Dear youngs,
That wire thing on top of the tv was called an antenna, and you'd often have to move it all around to catch the signal for the channel you wanted to watch.
Signed, An old
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When I was young (born 1977) a lot of the U.S. only had 3 channels: ABC, CBS, and NBC. Some people also had access to PBS stations. Since we lived in far northern VT we were blessed with a couple of Canadian stations - having CBC meant I got to watch Kids in the Hall and SCTV!
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I do not have a DAB radio, currently my analogue one´s playing a close private TV station called #RadioSeefunk, previously we´d known the DJs and had visited them at the studio often, back in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the station was founded in 1987. 😂😂😂
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Oh my, our TVs already had the antennas inside, at least from the times I remember them, I was born in 1971. Cute kitty. But only to mention it, I still use analogue radio with wire antenna. Depending on the weather, I have to throw it into another direction... 😍😍😍
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They still exist too lmao Yes im poor who doesn't have cable. 🤷♀️ They're a bit more modernized now tho but if you break an antenna off by accident tinfoil for sure still works 🤪
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I know it well. My family didn't have cable until the mid-1990s.
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When I was growing up, we had a younger sibling hold the antenna so we wouldn't lose the signal. Siblings also served as great remotes. We had to go to my aunt's to see Wizard of Oz in color because we only had B&W tv.
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Also rabbit ears :3
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All the shows were in Black & White...and, in our market, the three channels (ABC, CBS, NBC) signed OFF the air and went to "snow" at about 11:00pm (after the National Anthem).
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And from the looks of it, the TV is probably black and white.
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Also referred to as "rabbit ears" due to the designs of some of them.
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Where's the tin-foil?
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Occasionally it would happen that you would touch the antenna in a way that the picture came in, and would go out if you let go. So, we'd stand in whatever position required to get a picture. 1 hand on the antenna, 1 in the air, head to the side, standing on one foot, whatever it took
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Thats like the remotes at one time was attached to a cable lol
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And the channels were FREE!
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Dear olds,
We're aware of old technology because we grew up watching old cartoons.
Signed, a young
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BUT IT TOLD YOU THE TIME AND PLAYED AM RADIO TOO...YIPPEE
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I was at an antique & craft fair yesterday at Allaire State Park and there was so much cool stuff. But there was a TV from the 1940s. I was obsessed. It took everything in me to not get it a it was way over my budget. But so cool.
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This is making me remember a friend I had when I was a little girl in the early 90s. They were a teen and told me that they'd had a friend once who had a cat who liked to sleep on top of the TV and they'd prop the aerial up against him because it was JUST the right angle for the best reception. xD
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And those TVs had vacuum tubes inside; they'd get nice & warm so the tops of such TVs were great napping spots for cats >^..^< Such a sad day when my old Zenith finally gave up the ghost (just under 20 years old but my first Zenith lasted over 25 years!) New microchip/PCB TVs just ain't the same.
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Ours was on the roof. There was a dial to adjust it by the tv. Trying to get it just right was an art. And I still remember the noise it made. Kinda like the OG modem sound, something only the olds will ever know.
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Then came rabbit ears
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Ours was on the roof but the "move it around" thing still applied, particularly in certain weather. My dad occasionally sent me up there to "tune" in the horse racing and I had to stay up there and keep it oriented till the event was over.
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No it wasn't, AI bot, it was called an 'aerial' or a 'rabbits ears'.
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Speaking from experience, sometimes the youngest sibling was tasked with holding the antenna awkwardly while standing behind the TV so the rest of the family could watch.
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Wire coat hanger!
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i miss real tvs. tvs used to be furniture, upon which a cat could sit amongst framed portraits of family members. portraits taken by professional photographers in photography studios.
signed, an even older old
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Rabbit Ears
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Love it!
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We got 2 channels.
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My dad’s wife mentions this every time my dad talks about the TV. I watch him lose his mind and/or go virtually comatose when the comments about “them rabbit ears” start. I call it “The Beverly Hillbillies Television Conniption.”
