In the digital broadcast age, TV ain't what it used to be.
During the Olympics we became more than a little fans of the anchor of the local NBC affiliate. Tracy Barry. We often watched her local Olympics update after the news, in the lead-up to prime time.
She's everything you'd want in a queen bee of the local news scene, down to having her own professional diction style. We loved imitating the way she said "So-shee," punctuating each syllable in a sing-song way to maximize the effect of each consonant.
Turns out she came to Portland in 1985, same as yours truly. That's enough to make me root for her.
During the Games, the frustration at getting the local NBC signal got me interested in the over-the-air broadcast signal here in SW Portland. Even with the decrease in strength that most transmitters underwent in the digital crossover a few years back, it seemed absurd to me that a citizen of this district of the city couldn't easily grab the KGW signal out of the air with a decent antenna.
That led me to contemplate the array of transmission towers that sit on top of the ridge of the West Hills, that form a barrier between this area and Downtown. Even from Beaverton, they are quite prominent.
The long ridge upon which the towers sit peters out right around this area in Hillsdale, as they descend down to the river. From where I type this, the southern edge of the ridge is visibly crested by the mysterious Stonehenge Tower, which I assume broadcasts something, although it's hard to tell what (it's not the signal for KGW or the other local network stations, which come from other towers further north along the ridge).
Lately just for fun I've wound up walking up into the nearby hills on a couple occasions. On one occasion, at the tail end of the fierce weather we'd been having, I spontaneously tried to reach the Stonehenge Tower but wound up taking cover in a sudden storm of great wind gusts and hard rain. It made the branches of the tall Doug firs along the street dance chaotically against the opaque white storm-sky.
Fortunately my GoLite backpacker's umbrella held up even in the stiff wind gusts, and my waterproof Salomon boots kept my feet from getting soaked. I had a glorious time.
Even in the storm it was easy to see that the houses up there on the ridge, in the nice winding streets, are mighty nice and expensive. By and large they are hidden from view from down in the valley. To see them you have to go back into the pasta-like maze of the streets that climb up the flank of the hill, as I did. It reminded me in no small way of the Berkeley Hills, and also of Staten Island.
On the way back down, after the rain had passed through, the descending street led right into the base of the most achingly deep-color rainbow I'd ever seen, bands of delicious liquid color in the sky, a reward for having braved the storm and climbed the hill.
It turns out that the reason KGW's digital signal is hard to get in this part of Portland is probably because they broadcast with a whopping strength of 45 kW, at least according to the source I found online. Compare that it's rivals KOIN and KATU which broadcast at 1000 kW.
At least Tracy is still old school.
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