All posts by Rog
Below are all of Rog's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
I'm with John Martin on this , haven't the TV viewing public had enough of the greed of certain executives in the telecomms world . We are forced to pay £145.50 a year - or a fine of £1000 - 24 hour TV promised in the 1990s has turned out to be sell-o-vision . Sky and Virgin are [too] expensive so many rely on Freeview and in some areas the signal is poor anyway. No, shuv your added services to 'phones (remember when we used 'em for spoken conversations - happy days.....) .
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Actually Tim the music IS the original theme the actual Bonanza theme - with bonanza actually intoned into it followed later by the David Rose composition please see
Warner Music Faces Lawsuit Over 'Bonanza' Theme Song - The Hollywood Reporter
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MikeP has made a good point about VHF compared with UHF though UHF with a larger aerial and pre-amp was nearly as useful for covering 'no-signal spots' I'm in Hinckley, Leics and watched Belmont (Anglia then Yorks) and Sandy Heath (Anglia) with my Fuba (about 6ft long) group A for a number of years when my local was Sutton Coldfield (Midlands ATV/Central) good and strong but ironically Waltham (E.Midlands) signal was unusable. OK I used a very reliable German rotator for Anglia/BBC East but it was worth it as , then ITV and regional news gave a real regional alternative. I beleive the BBC 4 is too much a highbrow alternative and BBC3 is strictly for the older teens to justify any reduction of local programmes especially regional news is quite wrong . If Scotland wants a quite separate main news then let Scotland fund it , the same with N.Ireland where in a number of places RTE stations are viewable - though prevented in the rest of UK. To stop the local news we'd finish-up with default BBC London News , God help us. No , at the present time I feel we should be more informed both about the world and our own region not less . The BBC Radio took all the Home Service regions of Medium Wave in about 1967, which truely was a wrong step before at least asking us listeners who have finished up having to fight for Radio 4 (former BBC Home Service) Long Wave as a national station with no decent regional radio news as the BBC 'locals' and commercials only bother with 'sound bites' now. Please leave the BBC 1 Regional TV news as it is and also any BBC2 regional programmes which help us respect where we live.
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This coverage map is very miss-leading as it shows areas of Leicestershire and even Warwickshire where the signal is no use at all , Hinckley , Nuneaton and many areas around rely upon Sutton Coldfield . I have phoned both BBC and ITV but they seem confused and the so called 'East Midlands' and West Midlands political sub regions only confuses matters so often Hinckley (in S.Leics) news items are not actually seen in Hinckley because of the damnable situation whereby East Midlands is based not in Birmingham (capital city of the Midlands for at least two centuries, but Nottingham . A Whitehall cock-up we never asked for.
So the situation is Freeview has to be from Sutton' (which we have been served reliably from since the old days of VHF B/W since the 1950's) and Sky boxes are set to Nottingham , Virgin cable comes to Hinckley from Leicester so it is East Midlands which means news of our neighbour over the Watling St (A5) doesn't get shown . Might I again ask for one Midlands and if neaded perhaps a longer regional news to cover ALL our region and please stop publishing a map thats obviously wrong.
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I started to watch this station until I got sick of the over-scanned programmes where it appeared a fair section of the actual sceen was off the edge and the whole programme is spoilt for viewers using 4.3 or auto perspective setting TVs . It seems they either can't or wont get it to show programmes properly - though commercials get shown perfectly . It wouldn't be so bad if Bonanza, Beverley Hillbillies etc had been filmed in wide-screen 16.9 - but these programmes are 1960's shows done for TV then - in 4.3 - so why can't this station do what ITV does and set their electronics to auto-change when a 4.3 programme is recognised to 4.3 not 'bloom-out' I used to love the 1960's shows (no colour in UK then but we went square-eyed in the evenings, but Sorry 'Bonanza Bonanza' you're not watched here.
