When Did You Get Your First UHF TV Set?

[BobbyNBC10]

we got our first UHF set (a Zenith color) around 1964 (also our first color set), but didn't watch UHF until we got a 12-inch b&w sears set in the early 1970s. in the 10 years between that set and cable, i thought that was the golden age of UHF in Detroit (WXON just moved to 20, WKBD been on the air for 5 years. Between 1972-80, we saw in our aera, CKGN(CIII) 22-29, CKCO-42, CICO-32, CBEFT (78-54) and WGPR(WWJ(II)) 62 all sign on in the Detroit area.

Did you also get Toledo, Flint or Lansing-Jackson outlets by any chance?.

 

[Bob1370]

September, 1966, my dad got a set-top UHF converter for use with our 1963-vintage Admiral 21" color set, so we could watch the new public TV station in town, WXXI-TV, the first U in the city. Up until then we were a typical three VHF channel town--NBC on 8, CBS on 10, ABC on 13. I was a high school freshman at the time. Never knew I'd wind up working for their sister news/talk AM--which didn't sign on until 1984.

The signal was pretty good from the start (830 kW ERP). Public TV has grown a lot in Rochester like it has in many places, but from the get-go it offered interesting alternatives with jazz concerts, plays, and public affairs specials that gave you a change of pace from Gilligan's Island and Green Acres.

 

[anotherguyTN]

Some time in the mid 60's when my parents bought my (and my brother's) first TV set for our room. the UHF section was basically useless though until 1978 when WPTY 24 in Memphis came on. The signal was weak but watchable on a 13 in. B&W set. Even with that, it was the late 80's before WJKT (Today's call letters) 16 in Jackson, TN came on and there was a truly watchable UHF station in my area.

 

[w9wi]

While our family was a relatively late adopter of color TV, I never remember a day when we *didn't* have UHF. (I'm 51)

Unlike many markets, Milwaukee was never UHF-free, despite having all network affiliates on VHF from ~1956 through the debut of Fox. WVTV-18 survived the Great UHF Die-Off of the late 1950s/early 1960s; it was a popular destination for kids after school. I can't remember what they aired for adults, but they sure had plenty of cartoons after school!

 

[Al Timiter]

RE: the 1955 set: I was just a kid and don't know what type of UHF tuner it was. But we had a Channel 25 and a Channel 67-they were fine when we lived in the city but when we moved to the suburbs a couple of years later, Channel 25 had ceased operations and 67 was unwatchable.

 

[BobbyNBC10]

We got UHF in May 1967 when we got cable and WKBD TV 50 Detroit and WTVS 56 NET/PBS Detroit were on the lineup. WUHQ-TV/WOTV ABC 41 would not come on in Battle Creek until 4 years later, WGVU PBS from Grand Rapids came on @ Christmas 1972, and there would not be naymore new stations around Battle Creek until WXMI TV 17-GR and WFSL-TV/WSYM-TV 47 Lansing both Fox stations later , would sign in 1982, 17 in March ,47 before Christmas. And Lansing finally got it's own ABC on UHF in 1990 with WLAJ-TV 53.

I almost forgot about WKAR-TV returning on Channel 23 on 9/10/1972, after the Michigan State U. PBS station shared Channel 10 with Lansing NBC affiliate WILX-TV as WMSB-TV from 3/15/1959, after the demise of WKAR-TV's first channel,60, to 9/9/1972, and the next WILX-TV had Channel 10 to itself.

 

[KeithE4]

RE: the 1955 set: I was just a kid and don't know what type of UHF tuner it was. But we had a Channel 25 and a Channel 67-they were fine when we lived in the city but when we moved to the suburbs a couple of years later, Channel 25 had ceased operations and 67 was unwatchable.

