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DO NOT attempt to adjust your television set

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by Stevewoods, Apr 2, 2020.

  1. Stevewoods

    Stevewoods Senior Member

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    Well, you know, it might just come down to some strange sort of martial law, where we actually would lose our options to adjust our TV -- you know -- The Outer Limits

    Having said that, being home-bound now vs 1962 is a walk in the park. Local library closed? Do the e-book thing, which works for me, even on my laptop. Video games, Skype (or something like it). And all the other "platforms."

    And, timewasters like PriusChat:whistle::whistle::whistle::whistle:

    TV back in 1962 was analog. Horizontal and vertical holds and tubes that always seemed to fail. No remote control and half of the channels had "snow" even in the summer :eek:. Some stations we had to sort of "jam" the channel selector "half-off" the channel stop to get reception. TV brand? Do you have to ask? Sears, of course -- lesser families made do with Montgomery Ward.

    We got under a dozen channels. ABC, CBS and NBC, was well as a few locals -- KCOP, KTTV and KTLA and KHJ? PBS was around, but we lived just far enough out of Los Angeles that we did not get it -- it was a UHF channel and we never got any of those. Never did understand UHF vs VHF -- seems like the Ultra high should have BETTER range.

    So, for now, basically, I am finishing all those "around home" jobs I have put off for 20 years(y) And creating jobs where none need be done -- you know, go up on the roof with a couple of beers and every once in awhile, curse as if you are actually doing something other than watching the horizon.....

    Well, you all, we need to look for blessings and dwell on the small victories right now. Even if it is just sitting on a roof and watching the horizon.

     
    #1 Stevewoods, Apr 2, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2020
  2. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    A dozen channels, in 1962?

    Living in a different region, I didn't reach that much choice until the forced TV conversion from analog to digital in 2009.
     
  3. Stevewoods

    Stevewoods Senior Member

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    I said under a dozen....IIRC correctly, the standard dial had 13 numbers, each corresponding to some channel. Then there was the UHF dial, which was "under" the standard dial -- it had like 60 numbers, but since we did not get UHF at all....

    And, we were in Los Angeles. Entertainment capitol of the world. IIRC the various channels were:
    13 was KCOP
    12 -- nothing
    11 was KTTV
    10 -- nothing
    09 was KHJ
    08 -- nothing
    07 -- ABC
    06 -- nothing
    05 was KTLA
    04 was NBC
    03 -- nothing
    02 was CBS
    There was NO ONE.

    So, actually we got seven channels. Since I don't have cable or satellite, I still get about seven channels. :D
     
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  4. cyberpriusII

    cyberpriusII Prodigyplace says I'm Super Kris

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    My grandpa used to tell me stories like this. :D
     
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  5. cyberpriusII

    cyberpriusII Prodigyplace says I'm Super Kris

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    That is a beautiful sentiment.
    kris
     
  6. George W

    George W Active Member

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    The Big 3, and maybe PBS on a good reception day
     
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  7. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    #firstworldproblems.

    Oh...and the federal government actually seized control of all of the airwaves a while back.....like June.....1934.
     
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  8. Prius Maximus

    Prius Maximus Senior Member

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    Whaddya mean no remote control in the early 60's? I was the remote control. Mark, change the channel. Mark, tune it in, there's too much snow. Mark, go around back and fix the vertical hold. Mark, turn up the volume. Mark, now it's too loud, turn it down. My hips are worn out to this day. Oh yeah, Mark, carry these vacuum tubes when we go into Ace hardware to test them, and don't break them!!!!

    I remember watching the Chicago Blackhawks play hockey. on a little 9" black and white TV. the resolution was so bad you couldn't even see the puck. Bobby Hull, the "Golden Jet" was just a blur on the screen. I guessed he had blonde hair. Stickwork? All in your imagination based on the "color" announcer's narration. But the color narration was way better back then because they had to actually describe what was happening.

    Hey, here's what it looked like...

    Capture.JPG

    we had these channels in Chicago

    2 - CBS
    5- NBC
    7-WLS
    9-WGN
    11-PBS
    32-WFLD (FOX)

    there might have been a foreign language channel on 26 (polish?), but we never watched it.
     
