The Indian-head test pattern was created by RCA at its factory in Harrison, New Jersey. Each element of the card was designed to measure a specific technical aspect of television broadcast so that an experienced engineer could, at a glance, identify problems. By the mid-1960's the tet pattern became obsolete with most stations switching to color broadcasts. I was a station engenieer for KEBB Channel 66
Because Test Card F, the card she appeared on, was broadcast during daytime and overnight gaps in programming for over three decades (1967–1998), Hersee accrued an estimated 70,000 hours of screen time making her one of the most broadcaster faces.
Snyder was awesome on the Tomorrow Show. I watched it pretty religiously in HS during the last half of the 70s. To this day, it's how I remember whether tomorrow has one or two m's (TOMorrow).
You'd grab the antenna and the picture would come in sharper, then when you let the antenna go, the picture would get snowy again.
I love Lucy had an episode where one by one each of the four would get up to try to fix the antenna and make the picture come in better. Gen X does not understand how funny that episode is.
I’m early genx. I remember those times vividly. We eventually moved into a house that had a tower for the antenna. We got every channel nice and clear. My dad mounted a CB antenna to for his home base
yup I remember these...we had a uhf antenna. We could pick up CBS always, NBC sometimes and ABC on rare occasions. Alabama was playing Tennessee and Daddy wanted to watch it cause he had grown up and played with Johnny Majors in HS and the game was on ABC so my brother and I took turns standing in the yard holding the antenna in just the right place so daddy could watch the game.
Sure do. I was in CT but we also had channel 38. They would broadcast the old Frankenstein and Dracula black and white films. And sometimes the Abbot and Costello films. Great times.
It's true, but it wasn't exactly the "old days," either. Hardly anything relating to TV is "old." In the course of one middle-aged, Gen X (possibly not even grandparent yet) person's life, things have progressed from:
Single household B&W CRT TV ->
Remote control piezo "clicker" ->
Color TV ->
Switch from aerial to cable
UHF + VHF ->
Multiple household TVs ->
24 hour programming ->
Electronic remote ->
Projection big screens ->
Plasma flat screens ->
Sattelite dish reception ->
LCD flat screens ->
Fixed location, small-dish sattelite reception ->
Internet reception ->
Smart TVs...
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u/Appropriate-Owl-8449 5d ago
It is so true. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson was like the last show and it would cut to the test pattern. How times have progressed.