Not surprising, considering the fact that (per a blurry PDF of the 1958 Telecasting Yearbook), WNOK-TV was authorized for about 740 kW visual ERP but was running at about a tenth of that - analog Class A power levels. Given the high channel number, lossy twin-lead at UHF if not installed properly (worse at the high end), and the fact that most UHF antennas are cut for the low end of the dial, it's not surprising that Channel 67 was weak more than a few miles from their tower. There was a reason they moved to Channel 19 in 1961.

What was the FCC thinking in '52 when they allocated UHFs at both ends of the dial in the same city (such as having Channels 25 and 67 in Charleston SC), anyway? ???

 

[Ultimajock]

Unlike many markets, Milwaukee was never UHF-free, despite having all network affiliates on VHF from ~1956 through the debut of Fox.

...sorry, but Milwaukee was VHF-only from December 1947 (the sign-on of WTMJ-TV/3) to September 1953 (sign-on of WCAN-TV/25), and CBS didn't get a VHF affiliate there until it moved from WXIX/18 to WITI/6 in April 1959...

 

[dave73]

Unlike many markets, Milwaukee was never UHF-free, despite having all network affiliates on VHF from ~1956 through the debut of Fox.

...sorry, but Milwaukee was VHF-only from December 1947 (the sign-on of WTMJ-TV/3) to September 1953 (sign-on of WCAN-TV/25), and CBS didn't get a VHF affiliate there until it moved from WXIX/18 to WITI/6 in April 1959...

Chicago didn't get their first UHF station until 1964 with WCIU. I just wonder which market was late at getting their first UHF station. As for WXIX Milwaukee, it was originally on 19. Too bad for CBS that they were forced back on the UHF back in 1994 when WITI became a Fox O&O (now a Fox affiliate), and had to affiliate with WDJT, because they were the only ones willing to be a CBS affiliate.

RE: the 1955 set: I was just a kid and don't know what type of UHF tuner it was. But we had a Channel 25 and a Channel 67-they were fine when we lived in the city but when we moved to the suburbs a couple of years later, Channel 25 had ceased operations and 67 was unwatchable.

Not surprising, considering the fact that (per a blurry PDF of the 1958 Telecasting Yearbook), WNOK-TV was authorized for about 740 kW visual ERP but was running at about a tenth of that - analog Class A power levels. Given the high channel number, lossy twin-lead at UHF if not installed properly (worse at the high end), and the fact that most UHF antennas are cut for the low end of the dial, it's not surprising that Channel 67 was weak more than a few miles from their tower. There was a reason they moved to Channel 19 in 1961.

What was the FCC thinking in '52 when they allocated UHFs at both ends of the dial in the same city (such as having Channels 25 and 67 in Charleston SC), anyway? ???

I forgot what website I looked at, that had pictures of the early TV antennas. The UHF antennas were much bigger in the 50's & early 60's, that you needed a tower to mount the gigantic loop UHF antennas. In many cases, people needed up to 4 loops to get good UHF reception (only 1 if close enough to the tower). The VHF antennas were bigger too, but nowhere near the size of the UHF antennas, but bigger than the average VHF antenna today.

 

[KeithE4]

Chicago didn't get their first UHF station until 1964 with WCIU.

WCIU didn't go on the air until 1964, but the original CPs for them, WXXW/WYCC, WFLD, and WSNS were issued in the mid '50s.

WXXW (now WYCC) 20 was originally WIND-TV (Ralph Atlass/WIND radio - Westinghouse kept the CP active after they bought WIND in 1956, then sold it to WTTW).
WCIU-TV 26 was originally WHFC-TV (WHFC radio).
WFLD 32 was originally WTLE, assigned to Evanston (Northwestern Television).
WSNS 44 was originally WOPT, assigned to Oak Park (WOPA radio).

None of these stations were ever built by their original owners.

There was also a CP for a WJOL-TV 48 Joliet in 1954, but it also was never built. Channel 38 was originally WCFL-TV, but that CP was assigned sometime in the '60s, but those call letters were used in early 1976, when WCFC began testing but had not received that callsign by that time.