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Mike P I suggest you appreciate my point better and living in Nottingham (where my late father was born) hardly helps you understand when the BBC reporters, mic and camera comes out from the fabled 'east' Midlands , does the interviews for their 'East Midlands Today' and tells folks who view Sutton Coldfield the item will be on either later or tomorrow but because of the 'divide' suiting those in Nottingham with a clear coverage from Waltham (Freeview, Sky, Virgin) and no border problems leaves Hinckley and S.Leics OUT . What would make sense is an overlap such as we here had in the VHF TV days and UHF (analogue) days when even Anglia TV was receivable not from Mendlesham but Sandy Heath in the case of UHF . The curse of digital is whilst more stations (too many 'sellervision' regrettably) because of technical limits divisions now exist which did not and this WAS based on political maps drawn in Whitehall. In the 50's 60' right to the 70's we Midlanders and our one region was from Wales to Nottinghamshire (we had no coast-line) that's the 'politics' I mean geographical politics, where Lincolnshire folk were East Coast . The anger that was expressed when Belmont transmitter went from sending Anglia TV/ BBC East(Norwich) to Yorkshire ITV/ BBC Leeds is still talked of in places such as Skegness decades later so the flippant comment of not wanting East Midlands replaced by West Midlands rather ignores my point - I think at least there should be an adherence to the coverage map (increase Waltham power (do BBC/ITV actually carry out field strength tests - obviously not fully) or a longer , more inclusive Midlands Today (as the Birmingham programme is titled from the capital city of the Midlands). If you recall MikeP the regional assemblies which were meant to give some solidity to the sub-regions like east Midlands and west Midlands were never lawfully and properly established or elected and the Prime Minister abolished them in 2012. When I was born (Nuneaton 1947) Midlanders, like Londoners, belonged to their region as did such as the BBC Midland Home Service (from Birmingham originally 5IT on 426 Metres MW 626 kHz, a small office and studio for essential news in Nottingham area 5NG on 326 Metres MW was ironically controlled from Manchester ! ) Of cause the regional BBC Home Service stations (radio) were ended in 1967 - the BBC didn't bother to ask licence payers of cause in the same way digital TV was brought in complete with required regular re-tuning of the receivers! Of cause the east/west Midlands joke where whole areas get the 'wrong' service has been repeated in Northern England, South West, North and South Wales and Scotland and to one incomer quite happy with the forced division of regional programmes there are two angry established TV viewers. The SES/Astra satellites at 28.2 E are the only real answer and offer all the BBC1 regions (labelled on EPG) and ITV regions (unlabeled !) but of cause a Sky box and dish is required and a specific no-sub contract with Sky or good friend 'in the trade'. But if they (BBC/ITA) could sort out coverage to give inclusion not exclusion in the late 1950's and 1960's why not now? So viewers paying out the obligatory £145 odd TV licence (combined radio colour TV in 1969 - £11) could have a choice - watch their own local news and not have a second-rate digital terrestrial system.
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If first they would get the technical problems sorted-out then perhaps stop several repeats of the same programme over a few hours daily, they'd get a far bigger audience , as it is that viewer chart can't be right - sorry iif I'm being 'rude or disrespectful' but a picture that blooms , a station that only shows commercials correctly is not very professional.
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What a pity Bonanza - Bonanza though improved technically (aspect ratio) is not including the odd British TV/ Movie classics - it could take a leaf out of the original 'Bravo' channels book . The bosses at the station should ask why the demand for DVDs of old b/w movies and British TV (BBC and ITV) is growing as the population gets older - theres a whole massive over 50 aged audience out here - pre 'Styes In Their Eyes' 'Big (uhk!) Brother' and ' Sickly Come Dancing' and modern drama has too often compulsory f words neither 'Duke' John Wayne or Sir John Mills would use infront of a camera . God bless Clayton More and Jack Webb but what about Peter Brady - 'The Invisible Man' , 'The Four Just Men' series , 'Dial 999' starring Robert Beatty etc. Please, if anyones reading from Canis Television and Media , and we know they do - please lets have some 'home grown' as well as US stuff.
P.S. Pity you don't allow the odd photo on UK FREE-TV .
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Sunday 30 November 2014 4:08PM
Surely DAB or DAB+ as now the government after taking its orders from Strasbourg are trying to woo the digital listener (1 !) is a contradiction to internationalisation and the 'global market' as it restricts DAB receivers (I mean rereal DAB receivers not WiFi Internet 'radio' or Satellite) to very restricted regional muxes . Radio in UK did NOT begin as regional stations as such but essentially small stations with limited range on paper but 2LO London could be picked-up on a long wire aerial (quite common then) in the Midlands and Hampshire , 2MT Writtle Nr.Chelmsford was getting reports even from Scotland (because few broadcast stations we on air so these original broadcasters were not 'regional' stations the British Broadcasting Company later set up city relay stations in Birmingham, Newcastle, Cardiff, Plymouth etc, at deliberate low power (typically 100 to 200 watts) but some years after Marconis MZX (15kW) later 2MT or 2LO which were never intended simply for the capital or Essex alone but hoped to be received much further out - unlike DAB (or DAB+) which is far more restricted far from international or in any way global . We are, by accepting 'bubbling mud' also accepting a very restricted service our fathers and grandfathers didn't have to put up with listening on Medium , Short and Longwave to a vast choice of even
US/Canada or Australian radio whereas we have only what the muxes agree to put out in our area - nowt else!
We seem to have not freed ourselves with the digital technology but rather much more restricted what we can listen to and because DAB sets use much more electricity , whilst such as BBC naively still push DAB , flogging a dead horse, but spending more and more licence money on rather 'passing water into the wind' there seems not sensible conclusion . However while the MW seems to be going over to LPAM in UK though on the continent some national stations remain there, is hope for all analogue radio - the FM band is becoming overcrowded and extending it to 86 mHz or lower impractical as most current receivers only go down to 88.5 mHz. DAB is 'bubbling mud' - far from a 'trend away from analogue' whilst BMW may be fitting DAB (I asume DAB+?) in new (expensive) cars the mess the broadcasters of the 21st Century have created - including black spots (no signal at all) in cities even FM didn't give us, when AM faded but didn't die must be considered . The claimed up to 50 radio stations on DAB is more like 150+ with analogue FM and AM so lets get real.
Is that progress, I think not.