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WKBD Ch-50

B

bayusm1

Guest
I just realized that I have 49 posts on the classic tv board, this will make 50. Does anyone have schedules from WKBD's first days on the air in Detroit? I remember making my Mom read the schedules to me and not being able to watch, because we didn't have a UHF antenna. I remember you could get one from places like K-mart for $4.00 and I wanted one in the worst way but my dad didn't think that they were any good. Boy! I was sure happy when we got cable. Thanks Mike
 
Listings are from The Toledo Blade...

Monday-Friday:
3:30 PM Jack LaLanne
4:00 PM Sore Saddle Theater
5:30 PM The Little Rascals

Monday, January 11, 1965
6:00 PM High School Basketball
8:00 PM College Hockey: North
Dakota vs. U. of Michigan
10:00 PM Pro Soccer

Tuesday, January 12, 1965
6:00 PM High School Basketball
8:00 PM College Basketball:
W. Mich. vs. C. Mich.
9:30 PM Sports Central
10:00 PM Pro All-Star Golf
11:00 PM Horse Racing

Wednesday, January 13, 1965
6:00 PM High School Basketball
7:30 PM Sports Central
8:00 PM All Star Preview
9:00 PM NBA All-Star Game
11:00 PM International Auto Racing

Thursday, January 14, 1965
6:00 PM College Basketball: Detroit
Tech. vs Lawrence Tech.
7:30 PM Weekend Skiing Forecast
8:00 PM Wrestling
9:30 PM Roller Games
10:30 PM Bowling
11:30 PM Weekend Skiing Forecast

Friday, January 15, 1965
6:00 PM High School Basketball
8:00 PM College Hockey
9:30 PM Sports Central
10:00 PM High School Swimming

Saturday, January 16, 1965
6:00 PM College Hockey: Michigan
State vs. Colorado
7:30 PM Sports Central
8:00 PM NHL: Detroit Red Wings
vs Toronto Maple Leafs
10:00 PM Sports Central
10:30 PM College Basketball:
Detroit vs. Marquette (taped)

Sunday, January 17, 1965
7:30 PM Sports Central
8:00 PM Big Ten Basketball: Michigan
vs. Northwestern (taped)
9:30 PM Sports Central

You might want to look at this, too: http://vintagetoledotv.squarespace.com/picture/wkbd641221.jpg?pictureId=9234085
 
I have a tape of WKBD from 1992, back when it was still a Fox affiliate. I think it even has some election coverage.
 
M.J. said:
This must go down in Radio-Info history as the oldest thread that has ever been resurrected. :)

I was gonna say, 2005? I didn't even know Radio-Info was around then! When exactly was this board founded?
 
ssetta said:
M.J. said:
This must go down in Radio-Info history as the oldest thread that has ever been resurrected. :)

I was gonna say, 2005? I didn't even know Radio-Info was around then! When exactly was this board founded?

I joined in June 2004. I am unsure of the history of this board before that.
 
bayusm1 said:
I just realized that I have 49 posts on the classic tv board, this will make 50. Does anyone have schedules from WKBD's first days on the air in Detroit? I remember making my Mom read the schedules to me and not being able to watch, because we didn't have a UHF antenna. I remember you could get one from places like K-mart for $4.00 and I wanted one in the worst way but my dad didn't think that they were any good. Boy! I was sure happy when we got cable. Thanks Mike

Sounds like we had the same dad.

The first TV I remember watching was an old Motorola black-and-white with a VHF only tuner.
When WPGH-TV 53 came on the air my friends at school stared telling me about all the good shows
on there. But my dad did not see the sense in springing for a tuner/UHF antenna. "You have plenty
of channels already". (I think counting the ones from Ohio and West Virginia we could pull in we had
6.) Finally my grandparents gave us their old set with a UHF tuner and a bowtie antenna.

He was never an early adapter. I think we finally got color around 1975, when my mom got sick of us
kids pestering her parents to come over and watch cartoons and holiday specials in color.
 
First of all, a big thank you to Toledo Eleven for the old schedule, if I could, I would buy you a big steak dinner for posting it. Reading it has inspired many good memories for me. As for finding the old post in the first place, I was looking at the older pages on the classic TV board, (there are some 442 of them, and it happened to be the last one at the end of the last page. Apparently I had 49 posts, on the board, and that one was my 50th. As for the $4.00 UHF antenna I remember it as being a littel gillhooky that clipped to the mast of your antenna on the roof. I remember being at a K-Mart with my dad back then, and the Salesman saying that his friend had one, and he could get all these UHF stations, and his friend's neighbor across the street having a big tower rig and not being able to get anything. The sales man tried to tell my dad that it was better to have 75 ohm wire and not 300 ohm wire for the downleads because A UHF signal traveled better. My 13 year old mind,(remember, this was 1965), never thought of the work involved in going up on the roof, and attaching the Gismo to the mast, stringing the downlead, and last but not least, hooking it to the TV set. We did buy a little doojobie that was a UHF/VHF splitter that inabled the same antenna to pick up both kinds of stations, but that compromised the picture and my dad didn't like not being able to see the VHF stations very well. He did leave it behind the TV on the rug so that I could hook it back up when ever I wanted to hear a UHF station. The only UHF station that we could get, was channel 25 WKNX, and I think that it was an NBC affiliate back then. Lastly, you all diserve an explanation as to why I don't post any retro schedules. As I am totally blind, I can't see to read print. In order for me to post a TV listing, I would first of all have to scan a print page in to my computer, then I would have to clean up the OCR, and then post the resulting ascii file to the classic TV board as the retro: listing. The other way would be to have my wife, who can see, post it for me. But wheres the fun in that. I am sure that she would be happy to do it for me, but she is not so interested in classic TV as I am. As I have said in other threads on this board, I was so happy when we got cable, and I could "watch" listen to WKBD and I did most of the summer of 1966. My dad said "Don't you ever get tired of those old shows?" I didn't then, and I still don't. I like to read old retro schedules, and then play the shows that I have on DVD at the time and day they were on, and pretend. For example, if Topper came on Channel 50 week days at 3: Pm, I would play an episode at 3: pm, and say that I am watching WKBD channel 50, even though my wife and I live in florida now, and not Detroit. Things that make you go hmmmmm.
Oh BTW, I think that my Dad payed about 2 dollars more for the splitter than we would have had to pay for the UHF antenna.
 
Michael Bayus said:
The only UHF station that we could get, was channel 25 WKNX, and I think that it was an NBC affiliate back then.

WKNX (now WEYI) has been a CBS affiliate from its 1953 sign-on until switching affiliations with WNEM in 1995.
 
and from the Saturday, January 9th 1965 edition of the Windsor Star (via Google news archives), the first day of WKBD from Sunday January 10th, 1965:

6:30PM Basketball, U of Detroit vs U. of Dayton
8:15PM Sid Able Show
8:30PM Hockey: Detroit Red Wings vs Chicago Blackhawks
10:30PM Sport Central With Ray Lane
 
Thanks. I wonder if WKBD tested with old movies before signing onn. I remember that WJRT in Flint ran a few Robin-Hoods before they officially signed on the air.
 
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