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Dear hoomans,
That wire thing on top of the TV was called a cat toy, and you'd often have to move it all around to attract the attention of your cat so they would start playing with it, giving you the opportunity to refill their food bowls with tasty snacks.
Signed, A cat. 😸
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I remember the antenna , a fond memory from my childhood.
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We had the roof mounted antenna since they were much better at picking up the signals.
I remember Dad and his brother up on the roof for a couple hours, making sure it got all of the two channels available.
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Wabbit Ears...
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Oh, the days when it was discovered, reception only improved AS LONG AS someone was actually standing next to the tv touching the antenna...
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Also, how you can get free tv now without paying streamers for the same thing
www.tvchannellists.com/w/List_of_ov...
List of over-the-air television stations in New York City – TVCL – TV Channel Lists
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Sat hours in the most uncomfortable position with an antenna to watch BBC in black&white bc i wanted to see the Shakespeare plays. Good old times 😉
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Human closest to machine changes channel.
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Pass the tin foil please...
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Sometimes (a lot of times!) when you let go of it the adjustment went out of whack.
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Better yet, twist an end of a wire to the antenna, then run the wire up to a curtain rod. Now you're cookin! 🤣
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I remember
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Ooooh and as a kid having to stand there holding it at a certain angle because you let go the channel goes. 🤣🤣
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Ah ! What's up doc? Ears
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Rabbit Ears Stand on one foot and lean to the left with tin foil at the antenna ends while holding it at arms length 😀 To watch black & white TV What memories
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1952 the year I saw the coronation of QE2 on a,(maybe) 10 inch Dumont tv. Everything was live then, tapes not invented. I was about 6 when a Video Ranger kicked over a prop ( a mountain I think) and he looked at the camera and said *oh fuck!" Remember Uncle Miltie too.
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I still use antennas 📡
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I remember that thing. And I was the remote control…🤷🏼♀️
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You kid, but I literally had to explain this to someone a month ago who discovered the only way they could watch a particular game of sportsball was to OTA it. They had to be told how to put the antenna on the TV, find the input, and adjust the aerial to stabilize the signal.
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My grandmother used to unplug the TV during rain storms in case there was lightning 🙂
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Dear old,
That antenna, I was the one who had to move it around and stand there when my older brothers said "Right.... there. Good. Now stay like that."
Another old.
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My old job, monitoring our network transmitted signals was preferred. A proper arial often broke, so a long bit of solder bent into funny shapes was the business, stuffed in the aerial socket. Solder broken though too much bending, run off a new length off the reel, start the funny shapes again.
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What a beautiful kitty!
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Aluminum Foil ... Where's the Aluminum Foil ?
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And does anyone remember having to be the one to hold the antenna just so, yet out of range to see it? 📺👀😁
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And if you let go of it & walked back to your seat, the TV may go back out of focus. So you'd go back to the antenna & keep trying; maybe letting go when it was slightly fuzzy, hoping it would tune in better when you walked away.
Nope? Try some wire hangers. Still no? Hold antenna & sit next to TV.
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You were posh. We had a coat hanger!
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Ah, memories of having only 4 channels.
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Thhen there was a big pole outside the house if you lived in the county & got like 3 channels if like, you had to hand rotated.
But if the neigborhs were watchin' porn it over rode family hour on your 3 in Noarthern California.
My kids got real good at dominos, poke & blackjack on those nights.
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Occasionally, your father would make you hold on to the antenna so that his important baseball game would come in more clearly.
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Id go back in time to when SM was not a thing And we had a 30 million more birds in a heartbeat
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Yep we even had to get up to change the channel 🙄
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I was clearing out a senior home recently and found an old tv with an antenna like this.
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Or if you’re a gen X or boomer kid, sometimes you had to stand there holding the antennae just so, while the adults enjoyed their show.
