Iowa Highway Ends (etc.)

The Union Pacific’s No. 4014, the “Big Boy” steam locomotive, is passing through Iowa on a “Heartland of America” tour.

There are two remaining stops for public view, at Belle Plaine at noon today and Grand Mound at 11 AM tomorrow. However, each stop only lasts 15 minutes! No one can get ON the train, just admire its bigness from 25 feet away, per UP rules.

KCRG had a feature on Belle Plaine’s still-standing-but-not-restored train depot six weeks ago.

(KCRG and all Gray stations have autoplay video but if you scroll past the video, then try to come back up, the video disappears but the sound keeps playing. What’s up with that?)

I guess we’re really not a swing state any more if a major vice-presidential candidate is saying things like this:

“For those not from Minnesota, just to be clear, there’s a lot of great state fairs in the country, this is the best one,” Walz said. “I can say that having tried pork chops in Iowa.”

Well, I guess that’s your opinion, don’tchaknow.

I had an idea fall into my lap, and I didn’t take it. Also, it rained that Monday, the first time it’s rained on me at the fair since 2015.

However, I had a good second idea, and that’s what I went with, interviewing people working at the West Des Moines United Methodist Church’s food stand.

In what appears to be a long-delayed follow-up from a request entered in 2021, KCRG is changing its antenna signal. However, the station is remaining branded as Channel 9 and this only affects antenna users. According to the station’s website, a rescan will be needed on (by?) tomorrow, August 20.

It has something to do with “virtual” channels and a move to UHF Channel 32. I thought this would create an issue with Iowa PBS’s Waterloo station KRIN being Channel 32, but apparently that station is mapped to virtual channel 35.

Frequencies on the VHF/UHF spectrum I can wrap my head around, but “magic box pulling pictures from the air” appears to be what I have to go with in the HDTV era.

Meanwhile, the antenna that I have cannot get KWWL in any position, and this could be a large problem very soon. Stay tuned, as they say. Wait, do they say that anymore?

The Lighthouse Inn supper club on Mount Vernon Road east of Cedar Rapids, a Lincoln Highway landmark, burned to the ground on Wednesday. Stories: Gazette, KCRG.