Sinclair recently experienced. I have a feeling there will be firewalls upon firewalls implemented going forward from this. Still, there's always a risk when you're dealing with the internet.
Shortwave is the ORIGINAL satellite radio.
sinklair
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Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by sinklair »

Calvert: you’d think Sinclair could distribute syndicated programming to its stations via a daily satellite feed (like the good ole days).

However that only solves one part of the problem.

Many of our playback servers still are corrupted with ransomware.
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Calvert DeForest
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Location: The corner of US-16 and M-78

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by Calvert DeForest »

sinklair wrote: Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:24 am Calvert: you’d think Sinclair could distribute syndicated programming to its stations via a daily satellite feed (like the good ole days).

However that only solves one part of the problem.

Many of our playback servers still are corrupted with ransomware.
It's a nice thought, but I think that ship has sailed with the advent of technology.

I remember my first MCR gig at Fox 47 (before there was a Fox and the station was still indie). Back then there was still the bicycle system by which some shows were shipped station-to-station on film, Quad or Umatic tapes. The rest of the programs were satellite-fed and recorded on Umatic decks. When I started out we had one moveable C-band dish at the Eaton Rapids transmitter site, controllable from the MCR plant in downtown Lansing. As we fetched stuff from various distributors using different satellites and transponders, the dish would need to be moved and retuned for the next feed. Depending on the position of the satellite, it could take up to five minutes for the dish to move from one bird to the next. Suffice to say we kept a kitchen timer in the control room to remind us when to move it. Later we had software to automate the moves and retunes, and one of the ops would program everything in for the day. We just had to make sure the tapes were loaded and machines timed to roll when the feeds came down (can't say I didn't miss that step a time or two).

I'm sorry to hear that your servers were affected. Believe me, I can relate. Experienced a similar hack several years back that resulted in a ton of on-air server content being wiped. Fortunately we were able to recover a lot of what we needed from our archive servers despite an attempt on those as well. Other stations stepped in to help with the rest. It was an interesting experience, albeit not one that I care to repeat.
Shortwave is the ORIGINAL satellite radio.
sinklair
Posts: 2261
Joined: Sun Dec 08, 2019 11:59 am

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by sinklair »

Do you know what’s not subject to ransomware attacks? Good ole film.
the chief
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:26 am

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by the chief »

Hair in the gate !
dirtymind410
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Oct 20, 2020 9:03 pm

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by dirtymind410 »

All I wanna know is... Where is Lea Kamana and Kristen Lowe?
sinklair
Posts: 2261
Joined: Sun Dec 08, 2019 11:59 am

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by sinklair »

Dirty Mind: Kristen is out on maternity leave. Lia took an anchor job in Hawaii.
paul8539
Posts: 1177
Joined: Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:20 pm

Re: Fox 66 or is it just me?

Unread post by paul8539 »

TBD is on 25.4. They just got the sub-channels mixed up.
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