The TV antenna.. | TheaterFire

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Upper-Affect5971@reddit

My father was the first person to have cable TV in the early 80’s.

for one reason, he learned how to steal it.

we did not have a pot to piss in, but we had cable.

I need to ask him about that.

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railworx@reddit

Anyone else remember that commercial of the dad hurrying up to put the antenna on the roof for the big game & getting either electrocuted or struck by lighting?

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When I was a kid we had rabbit eard or the like internal antennas. Then one day I got fed up of bad reception, bought a book on how to install antennas. With the help of a friend a saturday we put all on the roof. It was like this: a VHF antenna and two UHF antennas on different directions, to get signals from different repeaters.

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benbenpens@reddit

I was the designated antenna pole turner, if that answers your question?

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Username_888888@reddit

Does anyone remember having to touch/continue to hold the antennae for clear TV reception (no "static")? This was especially annoying, even more than getting up to change the channel (a dial) before remotes were invented.

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cw30755@reddit

We had antenna on a pole. I turned the pole while Dad shouted. I finally learned I could hang out of my brother’s bedroom window so I didn’t have to get out and turn it in the rain.

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LayerNo3634@reddit

Rabbit ears with aluminum foil.

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Aromatic_Revolution4@reddit

We had a powered roof top antenna. - just twist the knob on the set top box and the antenna would automatically rotate.

Around the knob were little channel number stickers my father had put on so we knew where to point it for the best signal for a given station.

I grew up in a small town between Buffalo and Rochester NY so it was pretty cool getting both cities' TV stations. Even cooler was pulling in Toronto TV and even a couple channels from Ottawa on occasion.

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SnowblindAlbino@reddit

I still have a rooftop antenna, and we get 45+ channels with it. I've only had cable a total of about three years of my life, mostly when living in apartments where it was included in the rent.

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CurtisKobainowicz@reddit

You guys used tinfoil? We stuck coat hangar wire in the rabbit-ear antenna posts. Could have taken an eye out walking past it.

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Traditional-Panda-84@reddit

Coat hanger, bent into a circle, hook straightened and inserted into the last remaining cylinder of the original TV antenna.

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hedge36@reddit

30 foot pipe on the side of the house. My job was to lean out the window with a pipe wrench when it was forty below while the old man yelled at me from downstairs.

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Triggered-cupcake@reddit

First one came with a wired remote with a metal plate on the front. If you shocked yourself with the remote the cable would break until a technician came out to fix it.

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EastAd7676@reddit

We always had a powered antenna on the roof. If we had an ice storm that didn’t take down the power lines but made the little motor incapable of moving the antenna, you’d think the world was ending while listening to my dad.

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shuanm@reddit

Good old rabbit ears in my room. I could only watch pbs on that pos. The living room tv had an antenna on a pole. I got to yell back and forth for 15 minutes while my mom had me tune the news.

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Oxjrnine@reddit

Roof top. Then in the mid 80s we got one of those giant satellites and I watched Russian tv for a little while until the novelty wore off.

Since we didn’t have a decoder, we still ended up watching mostly the same stuff we got on the regular antenna

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Cool-Coffee-8949@reddit

Rabbit ears and the loup for UHF. We may have had a rooftop antenna briefly before my hometown finally got cable in about 1986.

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hapster85@reddit

Outside antenna on a pole, but didn't have to be adjusted unless a really strong storm knocked it out of alignment. The TV station transmitters were all located in the same direction. My brother and I begged for cable when it came to our neighborhood in the early 80s, but our parents didn't get cable until the late 90s when my first born asked them to. Lol

My wife and I also put up an antenna when we got married, because my very frugal wife insisted cable was too expensive. I don't think I made it a month before ordering cable. Lol

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MinimumAnalysis5378@reddit

We had a rooftop antenna and an electric controller to rotate it from inside the house.

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Fickle-Woodpecker596@reddit

Started with rabbit ears but then we got the TV antenna on the roof that my dad put on

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Advanced_Nose_7738@reddit

Rabbit ears. They had to be moved around every different channel. Have a rooftop in my adult life. It's free content and I use it and free streaming apps. I don't wanna pay for shit.

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BobsleddingToMyGrave@reddit (OP)

True Dat. We have an antenna and prime. With the amount of free TV apps, I have no idea why people pay for dish etc.

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grateful_john@reddit

We had an antenna in our attic. We lived in NJ and close enough to NYC and Philly to be able to get both signals. This was important when sporting events would get blacked out in the NY market - I’d be sent up to the attic to point the antenna towards Philly so we could watch the Knicks.

When I moved into my current house there was still an antenna in the attic from a previous owner. I never connected it to a TV, I don’t need that nostalgia.

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Wallis614@reddit

Antenna on roof of house; we lived in NYC, but could also pick up Channel 6 in Philadelphia sometimes

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MyriVerse2@reddit

Rabbit ears. I didn't know anyone with a roof antenna.

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Skatchbro@reddit

Pole outside. Lived in the Missouri Ozarks. Had to go outside to turn it for different channels. Fortunately Dad drove a 10 penny nail through the pole so we knew which way to direct it for different channels.

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Advanced_Nose_7738@reddit

So did my grandparents. "KY3 is the place to be!"

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ABeardHelps@reddit

What kind of TV antenna did we have? A big one. :)
When you're out in a smaller market where maybe one station is local and the rest are 30-40 miles away, you need something better than a set of indoor rabbit ears to get the full channel lineup. If your antenna setup is really good, you can pick up the adjacent TV market stations. As a Doctor Who fan back in the day, this was fantastic because each PBS station ran their own schedule so you could watch a different episode on each station.

