KFYR + KNDX = LMA?

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Clint

Broadcasting is a strange business these days, and I’m glad I was able to get out of working in it full-time just as it was starting to get spooky. Consolidation, especially in smaller markets, seems to have been the trend for at least the past ten to fifteen years. It may be causing another twist here in DMA #145.

Recently the sale of the Hoak Media stations in North Dakota (formerly ND Television, formerly Sunrise, formerly Meyer Broadcasting, and a few in-betweens) to Gray Television Inc. was announced. This includes not only KFYR (Bismarck), KMOT (Minot), KQCD (Dickinson), and KUMV (Williston), but also KVLY (Fargo) and the KSFY group (Sioux Falls). That in itself is noteworthy, but there was something further down the press release that was even more interesting:

Separate from the Hoak and Parker transactions, Excalibur has reached a definitive agreement with Prime Cities to acquire the following television stations:

STATION	AFFILIATION	MARKET	DMA

KNDX	FOX	Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson, ND	145
KXND*	FOX	Minot-Bismarck-Dickinson, ND	145
* satellite station

Gray and Excalibur have agreed to enter into industry-standard shared services agreements through which Gray will provide back-office services and limited programming to Excalibur’s stations in the Lincoln, Fargo, Bismarck, and Monroe markets. The shared services arrangements will commence upon Excalibur’s purchase of those stations.

The bold emphasis is mine. This looks to me like KNDX isn’t going to have local technical staff for long. It’s called an LMA, or Local Marketing Agreement. This is not a new phenomenon in North Dakota; KVLY in Fargo operates KXJB in this manner for Parker Broadcasting out of Texas (thus the “Valley News Live” moniker). This is a different arrangement than the Reitens’ KX network has with KBMY (Bismarck) and KMCY (Minot) on behalf of the Forum group; they handle sales locally while master control of the Beemer’s programming originates from Fargo.

While FCC rules prohibit one entity from owning multiple stations in the market, it does not prohibit them from operating multiple stations. It’s a convoluted deal that could only be concocted by corporate bean-counters, but one that possibly ends up saving some small market television stations that would otherwise be unviable. Whether or not it benefits the viewing public is a matter of contention.

Western North Dakota FOX has never been a powerhouse in a market that even the Forum group couldn’t crack; Meyer Broadcasting and Reiten Broadcasting established themselves in the 1950s and have never faced serious competition aside from each other. (As an aside, Forum tried it with KBMY/KMCY. They folded up their news operations here right before I joined the station’s technical staff.) Now that KNDX/KXND have been sold to a company that’s going to try to cut costs and recoup their investment, and are named in a press release from a company who will “provide back office services” to their new owners, the future looks pretty apparent. Better touch up that resume’ just in case.

As a former board op for the ABC and NBC groups, I’m concerned about what happens to the technical staff. It typically means more jury-rigging in the control room and more demand put on the button pushers. Hopefully, if my interpretation of this press release is correct and the FOX stations start running out of an NBC control room, it’ll be done in a way that causes as few Maalox Moments for the guys in master control.

The real Thanksgiving

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Clint

Public education teaches us that Thanksgiving was a day in which the poor, helpless, hapless settlers gave thanks to the Indians for saving them from extinction in their new colony. While the settlers did have good relations with native people all around them, and both parties benefited from these friendships, this account of the story is wrong. These colonists set aside a day of thanksgiving to God.

I noticed that even our Dear Leader got it wrong, intentionally or otherwise. Today’s Thanksgiving Day address states, “We give thanks for…people who were already here, our Native American brothers and sisters, for their generosity during that first Thanksgiving.” As recently as 2011, President Obama’s proclamation on Thanksgiving Day, inaccurately declared that “The feast honored the Wampanoag for generously extending their knowledge of local game and agriculture to the Pilgrims…” but this was not the case.