The original UHF allocations for the Chicago metro area were (* means noncommercial allocation):
Aurora: 16 (later 60)
Chicago: 20, 26, 32, 38, 44 (no changes except to make 20 noncommercial)
Gary, IN: 50, *66 (later *50, 56, finally 50, *56)
Hammond, IN: 56 (later 62)
Elgin: 28 (later 66, reassigned to Joliet)
Joliet: 48 (later 14, finally 66)
Kankakee: 14 (later *54)
Michigan City, IN: 62 (withdrawn - 62 reassigned to Hammond.)
Waukegan: 22 (withdrawn

 

[Limp73]

My dad bought his first color TV with UHF tuning in the summer of 1966...the first time we ever had a color set and the first time we expanded our viewing horizons into the (still) new world of UHF.

WKEF Channel 22 was Dayton's first UHF station and the only other local UHF at the time was the former WIMA-TV(now WLIO) in Lima,Ohio(back when Adrian Cronaour was the announcer there)...but that soon changed quickly with the addition of WKTR-TV Channel 16 (then in Kettering...now WPTD airing PBS) one year later and WSWO in Springfield the following year. I had a hopeless crush on thirteen year old Kim Christy on WKTR who hosted "Kim's Kartoon Kapers" that featured Batfink cartoons and the classic Three Stooges two-reelers. (I was also thirteen at that time mind you.) Never had the courage to write her a fan letter though...she was a sweetie back then!

On and off I pulled in a few other UHF stations if the atmospheric conditions were just right:
WBGU-TV Bowling Green
MPATI (KS2XGA channel 72 and KS2XGD Channel 76) airing instructional programs from an airplane flying over Montepelier,IN until it went silent in 1967.

WXIX-TV Cincinnati beginning in 1968
WCET Cincinnati
WOSU-TV Columbus
KET Educational Network.
WANE Ft. Wayne
WKJG-TV Ft. Wayne
WPTA Ft. Wayne
WFYI-Indianapolis
Others I cannot remember at the moment but was once in a full moon...including an independant out of Akron owned by Kaiser still broadcasting in black and white.

 

[OldNumber7]

September, 1966, my dad got a set-top UHF converter for use with our 1963-vintage Admiral 21" color set, so we could watch the new public TV station in town, WXXI-TV, the first U in the city. Up until then we were a typical three VHF channel town--NBC on 8, CBS on 10, ABC on 13. I was a high school freshman at the time. Never knew I'd wind up working for their sister news/talk AM--which didn't sign on until 1984.

The signal was pretty good from the start (830 kW ERP). Public TV has grown a lot in Rochester like it has in many places, but from the get-go it offered interesting alternatives with jazz concerts, plays, and public affairs specials that gave you a change of pace from Gilligan's Island and Green Acres.

I grew up in Rochester, too. Dad bought our first color TV for Christmas '66, a Sylvania with UHF. As I recall, just about all of WXXI's programming was in B&W at that point. We had the set until '74, and on good days, it was possible to tune in a snowy WCNY (24) from Syracuse. The replacement set was an RCA with detent U tuning. What a difference! We could easily tune in 29 from Buffalo and the original Global 22 from Uxbridge, Ont. They usually came in really well -- just with the loop antenna!

 

[dave73]

Chicago didn't get their first UHF station until 1964 with WCIU.

WCIU didn't go on the air until 1964, but the original CPs for them, WXXW/WYCC, WFLD, and WSNS were issued in the mid '50s.

Sorry if I wasn't specific. I meant Chicago didn't get their first UHF station that went on the air until 1964. Since the other 4 commercial stations were established stations on the VHF with programming aimed at English speakers (usually toward to the white viewer), WCIU took a gamble early on airing programming at the underserved immigrants and the black community. It took longer for a market like Chicago to get their UHF stations on the air. You forgot that there was a non-commercial allocation for Kankakee on channel 54. I believe that allocation has since been deleted since it never went on the air. If it had gone on the air, it probably wouldn't have stayed on the air long, due to south suburbs having a smaller population (Kankakee County still being rural overall), and jobs & overall population shifting to the western & northern suburbs. Dekalb Illinois also had a non-commercial allocation on channel 48, and was later changed to 33. Neither one went on the air either. Not sure if there's still an allocation for Dekalb today.

