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It's Here ON TV Sign On-Transition

O

oldtimeradio

http://www.youtube.com/v/s1PgIlSoM5U

See if this link works...I don't know if I can insert HMTL code in here.

This is the sign off of commercial programming and the start up of the pay tv schedule.

The ON TV service in Phoenix started at 7 pm Monday through Saturday and started at 5 pm on Sunday. Two to three movies or events were broadcast followed by an R-rated "Adults Only" movie which was on another programming tier and an extra 4.95? a month.

Later on ON TV went back to movie programming after the Adults Only movie and went for another four hours or so. The transition back to commercial programming was not as dramatic, but the station did run some movies that can only be described as Grade Z. The prints were lousy, barely visable, old, and no big stars.

Enjoy.

Mike
 
Reminds me of the offering in the NY/NJ off-air stations WWHT (one of them was UHF 67 and I think the other was 68 - it's been a long time so I don't remember). They had hosted local programming including Floyd Vivino's "Uncle Floyd Show", a kiddie show with an adult clut following. The scrambled programming was referred to as "Wometco Home Theatre". I was able to pick it up in Southern Connecticut as well.

From what I remember there were people left and right selling decoder kits for the channel so I wasn't surprised they didn't last ... of course, more and more people were going cable at the same time.
 
I don't remember the pay-tv stuff, but I do remember the stations in the music video days. They were channel 67 in Smithtown, NY (Long Island) and channel 68 in Newark, NJ. I used to get a weak and snowy color signal of channel 67 up here just southwest of Hartford.
 
Anyone remember Channel 15's cheesy voice over "good news only" show? 15 minutes of only good news by "Jovial" Jack O'Reilly. Or Elroy "Buzz" Towers?

Or, Edmus Scarey, with the horror show, until he got busted for child molestation, the guy's name was Ed Muscare.

Those were the days...
 
In Eastern Connecticut, we could pick up "Preview" from WSMW-TV 27 in Worcester; "StarCase" from WQTV-68 Boston; and, on the odd night, the aforementioned "WHT The Movie Network" (Wometco) from WWHT. The common denominator of all of them was the shaky prints; the second-run movies; and the perpetual marketing of "adults only" programming in their ads. That, and for the most part, that each of the services was dreadful in its own way.

My dad was a tinkerer and figured out how to make two boxes descramble all these services at once. I was even able to use one of his jury-rigged contraptions to steal -- er, view KWHY's "SelecTv" years later in La-La Land.
 
KML-224 said:
I don't remember the pay-tv stuff, but I do remember the stations in the music video days. They were channel 67 in Smithtown, NY (Long Island) and channel 68 in Newark, NJ. I used to get a weak and snowy color signal of channel 67 up here just southwest of Hartford.
Click to expand...

Ah, U-68 - the local, free version of MTV that was withstandable if you didn't mind seeing more Weird Al videos than usual, and the indefatiguable Bill Roller.

I recall videos actually starting at 11 AM daily on both U68 and U67 but then at noon, for whatever reason, U67 would sign off!

I would gladly pay money to anyone who has old U68 recorded. Heck, do what all the kiddies are doing these days and Youtube it!
 
Mike said:
http://www.youtube.com/v/s1PgIlSoM5U

See if this link works...I don't know if I can insert HMTL code in here.

This is the sign off of commercial programming and the start up of the pay tv schedule.

The ON TV service in Phoenix started at 7 pm Monday through Saturday and started at 5 pm on Sunday. Two to three movies or events were broadcast followed by an R-rated "Adults Only" movie which was on another programming tier and an extra 4.95? a month.

Later on ON TV went back to movie programming after the Adults Only movie and went for another four hours or so. The transition back to commercial programming was not as dramatic, but the station did run some movies that can only be described as Grade Z. The prints were lousy, barely visable, old, and no big stars.

Enjoy.

Mike
Click to expand...

If you had a VCR with the 12 or 14 thumbwheels to set each channel-selector button, it was possible to tune out the sine wave that was superimposed over the video to "scramble" (and I use the term loosely) the picture. No decoder needed. You didn't get sound, but for sports and "adult" programming, it wasn't necessary.

That worked on both ON-TV stations in Chicago - WSNS Ch. 44 (ON-TV movies) and WPWR/WBBS Ch. 60 (the original pre-cable SportsVision that later evolved into SportsChannel and then Fox Sports Net Chicago).
 
KeithE4 said:
Mike said:
http://www.youtube.com/v/s1PgIlSoM5U

See if this link works...I don't know if I can insert HMTL code in here.

This is the sign off of commercial programming and the start up of the pay tv schedule.

The ON TV service in Phoenix started at 7 pm Monday through Saturday and started at 5 pm on Sunday. Two to three movies or events were broadcast followed by an R-rated "Adults Only" movie which was on another programming tier and an extra 4.95? a month.

Later on ON TV went back to movie programming after the Adults Only movie and went for another four hours or so. The transition back to commercial programming was not as dramatic, but the station did run some movies that can only be described as Grade Z. The prints were lousy, barely visable, old, and no big stars.

Enjoy.

Mike
Click to expand...

If you had a VCR with the 12 or 14 thumbwheels to set each channel-selector button, it was possible to tune out the sine wave that was superimposed over the video to "scramble" (and I use the term loosely) the picture. No decoder needed. You didn't get sound, but for sports and "adult" programming, it wasn't necessary.

That worked on both ON-TV stations in Chicago - WSNS Ch. 44 (ON-TV movies) and WPWR/WBBS Ch. 60 (the original pre-cable SportsVision that later evolved into SportsChannel and then Fox Sports Net Chicago).
Click to expand...


I did discover that if you turned the volume on the tv full blast you could hear the sound. You could barely hear it but it was audible. This same thing worked on the other pay movie service in Chicago Spectrum which aired on WFBN (now WGBO TV 66 in Chicago.

The folks at Sportsvision must have figured this out because after a while they started playing a music track that again you could only hear if you turned the tv volume full blast. It was music in English if WPWR was carrying a sportsvision broadcast and in spannish if WBBS was aring sports vision.
 
That was probably "carry over" you were hearing and nothing intentional..

Happens alot on the cable system i am on.....
 
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