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  9. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    we had 4 channels until we got uhf. that added 2 snowstorms
     
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  10. RRxing

    RRxing Senior Member

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    We had:
    ch. 2 - WCBS
    ch. 4 - WNBC
    ch. 5 - WNEW
    ch. 7 - WABC
    ch. 9 - WOR
    ch.11 - WPIX
    ch. 13 - WNYC (PBS)
     
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  11. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    the good thing was, there was something worth watching, unlike todays 5 million channels of garbage
     
  12. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    UHF was channels 14-83, or 70 channels. I grew up with 2 to 4 channels on UHF repeaters, depending on weather. No VHF.

    UHF channels have been pared down in several steps, as some blocks are reallocated to other uses.

    That is more than I had on the cable system when I moved to WA.

    A few years later I fired the cable company, then moved to a place where rabbit ears worked. After later becoming a homeowner and putting up an antenna, I had about the same as you until the 2009 DTV transition, when my count (including sub-channels) suddenly jumped into the 30s. Now it is the 50s.

    Meaningful program choice did not expand proportionately. :(
     
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  13. ChapmanF

    ChapmanF Senior Member

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    Might have been more of a continuation of the seizures of 1927, 1912, and 1910. I guess one could say having regulations to comply with is a little like government seizing control? Situation in some places might be more like government seizing control.

    I could see how a few pre-regulation incidents of prank transmissions sending Navy ships on fake missions could have been annoying though. Also the way if your ship had Marconi radios, you leased it along with a Marconi radio operator who would be under orders not to relay any communications from ships using other equipment.

    Somebody must've thought there had to be a better way.
     
  14. KennyGS

    KennyGS Senior Member

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    I laughed out loud. :LOL:
     
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  15. Rmay635703

    Rmay635703 Senior Member

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    We were excited in the early 90’s when NBC got a translator so it actually could be viewed most of the time and fox showed up.

    as a kid it was always 3.5 channels and on a weekend if I stayed up real late or got up real early I could watch strange distant stations which was a treat.

    those were the days.
     
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  16. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I'm only old enough to be your father, not your grandpa.
     
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  17. hill

    hill High Fiber Member

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    funny
    but my great grampa listened to nothing. There were no radio stations entering his youth in the 1900's. 1/3 of the civil war vets were still alive when he was born. We are ALL not that far removed from the past.
    o_O
     
  18. Elektroingenieur

    Elektroingenieur Senior Member

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    And they haven’t let go. Every station license issued by the FCC still has something like this in the fine print:

    This license is subject to the right of use or control by the Government of the United States conferred by Section 606 of the Communications Act of 1934.​

    Those rights have been used in the past. See, for example, Exec. Order. No. 8694, 6 Fed. Reg. 6367 (Dec. 12, 1941), and on page 6378 in the same issue, FCC Order No. 87, suspending the amateur radio service, in which international communications had already been prohibited by FCC Order No. 72, 5 Fed. Reg. 2161 (June 8, 1940). The contemporary situation is discussed in David W. Opderbeck, Does the Communications Act of 1934 Contain a Hidden Internet Kill Switch? 65 Fed. Comm. L.J. 1 (2013).
     
  19. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    My step-great-grandpa was a Civil War vet. And he wasn't young then either.

    But the reproduction ages along that ancestry path were not typical. Old geezer vet takes young bride as his (2nd? 3rd?) wife. Then a daughter (*) proves that even back before modern medicine, some females successfully delayed reproduction until their 40s. The result was that my step-dad (the one I'm helping provide care for) was born more than a century later than one of his grandparents.

    We need not discuss the color of the uniform ...

    (*) this is the same person I mentioned elsewhere as being a teacher during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and told stories of numerous students going home ill and never returning.
     
    #19 fuzzy1, Apr 2, 2020
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2020
  20. dig4dirt

    dig4dirt MoonGlow

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    Nowadays, grandmas/pas can be in their 30's, no sweat!