MTCO Communications 220 N. Menard Street Metamora, IL 61548

Serving Metamora & Germantown Hills

Magazine

January 2013

A Community Publication Provided By MTCO Communications

WIN $100 PRIZE Community Photo Contest

Details Inside

Living The Life Of

ENTER BY

JANUARY 7th

Out with the old and in with the new they always say. This year is no different when it comes to your entertainment and safety for your family. Here at MTCO, we equip your family or business with all of the latest technology to give you the best entertainment per dollar you can get. Our digiMAX service allows you to get the latest technology in Internet, Television and Voice technologies all installed by our local professional team of entertainment technicians. We have been here providing local service to Germantown Hills and Metamora for over 67 years! We must be doing something right, and we are always working hard to keep that trust we’ve earned over the years in our community.

We started some new things in this issue. Every so often we will be featuring a customer that uses our services. There is no better way to show you how great MTCO can be than to let our customers tell you about it. We hope you will enjoy these new features throughout the coming year in Connected Magazine.

Starting with this issue on our Entertainment and Technology page, we will be providing information about the many exciting services we provide along with tips on how to use them easily. These articles will be designed to show you the robust

features our services offer your household and business to make life more entertaining. We are your local entertainment experts, and we want you to be experts in using our fun and easy services. If you are not a customer of MTCO, we invite you to come join our ever growing family of customers we have. Because we work, live and play here locally, we understand the needs of this area and we always strive to improve. From our local weather channel to this local community magazine, we have proved to be here for you over and over. What other service company do you know that goes to these great measures to make your life better? None! MTCO is the clear choice for you to use.

MTCO’s Connected Magazine is hosting our 2nd Annual Winter Themed Community Photo Contest. It was great to see all of the local pictures that were submitted last year. We had pictures sent in from all ages and from all talent levels. So dig up some winter pictures from the past or take some new ones and get them submitted to us by January 7, 2013. Your picture could be the February Calendar picture shared with everybody in the entire community.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

President & CEOGlenn Rauh

Vice President & CFOAnn Dickerson

Wireless Operations Manager Editor - Connected MagazineBob Becraft

Marketing Manager Editor - Connected MagazineKip DuBois

Copyright 2013 MTCO Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

Connected Magazine is published monthly by MTCO Communications with corporate office located at 220 North Menard Street, Metamora, Illinois, 61548. The publication is intended for use of the residents of Metamora and Germantown Hills.

No article in this issue or any part of this publication may be reproduced without the expressed written permission of the Publisher.

For more information about this magazine, or for additional copies, contact Bob Becraft or Kip DuBois at 309-367-4197 or connected@mtco.com.

If you have questions or concerns regarding your services, please contact our Customer Service Representatives at (309)367-4197 or 800-859-6826.

Our first Featured Customer article regarding digiMAX services. A picture of their big screen television tuned to digiMAX channel 410 that was showing a Metamora Redbirds volleyball game in crystal clear HD. These games and others brought to you by MTCO’s Redbird Replay with digiMAX Sports.

On The Cover:

For more information about our services, please visit www.mtco.com or scan this QR code with your smart phone.

MTCO Communications 220 N. Menard Street

Metamora, Illinois 61548 309-367-4197

Happy New Year To All Of Our Friends and Family!

Community Photo Contest sponsored by digiMAX

1. Submit an original winter themed photograph of today and yesterday taken in the Metamora area by e-mail to connected@mtco.com, or mail to our office in Metamora. Photo must be received by January 7, 2013. Include name, address, and telephone number with description of photo.

2. The winning photo will be determined by MTCO and published in the February 2013 Calendar of Connected Magazine. The winner will also receive a $100 VISA Card!

3. Top three photos will be displayed on our website at www.mtco.com along with more detailed rules - GOOD LUCK!

WIN $100 PRIZEENTER BY JANUARY 7th

EntErtainmEnt & tEchnology

Keep up with Entertainment and Technology news. Add MTCO to your Facebook and Twitter groups and visit www.mtco.com and click on “MTCO News” on the right section of the webpage.

King Of Late Night Coming To Turner Classic MoviesFor 30 years, Johnny Carson ruled the airwaves as the “King of Late Night TV,” delighting generations of fans with his sparkling wit, his impeccable comic timing and, most of all, his engaging interview style. Next summer, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will unveil Carson on TCM, a new showcase of memorable interviews from Carson’s three decades as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

TCM has licensed 50 interviews from the Carson Entertainment Group archives, including chats with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Many of the interviews have not aired since they first premiered.

