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Difficult local stations to receive (pre cable)

cyberdad said:
Where I grew up, 40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, WBBM-TV on channel 2 was freqiemtly problematic....even with a good outdoor antenna. This was not the case at all with the other full power Chicago VHF and UHF stations.

On more than a few occasions, WISN-TV (Channel 12) from Milwaukee (55 miles away) produced a better CBS picture than WBBM-TV. WREX-TV from Rockford, IL (Channel 13) was also sometimes an option.
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I lived in Streamwood (35 miles NW of The Loop) in the late '80s and early '90s, and had nothing but trouble with 2 and 5, even with my big, rotatable antenna. If it wasn't ghosts, it was snow. If the skip was in, fuggedaboutit. The other full-power Chicago stations were perfect. 56 and 62 were slightly snowy but solid, as were the Rockford stations.

As far as the low-powered stations went, 23 Chicago, 30 Plano/Aurora, & 36 Palatine were snowy but watchable. Both 23s (Chicago & Rockford) interfered with each other and required really accurate antenna pointing to avoid it.
 
Growing up in the 1950's and 60's I remember the days of one station off antenna. My grandparents lived in North Central Pa, and at the time you watched WNBF Channel 12 from Binghamton, or nothing. I lived near Williamsport, Pa and we were fortunate to have cable, as i understand one of teh first in the country, Jerrold TV Cable. As I remember we received 4 channels, WFBG channel 10 Altoona, WGAL channel 8 Lancaster, WBRE channel 28, and WILK channel 34 Wilkes Barre, I also remember seeing WHUM Channel 61 out of Reading during their brief period of operation. I also think at one time we received WFIL from Philadelphia as I remember watching American Bandstand.
 
Let's see. In Randolph, MA (about 15 miles south of Boston), we had no problem receiving all of the Boston VHF's WGBH/2, WBZ/4, WHDH and WCVB/5, WNAC/7. The Boston UHF's were pretty strong too (WXNE/25, WSBK/38, WGBX/44 and WLVI/56) with the exception of WQTV/68 (broadcasting from the Pru) and Worcester's Channel 27 (WSMW-TV). The Blue Hills were a major issue for us South Suburbanites. Channels 10 and 12 from Providence were locals. On the other hand, New Bedford's Channel 6 (WTEV and WLNE) signal from Tiverton, RI was spotty at best.

Back in the late 60's WJZB-TV (Channel 14) in Worcester was not very strong at all. Then again, it only operated 90 minutes a day to keep the license active. Same with WXPO-TV/50 (Manchester/Lowell). They only operated for 6 months between 1969 and 1970. WMUR-TV (Channel 9) in Manchester, NH was there, all but snowy. WMTW-TV (Channel 8 from Mt. Washington, NH) was also there if you had a good antenna. Not bad for nearly 200 miles away!
 
cyberdad said:
Where I grew up, 40 miles northwest of downtown Chicago, WBBM-TV on channel 2 was freqiemtly problematic....even with a good outdoor antenna. This was not the case at all with the other full power Chicago VHF and UHF stations.

On more than a few occasions, WISN-TV (Channel 12) from Milwaukee (55 miles away) produced a better CBS picture than WBBM-TV. WREX-TV from Rockford, IL (Channel 13) was also sometimes an option.
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When I lived in Rockford, we could pick up some of the out-to-town stations...Madison was the easiest (55 miles to the north), while Milwaukee and Chicago were harder, depending on the station and location. The apartment building in which my grandmother lived in had a master-antenna system, and the only out-to-town stations picked up were Madison's WISC and Chicago's WGN. WISC's picture was always staticky, but was viewable, while WGN's picture was often snowy...it was only the summer when their signal was somewhat-clearer. WHA, PBS in Madison, also had a snowy-but-visible picture, but my grandma didn't watch much PBS, so it didn't matter much.

Some friends of my mother's lived in the north of downtown Rockford, and I remember one of them watching something on WMTV (Madison's NBC affiliate), and the signal was perfect.
 
Before 1955 we lived about 60 miles from Pittsburgh Pa. and after 1955, we lived about 60 miles from Detroit Mi. No station came in clearly.
 
In the 80's, before it moved production facilities to Stamford, WEDW-49 had studios at Fairfield University. But despite operating at "1.95 megawatts peak visual, 195 kilowatts aural" (from CPTV's sign-off), their transmitter is located on Booth Hill Road in Trumbull. Down here in Cos Cob that resulted in a snowy picture. Then again we didn't have a rotor or an amplifier at our house. The only CT stations with any reception would be WTXX-20 (fair) WTNH-8 (Good).
 
Michael Bayus said:
Before 1955 we lived about 60 miles from Pittsburgh Pa. and after 1955, we lived about 60 miles from Detroit Mi. No station came in clearly.
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I lived about 60 miles north of Detroit in the late 1980's and there were at least a dozen stations that came
in clearly with a halfway decent antenna.

My dad has a place about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. Despite being on a mountaintop he can
get only one station since the DTV conversion.
 