 

[pqgeorge]

Chicago didn't get their first UHF station until 1964 with WCIU.

WCIU didn't go on the air until 1964, but the original CPs for them, WXXW/WYCC, WFLD, and WSNS were issued in the mid '50s.

Sorry if I wasn't specific. I meant Chicago didn't get their first UHF station that went on the air until 1964. Since the other 4 commercial stations were established stations on the VHF with programming aimed at English speakers (usually toward to the white viewer), WCIU took a gamble early on airing programming at the underserved immigrants and the black community. It took longer for a market like Chicago to get their UHF stations on the air. You forgot that there was a non-commercial allocation for Kankakee on channel 54. I believe that allocation has since been deleted since it never went on the air. If it had gone on the air, it probably wouldn't have stayed on the air long, due to south suburbs having a smaller population (Kankakee County still being rural overall), and jobs & overall population shifting to the western & northern suburbs. Dekalb Illinois also had a non-commercial allocation on channel 48, and was later changed to 33. Neither one went on the air either. Not sure if there's still an allocation for Dekalb today.

I believe that KS2XBS/Chicago, originally on Channel 2 before WBBM-TV signed on, was given an opportunity to move to Channel 38 back in the 1950's. KS2XBS was bumped off of Channel 2 by the FCC due to the fact that it was considered only an experimental license for Zenith Corporation for a Pay-TV experiment. KS2XBS did operate on Channel 38 experimentally (briefly) in the late 1950's but never on a regular basis. So, in essence, WCIU/Channel 26 was not technically the first UHF'er in Chicago. But 26 was the first commercial UHF'er in the Windy City back in '64.

 

[gr8oldies]

We had a clunky VHF/UHF B&W TV. We were between 2 UHF only markets, Ft. Wayne and South Bend IN. When we moved to Ohio we had that TV, (which now had VHF stations to see from Dayton) and an old set with a UHF converter.

 

[TexasTom]

Chicago didn't get their first UHF station until 1964 with WCIU. I just wonder which market was late at getting their first UHF station.

Many medium sized markets didn't get any UHF stations until the seventies, or even the eighties.

In the Pacific Northwest, Portlant, OR and Spokane, WA were VHF-only until 1982. Seattle-Tacoma had two non-commercial UHF stations that signed on in the early sixties (both in Tacoma), but didn't gain it's first commercial UHF station until the mid-eighties (KTZZ, channel 22).

(As an aside, one of those UHF non-comms in Tacoma is long gone, but the other one survives today as KBTC, channel 28.)

 

[Tim L]

If that station was owned by Kaiser it had to be WKBF-61 in Cleveland.Though Local and Kaiser-Produced programming was in Color from the start (January 1968), and possibly most of their Cartoons..

 

[The King Bee]

In Louisville, my dad bought a new Channel Master UHF converter in the summer of 1961 when commercial WLKY-TV
began testing on Channel 32. He added it to our huge, metal-cabinet Motorola B&W set that had excellent picture quality, as I remember. The city already had WFPK-TV, an educational station on Channel 15, which signed on in September, 1958.

UHF had been tried in the market with WKLO-TV (ABC/DuMont) during 1953, but it was just too early...UHF converters were not as good, all-channel sets were extremely rare, and the FCC table of allocations had been changed to pirate channel 7 away from Louisville in 1952. Besides, ABC and DuMont could afford very little promotional support, even in an important market like Louisville. The fact that the existing WHAS (Bingham) and WAVE (Norton/Morton/Ballard) ownership ran excellent operations here was a factor that any competitor had to be wary of.