One only needs to examine the writings of William Bradford, governor of Plymouth, to find the following (which you can read for free on archive.org):

I may not here omite how, notwithstand all their great paines and industrie, and the great hops of a large cropp, the Lord seemed to blast, and take away the same, and to threaten further and more sore famine unto them, by a great drought which continued from the 3. weeke in May, till about the midle of July, without any raine, and with great heat (for the most parte), insomuch as the come begane to wither away, though it was set with fishe, the moysture wherof helped it much. Yet at length it begane to languish sore, and some of the drier grounds were partched like withered hay, part wherof was never recovered. Upon which they sett a parte a solemne day of humilliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervente prayer, in this great distrese. And he was pleased to give them a gracious and speedy answer, both to thier owne and the Indeans admiration, that lived amongest them. For all the morning, and greatest part of the day, it was clear weather and very hotte, and not a cloud or any signe of raine I to be seen, yet toward evening it begane to overcast, and shortly after to raine, with shuch sweete and gentle showers, as gave them cause of rejoyceing, and blesing God. It came, without either wind, or thunder, or any violence, and by degreese in that abundance, as that the earth was thorowly wete and soked therwith. Which did so apparently revive and quicken the decayed come and other fruits, as was wonderfull to see, and made the Indeans astonished to behold; and afterwards the Lord sent them shuch seasonable showers, with enterchange of faire warme weather, as, through his blessing, caused a fruitfull and liberall harvest, to their no small comforte and rejoycing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiveing. This being overslipt in its place, I thought meet here to inserte the same.

In the grateful and humble spirit in which our nation was founded, I plan for our family to spend this extended weekend giving thanks to God. Yes, there will be football, but only as part of fellowship as we remember and account all for which we can be thankful. We still live in the greatest nation on earth and enjoy the fruits of those principles set forth by the founders of this nation and the God whose providence has been showered upon us for well over two hundred years.

Now that the stores are opening on Thanksgiving Day, I have decreed that nobody in our family will go out shopping on Thursday. I may do some online shopping on Friday now that retailers are starting to wise up and mirror some in-store deals online. If you have different convictions than mine, that’s your business. Have fun. But I’ve had it with the commercialization of the holidays and choose not to take part.

The lights are on, but nobody’s home

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Clint

Click on the image for a larger version

I was able to visit the capitol around the lunch hour yesterday and, while taking a cruise around the building I love so much, took the opportunity to poke my head into the two legislative chambers. They’re always open for the public to take a look, with ropes designating the limited area in which we’re allowed to enter. It was enough for me to do a couple of quick panoramics to assemble into this composite.

It won’t be long before these chambers are full with a flurry of activity. We’re right in the middle of the biennium, with elections one short year away and a session to follow.

This one may always be my favorite

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Clint

One of my favorite subjects in this ongoing photographic adventure has always been the old windmill. I’ve got some old standbys that I can visit if the sky is looking dramatic. Some of them have even vanished, such as the one that was along Apple Creek Road across from the old Farmers’ Livestock Market.

This one is not likely to vanish anytime soon. What’s better is that it’s on a slight hill, with easy access right near the road, and it’s short. Why would that matter, you ask? Perspective. It’s possible to get a variety of really cool angles on this windmill while including the prettiest parts of the sky – and even the horizon at times – due to its position and diminutive stature.

I haven’t been able to get out with my cameras in a while; in fact, I’m not exactly sure where all of them are! 2013 has been that kind of year. I hope to get out some more, especially since I’ve missed autumn, but for now I still have a few unused photos that I really like, “in the holster” for posting and sharing. With the weekend only a couple of days away, maybe a photo trip is in my near future!

What would I like to see this winter? ICE

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Clint

These photos are from a few years agowhen a friend and I ventured out on the ice at Lake Audubon. As you can see, the ice was very thick at the time…nearly three feet in places! The slab pressed upward by the pressure ridge in the photo above is around twelve feet tall. Ice that thick is easily capable of supporting a vehicle or ice house. It would be nice to see it again.

North Dakota winters are not typically known for being photogenic. I maintain that there’s plenty to see and photograph out there, it’s just a little more challenging to find. I’ve been awfully busy this year and totally missed autumn, so I am hoping that winter provides me a respite and lots of opportunities to wield the cameras!

Panning for gold

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Clint

I promised more pics from our Cold War Mancation trip to the Strategic Air & Space Museum. On day one I didn’t even take my camera bag out of the car; we just used the day to take it all in, climbing all over everything that could be climbed, with an occasional iPhone photo. I have grown to love the panorama feature, so I thought I’d share. You can click on each of these photos to pop up a larger version.

As I pointed out before, you’re greeted by one of my favorite aircraft ever: the SR-71 Blackbird. It’s simply breathtaking, and this one resides in a suitably breathtaking lobby for display. When you take the escalators up or down between levels you travel right under this bird, and it allows a true sense of how gigantic it is.

