Posts Tagged ‘channel 7’

Our New and Improved Sutro Tower Now Has New and Improved Digital Broadcasts

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Not that you’d really be able to tell, though. Sutro Tower Inc. has just finished a project that had some of the digital TV broadcast antennas (not “antennae” – that plural term is only used for bugs in our silly English language) gaining a higher altitude.

Not much howver, maybe a seven-percent increase, max. Does that make a big difference? No, not for most people, but at least STI is trying.

Here’s the antenna of KPIX-TV (OMG, that’s the home of Eye on Blogs – big ups, Brittney Gilbert!) a way up top, like 1700 feet above sea level. Now Channel 5 is as high as possible:

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Click to expand

The Future is Now, and what’s labeled “CURRENT” is history:

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From this:

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To this:

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Well, they were still wrapping the KPIX, KRON, KTVU antenna assembly, but you get the idea.

So it looks like we’re all set with the Great Digital TV Conversion of 2009. As long as Sutro Tower doesn’t get hit by a shooting star….

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…we’ll be all right.

Orchids Everywhere at the Asian Art Musuem – Tribute to Doris Duke Runs Through Sunday

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

In between downpours yesterday, made it over to the Asian Art Museum where they were getting ready for Orchids: A Tribute to Doris Duke, starting today and running through Sunday, October 25, 2009.

Turns out that Doris Duke was heavy into orchids, she was “collector, cultivator, and preservationist” all in one. Plus, some of her pieces will be on display in the Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam & Burma, the new exhibit starting this Friday, October 23rd. So why not turn the AAM into a mini Conservatory of Flowers for a little while, huh?  

Orchids: A Tribute to Doris Duke
Tuesday, October 20 through Sunday, October 25
Main Lobby, North and South courts
FREE with museum admission

Click to expand:

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Roll credits:

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“Orchids (Orchidaceae) are flowering plants commonly found in Southeast Asia and other tropical parts of the world. This is a botanic description of orchids, but for most of us orchids are the most exotic of plants with an enormous diversity of shape, size, color. Doris Duke, who collected many of the artworks presented in Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma, was an avid orchid collector, cultivator, and preservationist. As an homage to Doris Duke and her passion for collecting, for the first time and for five days only, the museum will present a striking display of orchids. The display features arrangements by members of Ikebana International and Ikebana Teachers Federation, San Francisco Orchid Society, San Francisco Garden Club, Asian Art Museum Flower Committee, de Young Flower Committee; floral designers, orchid aficionados, and others.”

See you there!

46th Annual Cable Car Bell-Ringing Contest in San Francisco’s Union Square

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

San Francisco’s historic Cable Car bell ringing contest delighted hundreds in Union Square yesterday. It looked like this and this.

Mayor Gavin Newsom and MTA Director Nat Ford enjoy KBLX radio’s stirring interpretation of LL Cool Jay’s Rock the Bells. (Sadly, credit for the song was given to Run DMC.)

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KGO-TV personality Janelle Wang’s hair momentarily defied gravity as she did the robot on her way to the bell: 

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Grand Champion Carl Payne gave in to pleas from the crowd wanting to get a closer look at his humoungous bell ringing ring: 

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Carl Payne’s cable car ring. You can see the words “Champion Bell Ringer” and also the years of his victories on this Super Bowl-style finger bling:

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Yesterday was all about the bell, steampunkish in its own way: 

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See you next year!

Details after the jump: (more…)

The “Conspiracy of Silence” That Built San Francisco’s Sutro Tower?

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Local writer Anne Herbert, famous for coining the phrase “practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty,” recently announced on her blog:

The closer I live to Sutro Tower, the more I think it isn’t dangerous.

O.K. then. But who says Sutro Tower is dangerous? Well, for starters, the people who live around it in the Twin Peaks area, in small neighborhoods like Clarendon Heights and Midtown Terrace. Among other things, they worry about EMF radiation. They worry that the tower might fall down.

Sutro Tower at night under a shooting star. Looks safe enough:

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But there’s not much they can do about it. The time to do something would have been back in the 1960’s when it was being planned.  

So, let’s take a trip down Memory Lane and check out this 35-year-old piece from Stephen R. Barnett. He alleged:

…the project was cloaked from public view by a media blackout, a conspiracy of silence hatched by the TV stations that own the tower and joined by the Chronicle and Examiner.

Them’s fighting words, don’t you think? You might not agree with his conspiratorial tone, but we all can appreciate little nuggets such as:

“It is ridiculous to assume the FCC will require the entire tower to be painted with alternate stripes of white and orange.” Wheat declared. It “will doubtless be painted a neutral color consistent with the surroundings,” he assured the Supervisors. 

As you can see, it’s white and orange to keep the FAA happy. Note the newish 125-foot-long, 10-ton auxiliary antenna mounted vertically

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More recently,  a movement was afoot to prevent the tower from going digital, but that didn’t work out.

There are updates for the digital future slated and there’s a lot of life left in this structure, so it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The sun always shines on TV.