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I remember it like it was yesterday.
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You failed to mention that adornment with odd manipulations of aluminum foil was important in some households. More fashion statement than signal enhancement in my experience.
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Was the cat required to boost the signal
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Sometimes, if you were the oldest kid, you got to stand there holding the antenna at just the right angle for everyone else to see the show.
Signed, an even older
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And sometimes wrapping tin foil on it helped some stations come in better (for us it was the Canadian stations since we were close enough to the border to pick them up)
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Where's the foil😂
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Some were on the roof and in a violent storm your father would get the ladder out to adjust it so you could watch Rocky and Bullwinkle
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😂 the exterior antennas were fun. IF nothing came in, in short order, someone had to go outside and make sure it was moving🤣
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Flip, flip, flip. Turn dial a fraction of a hair. Flip, flip, flip other direction. Lather, rinse, repeat.
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We had to hang one from the lamp behind the tv to get more than one channel
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And sometimes you had one of your children hold it while standing in an awkward position to catch the signal 😁
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We called them rabbit ears..
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And there were only three channels, and they all turned off at night
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I touched that EXACT same model of antenna, so many times.
It would easily stay in any position you slid or rotated it into, EXCEPT THE ONE WHERE THE RECEPTION WAS PERFECT.
Whatever that configuration happened to be, on any given day, that one would never stick.
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We also often made "wings"out of aluminum foil that we attached for better reception.
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What You mean was called and used to, that's how I get a TV signal still
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When dinosaurs roamed the earth and we lived in caves.
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Commonly known as rabbit ears. 🤗
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Try to catch the signal of the only 3 stations you had
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Where’s the foil and the youngest sibling “adjusting” it?
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And if that wasn’t enough you added tin foil to it.
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I am watching TV with one right now.
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Rabbit ears...❤️❤️
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Don’t forget the crunched up aluminum foil.
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Those were the days! Remember the tenarotor? You were moving on up if you had one of those. 😂
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My dad made a late career living installing and maintaining rotors that were installed in people's homes to turn ariel antennas on the roof to catch the best signal ❤️
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Occasionally we had to stand and hold it for my dad during games. 😁
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or add tin foil ....
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Pre-remote days too. When someone would have to get up and change the channel. 😂
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And we were the "remote"! Lol
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Or your Dad would climb up on the roof with an antenna on a pole and swivel it around while you stayed in the lounge room shouting "Better! Better! No, worse! Better!" through the window.
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and if you still got bad reception, add a metal coat hanger attached with a wooden clothes peg.
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What's a tv?
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This TV antenna scans for signals once an hour. (See my pinned post for context.)
#MechanicalArt
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You call that "old"? We listened to stories on the radio and the pictures were provided by our own brains!!
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And sometimes you had to adorn it with tin foil to improve reception.
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Little kitty was so desperately trying to stay awake to watch Ed Sullivan but just couldn't make it.
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AND you had to get up to change the channel. AND you could go to the bathroom during a commercial. Couldn't put it on pause.
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And we had to get off the couch to change the channel!! No remotes lol!
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My husband and I were talking about this the other day. We're boomers, we lived it.
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Some people would put aluminum foil around the antenna rods as it supposedly improved reception.
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Rabbit ears
And or
Bow
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But eventually you got an a reasonably watchable picture.😁
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Wire coat hangars employed often.
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If you were really desperate you'd extend it using bunched up aluminum foil. Oh boy. That's the stuff.
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and people had children because there were no remote controls
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This was worse. Outside TV antenna attached to a pole that had to be rotated by hands to pick up channels. It took three of us, one to rotate, one to yell to my Dad, and my Dad who sat on his ass and said, "OK!"
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Dear youngs, 😅 that boxy thing under "the antenna" is a (portable!) device for watching (monochrome) television (TV), not a computer monitor. It has mechanical channel controls on the right side and three vertical slider controls (likely volume, brightness, and contrast). 🤓
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But yours isn't wrapped in foil!