Carson on TCM will kick off as five-interview showcases, then air as single-interview interstitials highlighting stars whose films are featured on the network.

Featured digiMAX CustomerFor our first Featured Customer story on a local digiMAX customer, we visit Rod at his home in Germantown Hills. As pictured on the front cover, the focus point is the big screen television with a home entertainment sound system installed around the room giving it a nice clear crisp cinematic experience.

To energize his entertainment area, Rod utilizes a unique home system setup that maximizes digital

technology to its fullest. This system picks up where digiMAX service is handed off to an Octava Video Matrix Swtich in Rod’s media center room in the basement. The Matrix Swtich has four HDMI input and four HDMI outputs to directly feed four different TV locations throughout the home. The Switch is also hooked up to a whole home audio system, Blu-ray player and a USB Hard Drive that stores movies. Through the use of an RF remote control, TV

functionality and access to the hard drive can be utilized by any TV. A Smart Phone can also be used to control the Blu-ray player and audio system if desired.

Why did Rod and his wife choose digiMAX? “We’re IT professionals that work from home and we move lots of data. We had MTCO’s DSL for over 10 years and it was always a reliable service so we wanted to continue with MTCO.” He also stated that he has received great help from MTCO’s local phone tech support team. They are also connected throughout the home via wireless for their laptops, iPads, and Tablets.

Their favorite digiMAX feature? “We are sports enthusiasts. Our favorite and most heavily used feature is using the DVR service to record and to pause live TV” said Rod.

Are you a digiMAX customer that would like to be featured in an upcoming issue of Connected Magazine? To be considered, send us your name and telephone number to connected@mtco.com.

digiMAX TV c u s t o m e r s who do not c u r r e n t l y subscribe to

HBO® and Cinemax® will be able to watch this suite of channels FREE for four days starting at 9:00 a.m. Friday, January 11, 2013 through midnight, Monday, January 14, 2013.

This Free Preview includes the main channel plus plex channels like HBO Family, HBO2, HBO Comedy, ActionMAX, 5StarMAX and WMAX. The HBO® and Cinemax® suite of channels are in the 600 to 614 range in digital and in HD beginning with channel 700. Check your digiMAX on-screen Guide for shows and air times.

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8th Grader To Perform In The Orange Bowl Half-Time Show

Emily Veatch, an 8th grader at Germantown Hills Middle School, will perform with twelve additional members of Kim’s Academy of Dance (Peoria, IL) during the 2013 Orange Bowl halftime show in Miami, Florida on January 1.

Their dance was choreographed by Cris Judd, who has danced with and choreographed music for celebrities like Michael Jackson and Jennifer Lopez.

M-GH Junior Woman’s ClubThe GFWC Illinois Metamora-Germantown Hills Junior Woman’s Club will meet on Monday, January 28, at the Germantown Hills Fire Department. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. The business meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m.

The General Federation of Women’s Clubs, one of the world’s largest and oldest women’s volunteer community service organizations, was founded in 1890 and is headquartered in Washington, DC. GFWC has more than 100,000 members in affiliated clubs in every state and over a dozen countries.

Any woman 18 years and older residing in the Metamora Township High School area is welcome to visit the meeting. For membership information, call Kathleen Tryala, membership chairman at 383-4090, or Donna Cross, president, at 383-4843, or visit them online at www.mghjwc.org.

Fiber-Optics Play in Our CommunityIn the fall of 2012 MTCO conducted an initial survey to the Coal Bank Road/Whitehorse Trail area in Metamora and the Woodland Knolls/Forrest Drive area

in Germantown Hills to gauge interest in MTCO deploying a cutting-edge Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH) network to their home. We are excited to announce that the Woodland Knolls/Forrest Drive area will be the first area to be considered for FTTH expansion.

MTCO will be in contact with these Germantown Hills residents in early 2013 to pre-subscribe customers. If we receive a strong level of commitment we will begin deployment of this brand new Fiber infrastructure!

FTTH “future-proofs” residents’ homes with a high capacity, Fiber-Optic connection. Residents will experience clarity, speed and reliability that only digiMAX FTTH can deliver, and it opens the door for demanding TV and Internet applications on the horizon.

