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TV Moments in Analog

M

MarioMania

I love watching Out of Market Station in the 80's before we got Cable in Pacifica, CA :(

One of my memories in my room I had the TV set to Ch.13 KOVR I don''t know what I was watching, I think it was Static or something

I would watch the Transformers on both KTVU (2) KRBK (31) Before KQEC (32) came on

KCRA (3), KSBW (8) was a no go cause of KRON (4), KGO (7) & KQED (9)

KNTV (11) was Static at the time, Watching ABC Programs on 3 Channels at the sametime
 
When I was a young child, my local ABC affiliate in Miami, FL would air movies every Friday night and delay the ABC Friday night lineup until early Sunday evening.
The problem was that Sunday afternoon ball games would often run late, so the station would never show the recorded network programs (only so much time is available).
Not knowing what would happen to my favorite Irwin Allen sci-fi's ("The Time Tunnel" was one of them), I would struggle through the West Palm Beach affiliate which ran the network live, fading in and out.
We had a modest (small, low gain) antenna on our first-floor roof but taller buildings were between all the stations and us, plus we were under a flight path...a bad combination.
 
Nice topic, Mario.

I long for the analog days in the 70's when stations would come in on channels other than our local Philly stations.

Many summer nights or mornings, it was New York but sometimes it could be Baltimore or Washington.

When I was 12, my father got me my own TV antenna so I could watch the New York VHF channels all day that were 80 miles away. It was in the attic at first but them we moved it up to the roof and that few feet made a big difference.

During the midday, the stations were still 'snowy' but still watchable.

When the conditions were right, they would be as clear as the local stations.

When there was E-Skip, the New York channels 2, 4, and 5 were completely wiped out by channels from places like Florida, the Midwest, Canada.

For some reason, channel 2 from Miami was by far the most common station during E-Skip events and sometimes it was crystal clear too.

At that age, I couldn't understand why my friends didn't share the same fascination with pulling in distant TV stations.
 
I long for the analog days in the 70's when stations would come in on channels other than our local Philly stations.
Click to expand...

I've had that even in the digital age. Couple years ago when I lived in Northern MN I was able to get KEYC CBS12 (RF12) at 175 miles over my local CBS (KCCW 12 RF12).
 
ai4i said:
I would struggle through the West Palm Beach affiliate which ran the network live, fading in and out.
We had a modest (small, low gain) antenna on our first-floor roof but taller buildings were between all the stations and us, plus we were under a flight path...a bad combination.
Click to expand...

Good luck getting adjacent market stations in Houston to watch pre-empted network programming. Beaumont is close if you're on the East side of Houston, but SOL if you are in the majority who lives on the West side. Texas is very big state and the closest markets west of Houston are San Antonio and Austin, which are about double the distance to Beaumont.

The most recent example is KPRC-TV pre-empting Passions back around the turn of the century. But pre-emptions are rare these days since it's now a Top 10 market (Houston was #11 and became #10 about a decade ago. It was recently bumped up to #8.). The in-town affiliates (CBS and NBC) are run more like O&Os these days when it comes to scheduling (the other network stations are O&Os).

hawaiigar said:
Nice topic, Mario.

I long for the analog days in the 70's when stations would come in on channels other than our local Philly stations.

Many summer nights or mornings, it was New York but sometimes it could be Baltimore or Washington.

When I was 12, my father got me my own TV antenna so I could watch the New York VHF channels all day that were 80 miles away. It was in the attic at first but them we moved it up to the roof and that few feet made a big difference.

During the midday, the stations were still 'snowy' but still watchable.

When the conditions were right, they would be as clear as the local stations.

When there was E-Skip, the New York channels 2, 4, and 5 were completely wiped out by channels from places like Florida, the Midwest, Canada.

For some reason, channel 2 from Miami was by far the most common station during E-Skip events and sometimes it was crystal clear too.

At that age, I couldn't understand why my friends didn't share the same fascination with pulling in distant TV stations.
Click to expand...

Here in Texas, pulling in distant TV stations could be well near impossible unless Tropo or E-skip kicks in. You're stuck with what your local affiliate will dish out. Distances between cities are greater here in the Western half of the U.S. than in the East.
 
When I lived in Tampa after all we had was DTV, I couldn't even get any of the Orlando DTV stations.

Maybe I didn't have a good antenna but it was one of those flat square ones which also had a booster that plugged in.

I was only on the 1st floor, so that may have been a factor too but the old analog Orlando stations often came in even on the ground floor with rabbit ears.
 
Most of my early childhood was spent smack-dab in the middle between South Bend and Fort Wayne, Indiana, 2 UHF markets. I don't remember much in the way of DX then. We moved to Western Ohio where the typical setup included a VHF antenna aimed toward Dayton for 2 and 7, a UHF antenna pointedto Fort Wayne and a smaller UHF antenna aimed at Lima. Our pole wasn't as tall as it should have been, so Fort Wayne had a bit of snow. If the band opened up, Cincinnati would come in. It was easy to get some reception of Columbus, Indianapois and Louisville. I don't have my logs from that time but I remember reception of Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and even Wausau, WI. Then there was the e-skip, mostly from the south including Cuba.
 
gr8oldies said:
Most of my early childhood was spent smack-dab in the middle between South Bend and...
Click to expand...
Are you aware that channel twenty-two was a pioneering UHF TV station?
That was at a time when UHF stations were struggling, ²/3 into the twentieth century.
First in the United States to reach one megawatt.
First in the United States to reach five megawatts.
First in the market with full local color facilities.
 
