Difficult local stations to receive (pre cable)

[chrish]

WMUR, WENH and the old 50 WXPO were always excellent (noise free), WMTW was slightly snowy WCSH and WGAN had a bit of snow but were very watchable.
WTIC (3) was a very rare show. With todays excellent high gain low noise amps and preamps the results would have probably been flawless. Channel two with limited WGBH program schedule at the time brought a plethora of viewing. With the antenna turned NNE it was often WLBZ in Bangor, to the SSW often WCBS especially at night. The real joy was having breakfast with my little brothers almost every summer morning watching WESH Daytona Beach-Orlando until WGBH came on at 11 AM (on rabbit ears). My brothers are still in awe and bring it up every time they return from a trip to Orlando. KYTV 3 Springfield, MO and WRBL 3 Colombus, GA were also morning visitors at our house in Salem on most summer mornings. Best catch on the GE B&W summer porch TV on rabbit ears and UHF loop was KMEG 14 Sioux City Iowa. I still have the stations verification letters. for WESH in Massachusetts it was a daily summer occurence though sometimes with other co-channel fading. My mom often said it such a beautiful day, go outside and play (no play dates back then) I thought to myself to hell with that!!!
I'm staying right here, I had never been to Florida or Georgia and this was the next best thing.

 

[KML0224]

I used to get the e-skip signals all of the time, with my first catch being WCBD-TV channel 2 from Charleston, SC. This is while I lived in Old Orchard Beach, ME back in 1986. I saw a car commercial, so I just assumed it was a distant signal of WLBZ-TV (NBC) channel 2 of Bangor. The I saw the signal pattern changing and saw the word "CHARLESTON". I freaked out!

As for WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford, I got it very faintly in O.O.B. in the wee hours of a June morning in 1987. There was almost no picture, but there WAS some sound in between the noise. I could clearly hear the voice of Jeffrey Cole, who was the anchor of channel 3's 6:30 AM news at the time. As soon as it hit 7 AM, the faint signal went away and I had to leave for school.

As for local reception, I had a 13" Curtis Mathes TV with the 12 thumb wheels on the right to tune local stations. Sometimes, I would use the telescoping rods the set came with or I would have an old Archer indoor antenna attached. The only two which were perfect most of the time were WCSH-TV (NBC) channel 6 of Portland and WMTW-TV (ABC) channel 8 of Poland Spring (back when the transmitter was on Mount Washington, NH). WGME-TV (CBS) channel 13 of Portland was OK most of the time. For some reason, my location was quite problematic for UHF reception. If there was enough wind, the signals of WMEA-TV (PBS) channel 26 of Biddeford and WPXT-TV (now CW) channel 51 of Portland would fade in and out. Channels 10 from Augusta and channel 11 of Durham, NH were there, but not usually enough to see either one clearly. I would also get faint signals from channels 4 and 5 from Boston at least twice a week, around the time of the local news and the talk shows. Lastly, the old channel WNHT-TV channel 21 of Concord, NH popped in like once a week, back in their independent days.