Research from RVA & Associates found that FTTH adds approximately $5000.00 to the value of a home as fiber is becoming a crucial pat of a buyer’s decision.

In Our Community

Redbird Roundball ClassicCatch all the hoops action at the 2nd Annual Redbird Roundball Classic that will be held Thursday, January 17, 2013 - Saturday, January 19, 2013. Here is the schedule of games:

Thursday, January 17 6:00pm Peoria Central vs Peoria Notre Dame 7:30pm Metamora vs Limestone

Friday, January 18 6:00pm Peoria Notre Dame vs Limestone 7:30pm Central vs Metamora

Saturday, January 19 5:00pm Central vs Limestone 6:30pm Peoria Notre Dame vs Metamora

Metamora games from the Roundball Classic will be broadcast in HD the following week on the MTCO Local digiMAX channel 410 (digital channel 400). Visit www.mtco.com for updated scheduling or check your digiMAX on-screen Guide.

Do you have some community news to share with the residents of Metamora and Germantown Hills? Send it to connected@mtco.com, or mail it to us at

220 N. Menard St., Metamora, IL 61548Attn: Connected Magazine.

FIRST RoboticsAlmost every evening during January and February in the Metamora High School Career & Technical Education Wing, you can see a group of about 56 students hard at work. Whether it be in the metal shop, the programming room, electrical lab, or the marketing/administration room, these students are all hard at work towards a common goal of building a robot for the school’s robotics team.

The MARS/WARS (Metamora Area Robotics Students) team is a part of a program called FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), and participates more specifically in the FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) division. Through the course of the six week FRC build season, teams construct a robot that will compete towards a certain task in a set amount of time.

This past year, the 2012 MARS/WARS team competed in its rookie season. The theme was Rebound Rumble, where two alliances of three teams each competed by using their robot to make as many basketball shots as possible in the course of a 2 minute and 15 second period. MARS/WARS, in an alliance with Team 2628 (Wave Robotics) and Team 67 (The Hot Team) placed 2nd in their division at the World Championships.

The new game for this year will be announced to over 4,000 FIRST teams worldwide all at the same time on Saturday, January 5th, 2013. The MARS/WARS FIRST Team 4143 will then be hosting an open house on Saturday, February 9th, 2013 from 10:00 AM until Noon in the Metamora High Career & Technical Education Wing. This event is open to the public, and community members are welcome to attend. Please come and enjoy viewing the prototype of this year’s robot! If you are interested in finding out more visit the MARS/WARS website at: www.MarsWars.org

Quickly check current local weather conditions. When viewing this forecast window, press the green button for 5-day forecast.*

View recent home phone calls and listen to voice mail messages...all while sitting in front of your TV! (if subscribed to MTCO CallerID & Voice Mail)

Access MyApps. While in the Guide, you can also press the yellow button to perform a program title search to list all shows with the highlighted title.

While in the Guide, press the blue button to show only channels that you are currently subscribed to.

*For a more detailed weather forecast and national/midwest/local radars, go

to digiMAX myWeather Channel 401 (channel 411 in HD).

If you have not yet used these shortcuts on your digiMAX remote control, here is a quick overview of

one section of the remote.

Press one of the four colored buttons on your remote control to quickly

perform various functions:

• SELECT Package has 35 more channels than cable’s family basic digital package

• Upgrade to EXPANDED package for $10/mo. more for 36 more channels + 41 DMX music channels

Triple Play Safety Triple Play Double Play

$117/mo*

• 110 TV channels• Internet

• Voice(500 Free LongDistance Minutes,

Calling Feature Package, E911)

$109/mo*

• 110 TV channels• Internet

• Voice Safety Line(E911 & Inbound Calls Only)

$99/mo*

• 110 TV channels• Internet

starting at starting at starting at

A&E Network*ABC Family*ABC News NowAMC*Animal Planet*BBC America*BBC WorldBETBig Ten Network*Biography Channel*Bravo*Cartoon Network*ChillerClooCMTCNBC*CNBC WorldCNN*CNN Headline News (HLN)*Comcast SportsNet Chicago*Comcast SportsNet Chicago+*Comedy Central*Crime & Investigation*C-SpanC-Span2C-Span3Destination America*Discovery Channel*

