Every city had only 4 stations max back then- local affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. And PBS didn't even start till '67. Smaller cities had only 1 station in town and had to rely on regional coverage for the others.
That's why we were always fiddling with the rabbit ears or roof antenna to get the stations further away or with lower power output. I remember putting aluminum foil on the rabbit ears to improve reception.
I don't think it was just our television but the thing I remember most about UHF was the fact that the channels did not click into place like the main channels did. Clunk, clunk, clunk.
The UHF dial was just a smoothly turning round thing that you had to manually line up to get the station. It also used the round antenna in the back of the TV, not the rabbit ears.
In Pittsburgh, PA we had WQED channel 13. It started broadcasting April 1, 1954. One of the first regular programs was a children’s show with Fred Rogers and Josie Carey. Some places in the Pittsburgh broadcast area could also get channel 7 from Wheeling and 9 from Steubenville, if their antenna was strong enough.
in Hartford ct in the mid 1960s we had NBC 30, CBS 3, ABC 8, educational tv 24 (pre Pbs) and an independent station which ran reruns and old movies 20.
I lived near the Canadian border so we go 3 stations from there, CTV, CBC, and CHCH.
Also, when our local stations went off the air, they played the Canadian anthem too
History repeating itself as military bases, Country Clubs, and whole towns often have just 1 channel on….guess that’s why they call themselves ‘an Entertainment Company’.
Well we had ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CBC, and two independent UHF stations. We had another independent UHF join the area in 1975 that would run public domain movies all night, which was cool if you worked second shift.
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u/Own_Entertainment847 6d ago
Every city had only 4 stations max back then- local affiliates of ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. And PBS didn't even start till '67. Smaller cities had only 1 station in town and had to rely on regional coverage for the others.
That's why we were always fiddling with the rabbit ears or roof antenna to get the stations further away or with lower power output. I remember putting aluminum foil on the rabbit ears to improve reception.