A north side view of the current Hecker Pass Highway bridge


I was wondering if you could tell me what’s happening on Highway
152 West between the Gilroy Golf Course and Gilroy Gardens. It
looks like there is some construction to begin. Is this going to
affect traffic from Santa Teresa Boulevard going over the hill to
Watsonville, and if so how long is this going to go on?

“I was wondering if you could tell me what’s happening on Highway 152 West between the Gilroy Golf Course and Gilroy Gardens. It looks like there is some construction to begin. Is this going to affect traffic from Santa Teresa Boulevard going over the hill to Watsonville, and if so how long is this going to go on?”

Dear Curious,

It is always useful to know if construction will be going on, especially if it is your daily route.

“This is a Caltrans project to replace the Uvas Creek Bridge just west of Burchell Road. They will construct the new bridge on the north side of the existing bridge and then shift traffic onto the new bridge, so traffic impacts should be minimal,” said Joe Kline, Gilroy’s public information officer.

Kline said the city has not received a schedule from Caltrans but believes this to be a two-year project. For more information, call Caltrans at (510) 622-5946 or stay tuned to the city’s Web site as the work progresses.

Keep local businesses alive

“I read an article about ENS Concrete doing all the sidewalks in town. I think that’s great; but I think we should use our local guys. I’m not sure if he’s local, but apparently the parent company is DPR, and I see their trucks lurking around all the time. DPR is a huge corporation of construction up in the Bay Area. If that’s the case – I may be wrong – I think we should give first dibs to local guys, keep the local businesses working. Thank you.”

Red Phone:

As with most towns, it is a good idea to keep local businesses thriving and give them more opportunities.

“The contractor in question is EF&S and he is not doing all of the sidewalk repairs. He has done a lot of them, but we do require three bids and he was the low bidder on the jobs he has done,” said Joe Kline.

Kline said that he does not know anything about DPR being in Gilroy.

Clear picture comes easily

“I just finished reading the concerns encountered by Converted. He had installed the converter box but could not get channels 2, 4, 5-CBS, 7-ABC, 9, 8-NBC and 11-NBC. I have a very good outdoor VHF/UHF antenna and had a similar problem. After contacting the stations and following the suggestions on antennaweb.org they suggested I look at my antenna lead/coax cable as it was more than 10 years old and may be defective. They advised that the new digital channels require a shielded coax cable (RG-6) from the antenna to the converter box rather than the old analog coax cable (RG-59) or a twin lead.

“Sure enough – I had the old RG-59 analog coax cable, so I purchased and installed a new RG-6 double shielded coax cable and things got much better. I was able to receive all the channels except channel 5-CBS was still intermittent. In contacting 5-CBS station, they told me that their digital antennas are currently at the bottom of the Sutro Tower and so I may be getting multi-path interference. They said I may be able to resolve this if I raise my antenna 5 to 10 feet or just wait awhile. By September 2009, they intend to re-move their old analog antennas and move their digital antennas to the top of the Sutro Tower which should help.

“I also discovered that I had to upgrade my splitter that feeds three TVs from the old analog 900MHZ splitter to a new digital 2.1 GHZ splitter.

“I now get the best picture quality I’ve ever seen on my old analog TVs.”

Dear Converted and Glad I Did,

Red Phone is overwhelmed with all the techno-lingo, but thanks you for providing other readers with solutions to the problem.

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