Category Archives: Station Identification

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Broadcasting from the Distant Reaches of UHF!

Station IdentificationIn the mysterious days before cable, television sets came with two channel knobs.

The bottom knob, with thirteen channels, was where you found your three network stations; if you were in a major metro area, you might have also had a fuzzy, low-power public broadcasting station.

But the upper dial tantalized us with the promise of oh so much more — for that is where channels 14 through 83 lived. Channel 83! What a magical sound for young ears. Imagine a world with 83 channels! Surely, a world in which kids fly to school on their personal rocket belts and communicate via pocket video telephones.

How many hours did I spend exploring the snowy wasteland of UHF, eager to glimpse the occasional ghostly image from a distant station sent my way by a fluke of solar flare activity from some unknown region and caught momentarily by my antenna like an exotic fish nibbling on a cheap lure? One particularly fine day I was able to watch most of The Beatles’ Help — without sound, and maddeningly blizzarded by static — from a mysterious station three or four states away.

UHF stations were the repository of all the great low-budget TV shows and movies that the “lower 13” channels disdained: the leftover movie serials, monster movies, gumshoe detective thrillers, radioactive mutant alien invasion horror films, and — way past your bedtime — the movies that your parents said were only for mommies and daddies who loved each other very, very much.

* * *

By day, I’m a freelance writer and editor. Way past my bedtime, I’m an aspiring SF writer who had the great good fortune of growing up with two such stations nearby. Although I appreciate and enjoy most forms of SF, thanks to those channels the warmest cockles of my SF-lovin’ heart are devoted to the glorious movie and TV products of the 1950s through the early 1970s.

Partly as a writing exercise, partly as an homage, I have created Channel 37 as a place to re-create my ideal UHF channel of my youth: a place where, by simply turning the dial, I can once again find the clunky tinfoil robots, rubber-suit monster menaces, spaceships dangling on strings, and quippy jut-jawed heroes battling it out in front of smoke-filled cardboard sets accompanied by really bad organ and Theremin music.

And maybe, if I stay up late enough, one or two of those mommy-and-daddy movies too.

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We Will Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Station IdentificationProgramming has been on a temporary hiatus while Channel 37’s staff is on vacation in lovely Chicago. However, the staff will be returning tomorrow and will resume our regular broadcast day shortly after our return. Thanks for your patience! We have some great new episodes for you that will have been worth the wait.

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Announcing a New Serial: “They Came from New Jersey!”

Station IdentificationChannel 37 is pleased to announce a new serial for your viewing pleasure: They Came from New Jersey! by Gary Lester, author of Ursula the Yellow, Book One of The Greyrock Chronicles.

Combat hero Colonel Daniel Fitzhugh is given a desk assignment after recovering from serious injuries sustained at the landing at Inchon, Korea. His assignment: oversee development of biological weapons at a secret lab in Nevada. The lab is run by the ex-Nazi scientist, Dr. Herbst Von Zorm . . .

The first installment in this thrilling, spine-tingling new serial is coming soon from the distant reaches of UHF!

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Happy Holidays from Channel 37!

Station IdentificationThe staff of Channel 37 wishes you and yours a very, very happy holiday season!

We will resume our regular programming schedule next Tuesday, with a brand-new installment of the spine-tingling space adventure The Terror from the Other Dimension!

We’re looking forward to bringing you some exciting new programming in 2011, along with the continuing adventures of the stories you’ve already come to know and love. Not only that, but we’re working on an expanded new website, e-books, and much more — all for your viewing pleasure. So stay tuned for a terrific new year here at Channel 37!

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We Will Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

Station IdentificationDue to technical difficulties, we are unable to bring you our regularly scheduled program. We apologize for the inconvenience, but we assure you that we are hard at work to bring you an exciting new serial that we know you’re going to love: The Adventures of Space Repairman!

In the meantime, stay tuned for next week’s regular installment of They Came from New Jersey! over most of these stations.

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New Installment Coming Soon

Station IdentificationWe apologize for the interruption to our regular broadcast schedule, but due to technical difficulties (Paul interjecting here: it’s okay, be honest. It’s due to me running out of time while on the road), Channel 37 will be running today’s installment tomorrow morning. Think of it as tape delay.

We promise it will be worth the wait. Paul will be bringing you the first chapter of a new Space Repairman story titled “The Secret of the Prodigals.” Don’t miss it!

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Please Stand By

Station IdentificationPlease Stand by. We are experiencing technical difficulties.

Do to the Memorial Day Holidays, Balticon, and a chance to see the new Star Trek Movie, our normally scheduled Tuesday morning post will be delayed until Wednesday.

To those who entered our “We’re Stuck” contest, please accept our profound apologies and our hope that your waiting won’t be too anxious.

WE will return to our regularly scheduled programming next week.

Thank you for your patience!

The Channel 37 Staff.

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