Military ChannelMilitary HistoryMSNBC*MTCO Local Channel*MTCO myWeather Channel*MTVMTV2Mun2National Geographic*NBC Sports Network*NFL Network*NickelodeonNoggin (Nick Jr.)OWNOxygen*QVCScience Channel*ShopNBCSpeed*Spike TVStyle*Syfy*TBNTBN–Church ChannelTBN–Enlace USATBN–JCTV (Music Videos)TBN–Smile of a ChildTBS*

TLC*TNT*Travel Channel*TruTV*Turner Classic Movies*TV LandUSA Network*VH1WAOE 59 – MNT MyNWAOE—Antenna TVWCPX ION LifeWCPX ION PeoriaWCPX ION QuboWeather ChannelWEEK 25–NBC*WGN AmericaWHOI 19-ABC*WHOI-ABC The CWWMBD 31–CBS*WTVP 47-PBS*WTVP PBS CreateWTVP PBS WorldWYZZ 43–FOX*WYZZ FOX TCNAvailable only in HD:Palladia MTV* Velocity*

Discovery Fit & HealthDisney*Disney Jr.Disney XD (Toon Disney)*E!*ESPN*ESPN ClassicESPN U*ESPN2*ESPNNEWS*EWTN-Catholic ChannelFood Network*Fox News Channel*Fox Sports Midwest*FX*G4*Golf Channel*Hallmark Channel*HGTV*History Channel*H2 (History International)*HSNHub*InspirationInvestigation Discovery*Lifetime Movie Network*Lifetime Real WomenLifetime Television*

SELECT

*Upgrade 64 channels to HD with HD Set Top Box!

BET GospelBET J (Centric)BloombergBoomerangCMT Pure CountryCNNICooking ChannelDIYDMX – 41 Music ChannelsFox Business*

Fox College Sports AtlanticFox College Sports CentralFox College Sports PacificFox MovieFox Soccer ChannelFuel TVGreat American CountryHallmark MovieIFC*LOGO

MTV HitsMTV JamsMTV Tr3sMTV UNational Geo Wild*Nick 2Nicktoons NetworkOutdoor Channel*PBS Kids SproutRFD

Tennis Channel*soapNETSportsman ChannelThe N (Teen Flick)VH1 ClassicVH1 SoulWealth TV

*Available in HD

EXPANDED (includes all channels in SELECT)

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FREE HD Set TopBox to first TV!*

2nd & each additional TV:Digital $5/moHD $10/mo

DVR Service toone TV $9/mo

Pause live TV, playback & record

Whole-HomeDVR Service $14/moRecord in 1 room & watch in

others with 1 DVR

FREE Equipment with DVR & Pause Live TV Service

1-yr. Agreement

• FREE Install up to 4TV’s & 1 computer*

• FREE Wireless Gateway

• FREE CallerID on your TV

• ESSENTIALS locals only channel package also available

• Add UNLIMITED LONG DISTANCE for only $5/mo!

HD Pack ($3/mo.): MGM / Smithsonian / Universal (HD Set Top Box required for HD Pack)

HBO $16/mo.HBO*HBO 2*HBO Comedy*HBO Family*HBO LatinoHBO SignatureHBO Zone*

Showtime $13/mo.FLIXShoNext*Sho2* (east/ west)Showtime* (east/west)Showtime Beyond*Showtime Extreme*Showtime Family (east/west)Showtime Showcase*Showtime WomenMovie Channel* (east/west)TMC Extra

Cinemax $13/mo.@MAX5StarMAX*ActionMAX *Cinemax* MoreMAX* OuterMAXThrillerMAX*WMAX

Packages include 41 DMX Music Channels!

2Pak—Your choice of 2: Showtime, Starz/Encore or Cinemax for $23HBO+1—HBO + your choice of either Showtime, Starz/Encore or Cinemax for $263Pak—Showtime, Starz/Encore and Cinemax for $33HBO+2—HBO + choose two from Showtime, Starz/Encore or Cinemax for $36Everything Pak—HBO, Showtime, Starz/Encore and Cinemax for $46

Starz/Encore $13/mo.Starz* (east/west)Starz CinemaStarz Comedy*Starz Edge*Starz in BlackStarz Kids & Family*Encore(east/west)* Encore FamilyEncore Action Encore Westerns Encore Drama Indieplex* Encore Love Retroplex*Encore Suspense Movieplex

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*Channels available in HD

Hispanic Tier ($5/mo.): ESPN Deportes / Telemundo / Discovery en Espanol / Discovery Familia / CNN en Espanol / Fox Sports en Espanol / History en Espanol