This is the main hangar. It contains lots of displays, models, consoles from Minuteman and other launch control facilities, videos, simulators, and rare aircraft. Here is where I got to see a U2, the B-36 behemoth, and the B-58 supersonic bomber. Those were three things on my aircraft “bucket list” before I ever even discovered this museum.

This is hangar two, containing spacecraft, a Soviet MiG fighter, a Space Shuttle bouncy house for the kiddos, and room for more aircraft. They have an Avro Vulcan bomber in back awaiting restoration, which is something I’d really like to see. That merits a return trip in the future once my boys are old enough.

Did I mention the SR-71? What a beauty. In addition to a ton of other cool items in the gift shop, many of which I brought home, they have a Hayne’s Owner’s Workshop Manual for this airplane. Its pages actually include extensive history and data on the aircraft, and if I wasn’t on a tight budget I’d own one. Someday…

You can check out more about the Strategic Air & Space Museum online, of course…that address is www.sasmuseum.com (opens in a new window). I recommend not only scheduling a trip to visit and support this facility, but to make sure you set aside two days to take it all in.

Gnarly

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Clint

I had a very short window to try to get some photos in, something that hasn’t happened in a while. I’ve pretty much missed most of the foliage, I think…so, since the trees are looking all bleak and nasty, I figured I’d try to find a spooky tree photo.

As a Christian I don’t do the Halloween thing. That’s not what I’m going for. I knew that the Apple Creek Wildlife Management Area south of town was a fertile ground for nasty looking trees, so I bolted down Sibley Drive to South 12th Street. Many of the best looking trees were in poor locations, but this thing sure looked gnarly with some interesting geometry. Thus it was my subject for a little while before I had to bolt back home.

Cold War Mancation, Part Six: Strategic Air & Space Museum

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Clint

If you aren’t familiar with my Cold War Mancation series, don’t worry: I’ll provide some links for you to get caught up at the end of this post. My best friend and I took the opportunity last week to visit the Strategic Air and Space Museum (formerly the SAC Museum) in Ashland, Nebraska. We’d been talking about it seemingly forever, and finally made it happen thanks to some overtime and my gracious wife letting me bolt for a few days. To put it mildly, this trip was absolutely worth the wait. Let’s get started.

I’ll begin with a snarky comment. This is a Snark missile, the SM-62. It was an early cruise missile capable of delivering a nuclear payload to the Russkies, and it waits to greet you as you pull into the parking lot.

Zoom. Weapons and aircraft like this, deployed by the Strategic Air Command, are the focus of the museum. That means everything from bombs and missiles to rockets to bombers to…well, let’s just go inside.

This is what greets you in the lobby: an honest to goodness SR-71 Blackbird. Sigh. Seeing one of these was on my bucket list. Touching one (yes, I leaned over the railing) wasn’t something I ever imagined possible. Yet, here we are.

Right off the bat I was astonished at how BIG this thing is. I’ve been enamored of this plane since the 1980s, and I thought I was reasonably familiar with its stats as a civilian fanboy, but until one of these things is perched diagonally above your head you will have absolutely ZERO comprehension of its girth.

This is how the SR-71 looked to Russian planes and missiles, although far less distant. If this thing flew past you at peak speed and you fired a 150 grain 30-06 bullet at it, it would still outrun the bullet by over 300 feet per second. As a former motorcycle roadracer I can appreciate that kind of speed. My puny 180mph seems rather insignificant by comparison.

One more thing on my bucket list: the Convair B-36 Peacemaker…the longest wingspan of any combat aircraft ever built. Note the three giant piston engines and rear-facing propellers on this wing…each blade is taller than I. Then we’ve got the pair of jet engines on the end of the wing for good measure. As the phrase goes, “Six turnin’, and four burnin’.” I was able to walk beneath this behemoth’s bomb bay without even ducking my head. These used to be based out of South Dakota. Now they’re rare, and none fly.

Then we’ve got this beast: the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. I have encountered one of these in flight before, and I must say it is by far the single loudest sound of any kind that I’ve ever heard. It was deceptively quiet until the pilot poured it on and shot up to over 70,000 feet. Even with my custom-made earplugs I was astonished at the noise.

Here’s a bright, shiny Soviet Mig-21 fighter jet. No need for paint, comrade. It was cool to see the Russian labels stamped into certain parts as well as the way they riveted the panels together.

