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Did people formerly use DX TV to beat NFL blackouts?

MattParker said:
Local blackouts apply to Sunday Ticket subscribers in the area, as well. Sunday Ticket packages are helpful if you are in a secondary market and want to see other games (i.e., if you are in Harrisburg, which the Ravens claimed as a secondary market but you follow the Eagles or Steelers), or if you are a transplant and still follow a team from back home. But if your local station is blacked out, so is Sunday Ticket.
Click to expand...

Your local team will be blacked out on Sunday Ticket regardless of whether the game is sold out or not. The local station has priority. If it's sold out, you'll get the game on your local CBS or Fox affiliate, but not on Sunday Ticket. If it's blacked out, you're SOL either way - radio is your friend unless you have a big antenna and can pick up a station that's not in a secondary market.

That's still better than MLB.TV, where your "local" team (meaning possibly all teams within 500 miles, such as Las Vegas) are blacked out whether or not you subscribe to cable. Here in Phoenix, where I subscribe to MLB.TV but don't have cable, I have a choice of radio, radio, and radio for the Diamondbacks. Or go to the game if they're home.
 
I live in the Hartford/New Haven market. In my lifetime, I can't remember a Giants, Jets or Patriots game being blacked out here. We're not a secondary market to any of the teams either, believe it or not (Providence/New Bedford is a secondary market to the Patriots). There is some question as to how close the Portland/Poland Spring market gets to Foxborough, MA. In this case, it would be the distance from Kittery, ME, since once you cross over the bridge into Portsmouth, NH, you're in Rockingham County, NH and the northern tip of the Boston/Worcester market.

When I lived in Old Orchard Beach, ME from 1985 to 1987, I used to get faint signals of channels 4 and 5 from Boston with an indoor antenna at least twice a week. Channel 7 was only once in a rare while.
 
KeithE4 said:
Your local team will be blacked out on Sunday Ticket regardless of whether the game is sold out or not. The local station has priority. If it's sold out, you'll get the game on your local CBS or Fox affiliate, but not on Sunday Ticket. If it's blacked out, you're SOL either way - radio is your friend unless you have a big antenna and can pick up a station that's not in a secondary market.
Click to expand...

One note about having a good antenna for a long distance signal: it's a very different feat to get these signals now that everything is digital. If you get a solid signal, you get a crystal clear HD signal that looks as good as anything anyone will see in the local market. (as opposed to the stuff we've been talking about from the 70s where snowy pictures with or without color were deemed okay) If the signal isn't solid, you'll get breakups and drop outs. If it's just a bit weak, you get nothing.
 
KeithE4 said:
MattParker said:
Local blackouts apply to Sunday Ticket subscribers in the area, as well. Sunday Ticket packages are helpful if you are in a secondary market and want to see other games (i.e., if you are in Harrisburg, which the Ravens claimed as a secondary market but you follow the Eagles or Steelers), or if you are a transplant and still follow a team from back home. But if your local station is blacked out, so is Sunday Ticket.
Click to expand...

Your local team will be blacked out on Sunday Ticket regardless of whether the game is sold out or not. The local station has priority. If it's sold out, you'll get the game on your local CBS or Fox affiliate, but not on Sunday Ticket. If it's blacked out, you're SOL either way - radio is your friend unless you have a big antenna and can pick up a station that's not in a secondary market.

That's still better than MLB.TV, where your "local" team (meaning possibly all teams within 500 miles, such as Las Vegas) are blacked out whether or not you subscribe to cable. Here in Phoenix, where I subscribe to MLB.TV but don't have cable, I have a choice of radio, radio, and radio for the Diamondbacks. Or go to the game if they're home.
Click to expand...

A little off-topic in regards to the MLB.tv blackout policy--Iowa is one of the extreme cases for blackouts there as 6 teams are affected (Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Royals, Twins and Brewers). IIRC think the entire Hawkeye State is blacked out for all those teams (not sure about something like the Cardinals and Chicago teams in the likes of far northwestern Iowa, which is likely to be Twins country).
 
EnbyCee said:
Didn't Browns fans also aim antennas at/drive to Toledo to get around the blackouts? Toledo is JUST out of the blackout range for the Browns, but not out of it for the Lions.....so even though we're a Lions market officially, the Browns were on TV more often between the 70's and 90's.
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I forgot all about Toledo...yes, folks on the west side definitely aimed at Toledo, though I don't know how successful they were at picking up 24...

Cable in Sandusky, a relatively short drive from the western edges of the Cleveland market, carries both Cleveland and Toledo network affiliates to this day.
 
Tim from Springfield said:
A little off-topic in regards to the MLB.tv blackout policy--Iowa is one of the extreme cases for blackouts there as 6 teams are affected (Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Royals, Twins and Brewers). IIRC think the entire Hawkeye State is blacked out for all those teams (not sure about something like the Cardinals and Chicago teams in the likes of far northwestern Iowa, which is likely to be Twins country).
Click to expand...

Looks like southern Nevada is another extreme case. If I'm reading the map in MattParker's MLB link right, they're also blacked out for 6 teams (Athletics, Giants, Dodgers, Angels, Padres and Diamondbacks).
 
In 1995 (ten years after I'd moved to the Baltimore market from the Philly market), an elderly cousin of mine died. Among the things we took from her house (she was a widow) was her portable color TV. That portable color TV came in handy for watching the Eagles through the snow on WTXF Fox 29 Phila. whenever the Birds were on Fox but not on WBFF or WTTG. Don't remember if I watched the Eagles on CBS on that portable, which we later sold in a yard sale or gave away, I forget how we parted with it.

ixnay
 
OhioMediaWatch said:
WTRF/7 Wheeling WV and then-WSTV/9 Steubenville OH were even on local cable in southern parts of the Cleveland market.

Back in the day, I believe 7 was the NBC affiliate and 9 was the CBS affiliate, so Browns fans would have been trying for 7 at the time (NBC had the AFC deal back then).

I know local bars had antennas aimed at Wheeling, and it's not a difficult catch with a rooftop aerial south of Cleveland.

Today, 7 is CBS(/FOX/ABC subchannels) and 9 is NBC, and of course, we're no longer in the analog era. CBS has the AFC contract, and the Browns have been sold out each week since their return in 1999.
Click to expand...

Wheeling is only 55 miles from Pittsburgh.
Wouldn't they have been carrying the Steelers games?
 
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