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I shocked no one else has Stories on Analog TV

I really wish I knew about E-Skip or Tropo in the 80's, or having a Video Camera & a Camera

The only thing I know the Stations came like in Sacramento TV & Radio came in Good from Pacifica, Except KCRA 3, It was blocked by KRON 4
 
I discovered TV DX before radio DX, thanks to occasionally getting WTMJ 4 late on summer nights and 13 from Rockford, Indianapolis or Grand Rapids, depending on conditions, in the late 1960s in the southwest suburbs of Chicago.

The first large-scale tropo outbreak I caught was the morning of Inauguration Day 1969. It was a classic temperature inversion and VHF and UHF were jammed with stations. Milwaukee, Madison, Rockford, South Bend in and mostly full quieting on my b/w Zenith in my bedroom. Might have been others as well. I was amazed. Had no technical idea why it happened for a couple years but figured the inversion was key. I had to go to school so couldn’t track how long it lasted but I was hooked.

E-skip came along later. Regulars included Channel 3s in Miles City, Mont., Portales, N. Mex., WWL 4 in New Orleans, WOAI/KMOL 4 in San Antonio, and a Cuban on 4. Channel 6 in Miami was a really good catch. I’d have to dig out the old list, but on e-skip mad night at 7 p.m. I caught an audio ID was WCBS 2 over WBBM video by holding the rabbit ears on my Sony just so, then a station ID unremembered on 3, then a KOA 4 Denver ID in color, all within a few seconds. Tough to top that hat trick of IDs.

The toughest VHF channel for me was 8. Took great conditions to get WOOD Grand Rapids on any TV in the house, yet WKZO 3 was semi-regular on the TV hooked to the old roof antenna thanks to being somewhat in the direction of downtown.

Eventually put up a tower for a better shot at blacked-out Bears games, which helped UHF DX (and soon graduated to C-band satellite TV), but the rabbit ears era was great fun.
 
Analog TV DX came too late for me, being late in gen X. But I was able to hear (on 87.75) three channel 6's via Es in analog (KRMA on their nightlight service, along with XETV and CBWT), and with XHAQ-5 Mexicali before everything went bye-bye.
With nothing left in analog anywhere on VHF, and DTV VHF being as sparse as it is, I focus just about entirely on FM e-skip DX and last year it was incredible. One opening netted 42 new stations from NM, CO, TX, OK, etc.
 
Another interesting thing about analog TV was when e skip would start out on channel 2 and then spread up to channel 6.

If our local channel 6 from Philadelphia was being taken over, that was a sign it was time to get out the radio and check the FM band.
 
crainbebo said:
Analog TV DX came too late for me, being late in gen X. But I was able to hear (on 87.75) three channel 6's via Es in analog (KRMA on their nightlight service, along with XETV and CBWT), and with XHAQ-5 Mexicali before everything went bye-bye.
With nothing left in analog anywhere on VHF, and DTV VHF being as sparse as it is, I focus just about entirely on FM e-skip DX and last year it was incredible. One opening netted 42 new stations from NM, CO, TX, OK, etc.
Click to expand...
When you got 3 Ch 6's why didn't you check on the TV?
 
Tropo was a regular event in the Chicago area when I was young. As tvnut mentioned Rockford, Milwaukee, and Grand Rapids were around often. My first intro to e-skip was Miami, Fl in 1964.
 
I had a Grundig G5 radio and we had no working TV antenna. Everything we watched came through Comcast (then Frontier) cable, so there was no need to check analog on the TV. I had access with the Japanese FM option on the G5, to both the ch 5 and ch 6 video/audio offsets.
 
One other thing: The last night of full-power analog TV, the end of the "nightlight" month, I pulled out a 5-inch portable just in case there was some E-skip. There was! In came WPBT-2 Miami, which had always been covered in Chicago by WBBM. One last analog catch for grins.

I know the late Jeff Kadet, who lived in Macomb, which was nearly devoid local of VHF signals, was a whiz at early digital DX but I've never had the right tuner to really go for it. Maybe someday, not that there are UHF channels to spare in Chicago.
 
MarioMania said:
In the 80's. How did people know about E-Skip & Tropo?

Were there like a TV & Radio Club by Mail?
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I can't speak for everyone, but in the area where I lived in the 80s and early 90s, there were a lot of locals with CB mobiles and base stations who were chatting almost every evening (before widespread internet availability, CB communications served some as the "chat rooms" of their time and offered the ability to talk nightly with a host of others in their area). Many of them were also into DXing and other types of radio communication, most also had scanners to pick up repeaters, public safety communications and other chatter and would discuss them often. Since CB radios were also subject to atmospherics and skip, those were also talked about. Regarding your question about "radio clubs", CB'ers from many communities also got together in person on occasion to put faces with handles.

The same may have been true in the ham radio community.

There were also magazine articles about DXing and similar subjects. Have a look at the site @DavidEduardo has put together and you may find some older articles that would interest you:

RADIO and BROADCAST HISTORY library with thousands of books and magazines

World Radio History documents radio and TV broadcasting in an electronic library of books, magazines and publications.
worldradiohistory.com
 
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