Finally on Sept. 16, 1961, WHAS-TV (Ch. 11-CBS primary then) and WAVE-TV (Ch. 3-NBC primary) gave up their ABC shows to WLKY, and the market finally had a full-time ABC affiliate. I was seven then, and thirlled to finally be able to see the new American Football League games! Unlike WKLO-TV, WLKY was a success from day one.

 

[RadioDaze]

UHF was well underway by the time I was growing up in the late 1970s and 1980s, but there wasn't too much to watch in Durham, NC at that time on the band. I remember we had one of those Zenith console TVs where you had the VHF channels and then 6 UHF positions labeled U1, U2, etc. You would open the cabinet and use a white tuning knob to "set" one of the U-spots for a specific UHF channel, and there were also pop-out numerals you could place on the big dial so that the channel would display with an orange glow just like the selected VHF channel. Before we got cable in 1984, we had U1 set to then-NBC affiliate WPTF-TV 28 and U2 set to independent WLFL-TV 22. It wasn't until 1985-86 when I got an Emerson Black and White TV with the two dials (you'd set the VHF dial to the "U" position and use the separate UHF knob below to tune in channels 14-83) that I really began to pay attention to other programming options out there. By this time Fayetteville, NC independent WKFT-TV 40 had become a presence in Raleigh-Durham with a new tower and major power boost (I only became aware of WKFT when it took WFMY/Greensboro's cable channel 11 slot on the Durham system). The UHF dial then consisted of these three channels and a snowy picture from then-WGGT-TV 48, an independent in Greensboro. I then discovered a snowy picture on channel 16, which was Christian independent WRDG in Burlington, NC (a mere 30 miles from Durham, but in the Greensboro market). Another UHF signal often receiveable was the then-newest addition to the UNC Center for Public Television network, WUNP-TV, channel 36 in Roanoke Rapids (I think Roanoke Rapids may have been in the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News DMA at that time, but its definitely considered in the RDU market now). I really don't recall anything else coming in on UHF, but then again, I wasn't such an avid DXer at that time. A few years later, I began to dial around a little more and came across a really clear signal on channel 17 that showed Home Shopping all the time. I finally caught an ID that said, "WYED-TV 17 Goldsboro-Raleigh-Durham" and was surprised we had a new TV station of which I wasn't aware. This was in the days before must-carry, so several years passed before many people were aware of channel 17's existence (in a strange twist, it's now the market's NBC affiliate WNCN, and was until fairly recently an O&O). What a difference a few decades have made!

 

[Gregg]

Does anyone remember the process the FCC used to order all TVs to be UHF-ready?

As mentioned above by various posters, there were three ways a TV might be UHF-ready...

--A separate UHF dial similar to a radio dial where you had to tune in the UHF station like you dialed in a radio frequency. Whenever you went back to the channel (if there were two or more UHFs in your market) you had to fine-tune the station each time.

--A separate UHF dial where you had to pre-set the UHF stations in your market. You got maybe six UHF slots. For each UHF station in your market, you had to adjust the pre-set to fine-tune the station but once it was locked in, you didn't have to fine-tune the station each time.

--Either a continuous dial where you clicked every spot between Channel 2 and Channel 80-something, or a separate UHF dial where you had to click every channel between 14 and 80-something. As someone mentioned above, you'd think the FCC might have allocated UHF stations close to each other so you didn't have to keep switching your UHF dial between, say, Ch. 16 and Ch. 67.

I guess in some UHF-only markets, that was pretty much how it happened, at least for the CBS, NBC and ABC channels. In the five UHF-only markets that come to mind, the three network channels were all fairly close together: Fresno, Bakersfield, Ft. Wayne, South Bend and Scranton-Wilkes-Barre. I believe in all those markets, the CBS, NBC and ABC stations were all in the teens, 20s and 30s. But independents and PBS stations might pop up anywhere.



Gregg
[email protected]