John E. Simmons

Don't pay for TV - build a free antenna

With broadcasters moving to digital TV next month, you won't need to pay for cable to get a lot of TV channels.  Digital allows for your local stations to put out more signals - for instance, my public TV station has five different signals.

You'll need a tuner if your TV does not have a digital tuner, but you don't need one of those expensive "made for digital" sets of rabbit ears.  Here's how to build a digital TV antenna from clothes hangers

TV War Stories - II

This is a day that will live in Jacksonville, Florida TV infamy.  On this day in about 1992 or so, WTLV-12 noon anchor Sally Fox began the newscast with a joyful "Happy Pearl Harbor Day."

TV War Stories - I

I'm always surprised when I talk with friends who've only worked for big-market or well financed television stations.  They never have any of the funny war stories generated by the cheap stations.

Take, for instance, WCWB-TV 41 in Macon, Georgia.  The staff claimed the call letters stood for "We Can't, We're Broke."  The station had one studio camera - one.  Imagine doing news like that - zoom in to the main anchor, zoom out to a two shot with the weather girl on set, zoom in to the weather girl.  Hilarious.

But the station is most famous for what it had to do to keep its tape machines operating.  The chief engineer had no budget for repair parts.  When a drive belt broke, he'd send an assistant down the highway to the truck stop.  In the men's room, the assistant would buy a condom, bring it back to the station, and the chief would tie it together into a make-shift drive belt.

I think the chief had to pay the fifty-cents from his own pocket.