FreddyE1977 said:
I lived about 60 miles north of Detroit in the late 1980's and there were at least a dozen stations that came
in clearly with a halfway decent antenna.
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Did that number include only Detroit channels, or does that also include stations from Flint / Saginaw / Bay City and Sarnia?
 
Going as best I can from memory...

2,4,7, 20 and 50 from Detroit. 5, 12, 25, 28 and 49 from Baycitysaginawmidlandflint.
42 and some other high-end UHF channel (57 I think? in French) from Canada.
 
We moved to Flint Mi. from Grindstone Pa. in 1955, and if memory serves, WJBK channel 2, and WWJTV Channel 4, and WXYZ channel 7 came in badly with a lot of pink noise (don't know about the picture since I am blind,) WNEM Channel 5 didn't have any static, but my dad always said that the picture was snowie, and I remember that we had to unplug an "airial" and pluge in another one to get WJIM channel 6. I remember once when our antenna blue down, but I could still hear WJRT channel 12. Again, I couldn't say about the picture. We didn't have a UHF converter, so I was glad when we got Cable in 1965 or 66, so I could watch WKBD channel 50.
As I post this, I remember watching coverage of the deth of Pope Pious XII in 1958 on channel 7, and my dad remarking that is was better since it moved from Northfield to southfield broadcast house.
 
I spent a lot of time at my aunt and uncle's house in the late 50's to mid 60's. They lived in Naugatuck CT about 30 mi SW of Hartford and 70 mi or so NE of NYC. They got a clear CBS on Ch 3 Hartford and ABC from Ch 8 New Haven (from 20 mi or so). They had a set top converter box that couldn't pull in a much weaker (at the time) NBC Channel 30 also from the Hartford area. I remember watching Ch 4 from NYC for the NBC stuff definitely not a perfect picture. But my uncle was mainly interested in the NFL games on CBS and an occasional Yankee and Met game from the NYC indies. But the cousins and I spent a lot of time outside and TV watching was mainly at night.
I remember they even got Ch 6 from the Albany area-90+ mi w/ a snowy but watchable picture.
 
When WPGH resumed broadcasting in early '74 the signal was hard to pick up, but by the following July it came out much clearer. WPTT, after it signed on four years later, was a different story, especially when I wanted to see The Three Stooges.
 
Re KML's post #32-I don't think WATR was an NBC affiliate in the early 60's; for some reason i remember watching ch 4 NYC from Naugatuck Ct.
 
We lived just outside of Rochester, NY...growing up in the early 60s we had two local channels (WROC ch. 5 and WHEC ch. 10) that came in consistently well. On the west side, the only other station we could get was WKBW ch. 7 out of Buffalo, which was a bit snowy but watchable and was the only fulltime ABC station in the state west of Albany. Moved to a hilltop house a few miles southeast of town in '63; by that time we had a third full power local (WOKR ch. 13) that blasted in just as well as the others...but WROC had moved up to ch. 8 in a reshuffle of the upstate VHF band that made 7 in Buffalo more of a challenge although a good selective set would still pick up a watchable signal if you pointed the rabbit-ears well. The good news about the hilltop location was, that same rabbit-ears also now picked up WGR ch.2 and WBEN ch. 4 from Buffalo, and WSYR ch.3
and WHEN ch. 5 from Syracuse, all with good clarity. (We'd have probably seen WNYS ch. 9 from Syracuse as well, if local channels 8 and 10 didn't squeeze it into the noise.) UHF was a dead band even from the hilltop until locals WXXI ch. 21 and WUHF ch. 31 signed on.

(Never knew then, that my resume would one day include the radio sister stations of several of those outlets, specifically chs. 4, 5, 7 and 21.)
 
Here, we had WCTP 36 in the early 90s ('92-'93). For a few months when they started, they were not on the Charleston cable. Columbia also had this problem until the 80s. You had WIS 10, the NBC monster that covered most of the state in analog, and then two lower powered UHFs, WNOK (WLTX) and WOLO. They did not have the power of WIS.

They didn't have the signal in the outlying areas, so WIS dominated television in the rural counties surrounding Columbia.
 
I remember my parents buying a new GE color TV in 1967 with mediocre UHF results with Boston U's from Salem, Mass though VHF from Boston, Providence,
New Bedford, Manchester, NH and even Mt. Washington and Portland were good to excellent. When I returned from Florida in the mid 70's they had bought another new GE color set and I was amazed at the improvement of UHF tuners. The Boston UHF stations were now of the same quality as the VHF's, though there were also signal improvements at the transmission end. With the same Channel Master Crossfire antenna and rotor. WSBE and WSMW suddenly appeared.
S/R of UHF tuner improvement was mandated along with similar detent tuning to match VHF tuners by Congress.
Anyone ever wonder why TV's were called TV SETS???? They did not come in multiple pieces like a living room, bedroom or kitchen set.
 
How was your reception of channel 11 of Durham, NH and channels 6 and 13 from Portland, ME? I figured you'd get at least a hint of channel 8 from Mount Washington, NH. Did channel 3 from Hartford ever pop in on a night with enhanced tropo?
 
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