… Others were not….
Today I was able to play some radio, head out for a good bike ride, set up a portable station in a park along with visit a local television station. The antenna work did not get done but I have hopes for early Sunday am…
It took me roughly 45 minutes to head from my place to the Market Media Mall in Ottawa for my visit to the A Channel studios… The time could of been a bit quicker but for my first real ride of the year…. I’ll take it…
Although Google maps don’t always take bike paths into concideration, the route I took is almost the same as the one they suggested.
After my visit to the A Channel Studios where I met many of their on air personalities and I can offer the following commentary…after an approx 45 minute wait to get inside the doors (yes it was that popular) we were brought into the studio and introduced to Kurt and Sandra. They gave us a brief lowdown on what we would be seeing today and they we were put in the capable hands of Leanne who would be our groups tour guide for the duration of our tour. We were shown the newsroom where we met Bill who does the weather and Tony who is one of the news anchors. We were shown how the tools of the trade are used including the “Green Screen” A couple of observations I could make would be that “Tony” and “Bill” both look taller on the air than they do in person but they are great guys to talk to… We were also shown some of the production staff such as directors and editiors who showed us how they create the product that the on air people give to us.
To be honest this was a plug for their promotion Support Local Television and lots of the comments and statements were made to that end but their comments did make sense and I have commented on this in the past.
After the tour concluded I rode over to the QTH of Jerry VE3QSO and we set up his portable station in the park across the street from his place.
We set up his 100W K2 Transceiver along with a W3EDP end fed antenna supported by two 31 foot Jackite Poles. This was the first time we had set up this equipment and it worked great. Contacts were made on 20m ssb and 80m ssb which proves everything worked up to expectations. After playing radio and ragchewing we broke camp and I helped Jerry take the toys home then I jumped back on the bike and headed back home…
So as you can see it was a great afternoon with a total bike ride of almost 14kms. Complete Route shown here and more importantly with NO CHEST PAINS!!! This one is important as its one of the first rides of the year and although I was not expecting any problems … the threat of a “screamer” is always there. The good doctor wants me to exercise and lose weight for a reason!
So all in all it was a great afternoon….