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rickmccombs@reddit

You wouldn't be able to get much with rabbit ears where we lived. We had an antenna on a pole that you could read from the front porch. Someone would go out and turn it and someone watching the picture would say, "That's good!" I remember seeing a control box for a rotor at my grandparents house but I don't remember them ever turning it. Maybe they got cable when I was young. We didn't have cable at our house until 1990. I was about 14.

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the_spinetingler@reddit

roof, but didn't need to turn it. All the stations were in the same general area in the next big town

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the_spinetingler@reddit

grans in rural WV had the rotor as they were equidistant from Charleston, Pittsburg, and ALtoona (and someplace in VA)

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EdPozoga@reddit

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the_spinetingler@reddit

I think we had the exact same in the 60s

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willingzenith@reddit

What do you mean? I still have an antenna. Im too cheap to pay $90+ for cable or whatever we’re calling it today. Now get off my lawn lol

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BobsleddingToMyGrave@reddit (OP)

We have an antenna also run through the firestick.

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Aurochbull@reddit

Do you also have high speed internet and a device to stream, though? (I'm seriously asking. Considering it myself in lieu of cable :P )

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willingzenith@reddit

I have internet and I sometimes pay for Philo or the Hulu/Disney bundle. Most of the time I just skip the streaming services. The prices just keep going up and I want to retire some day.

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Aurochbull@reddit

I hear ya 100%. I recently cancelled a lot of my subscriptions and went with a 4k blu ray player and am now buying movies and shows that I "can't do without". I'm feeling good!

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RunningPirate@reddit

We had a regular rectangle shaped antenna in Fresno. Everything was flat so we didn’t need much. When we moved to San Jose the house we rented had one of those pointy antennas and a dial to turn it so we could get better reception for different stations. Somehow KOFY always came in

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DistributionSuch1544@reddit

Antenna attached to a tower on the side of the house. If the wind blew just right and the sky was clear and you maneuvered the cardboard wedge behind the uhf dial just right you could get some decent channels from further away.

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ArtfromLI@reddit

On the roof no crank. We climbed out and turned it.

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JMLobo83@reddit

Rooftop powered with a directional control box on top of the TV.

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OpeningFuture6799@reddit

House top antenna, don’t remember turning it much back in the day.

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Medium-Mission5072@reddit

The living room TV has rabbit ears, the old TV I used primarily to play my NES had 2 coat hangers wrapped in tin foil screwed to the antenna terminals because my mom refused to buy me a set of rabbit ears because “that TV is for video games”.

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RetiredFF27@reddit

Roof antenna, but when the OnTV technician attached their small antenna to our existing one they moved it and Dad was pissed.

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Phobos1982@reddit

Different stuff in different places. We did have one of those rotating roof antennas at one point though.

I still watch OTA TV.

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cg325is@reddit

We had cable from about the time I was 5. Our town was a test market, so I e never lived with an antenna frustrations. lol

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ThoughtCharming8917@reddit

My parents would never have sprung for it, but we moved a lot when I was a kid. House I lived in from K through 2nd had a mast antenna with electric rotor. Could draw in stations from 90 miles away in addition to our locals. Credit that apparatus with helping me to realize the world was a big place!

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StrictFinance2177@reddit

Clothes hanger and tinfoil.

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Infinite-Lychee-182@reddit

Rooftop

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JoWhee@reddit

A tower (which I could use to climb up on the roof… for reasons). We had a “rotor” with stickers on it with channel numbers to point the antenna for the best reception.

I remember my dad doing logarithmic calculations for the length of the crossbars to optimize reception for the most channels possible. There may have been a popular science magazine involved.

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Aurochbull@reddit

The "rotor"......dammit. I can hear it move now: ba dam - CHUNK, ba dam - CHUNK. etc.

I kinda miss it, honestly (not really).

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Queasy-Extension6465@reddit

I have never had cable or satellite, we use rabbit ears for all our network TV stuff. We do have fire stick and roiku for or internet/app programming on smart TV's.

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Forking_Shirtballs@reddit

Rabbit ears. We got cable around, I wanna say, my age 6? So didn't have to fight it that long.

I remember when Nana was watching us while mom and dad were on vacation, when the cable was brand new. We were watching Bozo on WGN as we did in the mornings before school, and she was absolutely flummoxed by the weather report. I wanna say mid-November, snowing in Chicago but 75 degrees at our place in Tampa.

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YourGuyK@reddit

I had cable through lost of my childhood at home, but we had a cabin with the antenna outside that you had to turn if you wanted a different channel.

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JonathanTrager@reddit

TV antenna atop a 30ft+ tower anchored in the ground with cement. Motorized controller in the house to rotate as needed.

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lydatl@reddit

rabbit ears growing up, but just a pole outside later. grandma had the directional auto dialer inside, but she lived in the sticks and we had to fight with it to get about four stations

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Routine_Mortgage_499@reddit

Rooftop strapped to the chimney. only had to make adjustments about once a year.

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slade797@reddit

THE GODDAMN TELEVISION ANTENNA!

My simple little mind dreamed of a day when we could get a power antenna rotator to replace me. It was a much simpler time.

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ZanzerFineSuits@reddit

The battles between my dad and the TV antenna on hockey nights are the stuff of legend.

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Aurochbull@reddit

Can totally relate with hockey nights! As my dude Mike Lange would say, "It's a hockey night in Pittsburgh!".

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Similar_Welder5894@reddit

We had rabbit ears, and then my dad finally put up a pole antenna on the roof but it wasn't powered and didn't have a crank so he just pointed it at the general direction of San Bruno Mountain and it picked up those UFH stations plus the ones broadcast from Sutro Tower.

Never did get cable. But we managed.

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