In addition to some other really cool spacecraft and aircraft, this KC-97 Stratotanker was among the largest on display. As with the other big birds, it had an absolutely hilarious looking front end. It was also open for tours from time to time, so we got to go up and run around in it.

One other bird on my list was the B-58 Scrambler, a hardcore bomber that set a long list of speed records during its period of service. Later models had “capsules” for pilots to eject with, because apparently ejecting at supersonic speeds is bad or something. Huh.

I once made a record run from Dickinson to Bismarck (I won’t quote the time), but nothing like averaging over 900mph for the length of an average work day! This plane really knew how to rock ‘n’ roll.

Some of my favorite pics are just waiting, eager to be posted. They’ll come soon. In the mean time, I would like to share with you the previous iteration of our Cold War Mancation via the links below.

Cold War Mancation Part One: The Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile Site

Cold War Mancation Part Two: Nekoma Missile Site, Mickelson Safeguard Complex

Cold War Mancation Part Three: The Tower formerly known as OMEGA

Cold War Mancation Part Four: Cavalier Air Station

Cold War Mancation Part Five: Minot

Bonus: The Cold War in North Dakota

There. That should keep you entertained until I get around to posting some of the REALLY cool photos from the trip.

Extremist left-wing enviro hate group’s propaganda accuses ND power plants of killing people

Posted on October 20, 2013 by Clint

Someone gave me this flyer that they were handed outside the federal building on 3rd and Rosser last week: It comes from that well-known enemy of personal property rights, the Sierra Club, and it accuses MDU’s Heskett Station power plant of killing eight people per year as well as causing a litany of horrible medical problems. It exhorts the recipient to contact Sierra Club shill Wayde Schafer to “join us in our campaign to encourage Montana-Dakota Utilities to be a good neighbor by transitioning our community beyond coal and investing in clean energy”.

Riiiiiiiiight.

They go on to cite a map from “non-partisan” Clean Air Task Force (ahem) which performs the service of putting these scary black circles on a map wherever there’s a facility generating energy for North Dakotans. Their website indicates that they pretty much hate any power generation that doesn’t come from a “renewable” source, although even they seem to agree that turning corn into ethanol-based gasoline is a disaster. They don’t like coal, they don’t like oil, they don’t like gas, and they’re motivated by ~~Global Cooling~~ ~~Global Warming~~ Climate Change™, a phenomenon whose only purported solution is global socialism.

Oddly enough, if you go to the American Lung Association’s website you can find a report that’s three years newer (CATF’s is from “estimated 2010 impacts”) in their 2013 State of the Air report (PDF). In it, North Dakota gets phenomenal reviews for its air quality. If you want to pick a group that’s “non-partisan” I suggest looking at the ALA before believing anything from a site that won’t be happy until we’re one step removed from the stone age. North Dakota’s data from the report is available at this link if you don’t want to download the PDF.

It didn’t take more than a few seconds to find this release, also from the American Lung Association, congratulating Bismarck (which is downwind from Heskett and most of those other nasty black dots on the CATF map most of the time) on receiving an “A” grade. From the report:

“The State of the Air Report covers eight counties in North Dakota that have permanent air quality monitors: Billings, Burke, Burleigh, Cass, Dunn, McKenzie, Mercer and Oliver. This year’s report looks at data collected from 2009-2011 time period and verified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”

That doesn’t sound like the cesspool of black death alleged by the CATF and amplified by the radical hatemongers at the Sierra Club in their propaganda, does it? If you’re handed stuff like this from extremist liberal groups, take my advice and take whatever they tell you with a grain of salt. Do your own research. It won’t be hard to find easy refutations to their propaganda.

I intentionally used terms like “radical”, “extremist”, “hate group”, et cetera because that’s what these leftist use to label anyone who disagrees with them. It works both ways, commie.

All that ye survey

Posted on October 16, 2013 by Clint

My boys love going to Fort Abraham Lincoln. They especially like the blockhouses, and we get pretty good use out of our annual State Parks pass. Last night we got to watch a DVD about President Abraham Lincoln! I like not only broadening their horizons but also helping them connect the dots on what they’re learning…and watching the little light bulbs come on.

With so much history being rewritten these days in order to fit a variety of leftist agendas, it’s important as parents that we keep a close eye on what our children are being taught… or teaching them ourselves.

Bismarck-Mandan Blog

Photography , musings, and a love of North Dakota