At one time we had 2 B&W TVs stacked on top of each other. One had picture but no sound, the other, sound but no picture. When we wanted to change channels we had to change both TVs as well as fine tune.
I remember a time when I had to climb up the tower of the antenna and change the direction of the UHF or VHF antenna by hand until someone inside hollered when the signal was clear. 10 mins later when the channel got changed...back up the tower.
My grandparents lived on a farm in the 1960's. They were about 40 miles from five different cities with TV stations. On their roof was a motor that changed the direction of the antenna according to what station in what city was being watched. == I can see that IownAmoneyPit was brought up in the wrong house.
Oh yes, I remember the days of B & W TV, limited channels, no remote control and having to take tubes to the store to test them. Did anyone put "aluminum foil loops" on their rabbit ears to improve reception?
Most of the stores that carried TV Tubes had a free machine where you could plug your tubes into & hit the test button. The top of the machine had a least 20 different type of sockets where you had to find the one that fit your tube through a small reference manual attached to the side.
We had the regular channels (ABC, NBC, CBS & a couple others) & that was it. No recording devices meant when a program you wanted to see came on the night you wanted to go out, you had to make a choice.
So nowadays we have cable or satellite reception with about 200+ channels & you still hear kids say "There's nothing on TV!"
My dad had 2 remotes for our TV, my sister and I! I kid you not, there were times that we were called out from our bedrooms to the living room in order to change the channel on the TV.
It came on, when I was a kid, at 10 PM, because the broadcasters' license didn't allow them to transmitt television after 10 PM. Then it went to midnight on Friday and Saturday. It was considered a Really Big Deal when television was allowed to go on 24 hours.
Some of the things I saw early Saturday morning were a shoe shiner modern dance. A small group of women doing ballet with just a piano playing. The local farm report, then the cartoons came on at 6 AM local.
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