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Title: I WAS A TEENAGE TV ANTENNA
Source:
UncleBob's Treehouse
URL Source: [None]
Published: Dec 24, 2010
Author: Bob Wallace
Post Date: 2010-12-24 11:58:53 by Turtle
Keywords: None
Views: 748
Comments: 16
When I was a child and a teenager the TVs were a lot different than the ones today. For one thing it took four people to move one because they were full of vacuum tubes, and all were supposed to look like furniture, so the exterior was made of wood. My mother used to wax ours with Lemon Pledge. She would also put decorations on top, like a bowl of wax fruit – apples and a banana. Another thing is that for years TVs were black-and-white, so when color arrived, many of the programs were still in black-and-white. Some were in color, so when a color program was going to come on, our new color TV would announce, “In Living Color.” Then there was the problem with the reception. TVs, which were supposed to be furniture, all looked ridiculous with rabbit ears on top. Some people opted for the cost of an outdoor antenna, which were usually about 20 feet tall and which today I still see in rural areas, along with aboveground septic tanks and outdoor clotheslines. My dad only got the rabbit ears, which weren’t all the good. Sometimes they worked fairly well…and other times they didn’t. When the reception was bad I became the human antenna. My father, who would not move from his recliner, would make me stand by the TV and manipulate the rabbit ears until the reception was clear. “Okay, it’s fine,” he’d say. “Now let go.” I’d let go and the reception would go all fuzzy, since by grabbing the antenna I became a bigger antenna. “YOU MOVED THE ANTENNA!” he’d scream at me. “No, I didn’t,” I told him, “When I grab the rabbit ears I become the antenna. When I let go the picture gets fuzzy.” “NO YOU MOVED IT!!” So I’d have to stand there for ten minutes, moving the rabbit ears millimeter by millimeter, letting go, moving them again, until finally the picture was clear. On top of all this aggravation, I was also the remote control. “Go change the channel,” my father would order me. “Why can’t you change it?” “DON’T SMARTMOUTH ME I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT OF IT!!!” The TVs in those days had rotary dials. So to piss off my father I would spin the dial, brrrip. “DON’T DO THAT YOU’LL BREAK IT! TURN IT SLOW!!” Click, click, click, click. “IF YOU BREAK IT YOU’LL PAY FOR IT!!” “With what? My dollar a week allowance?” “DON’T SMARTASS ME I’LL BEAT YOU LIKE A RUG!!” “I thought you were going to kill me. You know, you brought me into this world, blah blah blah.” “GET OUT OF HERE GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!!!” “Okay, fine!” “I HOPE YOUR KIDS TREAT YOU THE WAY YOU TREAT ME!!” All parents say that. It’s as common as kids wondering if they were adopted, thinking, “These people really CAN’T be my parents!” I much prefer the TVs of today. I do miss those rabbit ears, though. I wish I had kept ours, along with my Secret Sam Attaché Spy Briefcase
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#1. To: Turtle (#0)
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The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
At least you didn't have your father screaming to you claiming you movied the rabbit ears when you didn't.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable." - Thomas Jefferson
You seem to think outdoor clotheslines are quaint? lol
Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
My aunt gave me one of those when she sold her B&B.. she had a house full of colour TVs, but she gave me the most primitive. lol Anyway, I had only one antenna, with the plastic on the end broken off.. so I stuck a Meccano wheel on it in case it took the eye out of head in the dark. lol
Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
Great post. Brings back memories. My dad wired in out first "remote" in the 60's. He got a large push button switch from the electronics shop where he worked and made a big knob for it on out of plexiglax on a lathe. He wired it into the speaker circuit on our great big Motorola so that he could kill the ads or whatever pernicious ads or syrupy vocalists he disliked. He used to squeeze that switch with some satisfaction. "@$&^$#@&# commercials!" he'd say. This was a great labor saving device for us kids because it relieved us of the task of diving for the volume knob whenever something came on the set that annoyed him - which was quite often.
In the U.S. they're only seen in rural areas.
"If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface. This will not be borne, and you will have to choose between reform and revolution. If I know the spirit of this country, the one or the other is inevitable." - Thomas Jefferson
I see, maybe that's the case everywhere indeed. Every rural home in Ireland has a clothline, but not sure about what they do up in Dublin.. I think I have a mental image of clothes hanging over balconies in the tower blocks of Ballymun Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
Ah, back when Turtle was useful.......those were the days. : )
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ... We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." Edward Bernays, Father of Public Relations
I used to experiment extensively with getting out-of-town stations. It was a magical thing to get snowy reception of a station 50 or 100 miles away. The stations listed with a white box with black font instead of a black box with white font in the TV Guide. My conclusions? In the pre-cable days of TV I found that a 13" TV overall was best at pulling in faint signals. Larger ones for some reason didn't fare as well even with a decent antenna. Smaller TVs sometimes did nearly as well and sometimes not.
Democrats don't mind war as long as they can have big government. Republicans don't mind big government as long as they can have war.
Mine would probably still be working, only I was able to replace it with another free TV, this time in colour. lol Well, it was working, but if I recall, it was getting harder to tune in the picture..
Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
One of these days I will have to take the dial apart and clean the corrosion off channel 3. Sometimes I have to run it back and forth and jiggle it to get the picture back. I wouldn't be bothered myself anymore with that stuff.. as I watch very little TV now anyway. lol
Solutions for Ireland. Say NO to the IMF/World bank. Default on our debt. Print our own debt free currency. Nationalise the trillion euros worth of gas and oil off our west coast. Take back our fishing (200 billion worth). Get our farmers growing again. Done deal if our politicians had the backbone. ~ Jim Corr
I had very similar experiences as a child biological TV remote. Kids these days have it easy dagnabit.
#2. To: Turtle (#0)
#3. To: wetlandjack (#2)
haha, I'm twenty-three and I grew up in a similar way
#4. To: Turtle (#0)
Some people opted for the cost of an outdoor antenna, which were usually about 20 feet tall and which today I still see in rural areas, along with aboveground septic tanks and outdoor clotheslines.
#5. To: wetlandjack (#2)
My TV was a ten inch black and white bunny eared rotary dialed relic in the 1990's.
#6. To: Turtle (#0)
#7. To: irishthatcherite (#4)
You seem to think outdoor clotheslines are quaint? lol
#8. To: Turtle (#7)
In the U.S. they're only seen in rural areas.
slum estate... lol
#9. To: Turtle (#0)
#10. To: Turtle (#0)
(Edited)
If you believe in small government, then you shouldn't be in the White House.
#11. To: Turtle (#3)
(Edited)
#12. To: irishthatcherite (#5)
#13. To: wetlandjack (#12)
That black and white TV is still going strong, I put a DTV converter box on it and use it in the garage. It's outlasted every other CRT in the house except the 1948 O-scope.
#14. To: irishthatcherite (#13)
#15. To: wetlandjack (#14)
We've been getting TV's like that for a while but their life has been pretty short. I tried to drag home a 72 inch rear projection on a dolly for my room one but it rained on me before I made it home. That's my usual luck, I hope yours is better!
#16. To: Turtle (#0)
Dad, in his recliner, would call out the channel he wanted and I would get up and turn the knob. If it was a UHF channel I would turn two knobs, and adjust another if the picture was bad.
Sometimes a tube would go bad. Dad would remove a small vacuum tube from inside the TV, and take it to the drug store where they had a machine to test it. If it was bad he'd get a new one.
I still have a vacuum tube, used it as a toy space ship. Now it's in a junk drawer somewhere.
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