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🤣🤣👏👏I bought a Roku a couple of years ago, so had to get an indoor antenna for local stations.
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Don’t forget the tin foil 😁
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Two antennas one vhf the other uhf. Oh crap i'm old too😂
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Oh what a glorious baby!!
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An inside antennae? Luxury! Ours was outside, so someone had to stand at the front door and shout out to the antennae operator to keep turning until the picture was clear enough through the ‘snow’. It was like operating a land periscope. Also, magpies attacked us at certain times.
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Good times! Children were remotes and learned how to adjust the antenna while Daddy gave instructions.
Saturday morning cartoons started around 7 a.m and lasted until noonish or until Daddy sent us out to play so he could watch his shows.
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Or stand there and hold it!
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Don't forget the aluminum foil crunched on the ends!!!
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We had the one that rotated
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Also called rabbit ears on occasion. Ah the old tube sounds. Back then I was the remote and would ‘twist’ the knob to change the channel for my parents. I kind of miss other forms of input other than buttons.
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...Or have your kid brother go hold out to one side so the picture would stay good
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Rabbit ears.
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AKA rabbit ears.
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antenna mentioned
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Or slap the TV a couple of times
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Sometimes aluminum foil helped with the reception.
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If you were the youngest you'd have to stand there and hold it
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What? Why is it on top of a microwave?
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Also that tiny TV weighed 2000 pounds
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Oddly with all the cord cutting from cable antennas kinda made a comeback awhile ago. But they are different. Most are a letter sized plastic box rather than the rabbit ears we used to have.
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You forgot the 1960's childhood ritual of "No Stand right there and hold it". Especially in rural areas.
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Don't forget the foil!
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Sometimes, we had to stand there with one hand gripping the antenna, and the other waving around, until the static on Dad's ballgame cleared up.
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I remember. LOL
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I’m TV antenna old. I remember when we got a rotor to automatically redirect the antenna (point SW for CBS, SE for NBC, Etc). Life changing!
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Yes two different kinds, First one for VHF. Later, what year?, you needed another one, like a loop, for UHF channels
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This was especially true with the UHF channels. You had to fine-tune those. 🤔
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And don't forget "Married with Children" and their 'assume Fox network viewing positions' gag:
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Still use one for sports. Constantly running to the data limits on our internet package means OTA helps mitigate that when possible.
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The ol’ rabbit ears. I remember those from the 90s too.
The most annoying thing was adjusting them until the image was clear, walking away, only to go back to readjust because your body had turned into a signal booster when you were adjusting it lol.
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Or twisting the knob on the TV just the right way because, stubbornly, it didn't want to go to the proper channel on the designated mark/slot for that channel and only worked on the in-between.
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“That should be in a museum!” 🤠
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And You were the remote control 🤣
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Desperately Needs some aluminum foil wrapped around the rabbit ears to improve reception! If you really wanted decent reception where we lived you needed a working Directional TV Antenna on your roof. Best thing ever was when we got Cable in our neighborhood!
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Rabbit ears
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...you're gonna have to explain what a TV is
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it still works!!!
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Yo!
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Our antenna was on a pole outside. On Dallas night my parents sent me out to turn the pole until the channel came in, yelling out the window.🤣
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sometimes even an old coat hanger would do
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Right on. And sometimes one sibling had to go outside to adjust a tall antenna to watch a certain channel.
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I saw an ad a few years back for a telco selling a TV/internet package that proudly boasted "Wireless TV" as a modern miracle
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I honestly don't understand why more people don't have a hookup! They still sell tv antenna, and you can still get basic cable (honestly even a little more) for the one time price!
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Oh I remember! 🐈
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And programming was over at a certain time. Then there was the test pattern.
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Oh, and we made those place mats for mom at the local library arts & craft sessions during elementary school summer breaks.
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The antenna was also referred to as "rabbit ears" and television stations used to "sign-off" around 1:00 A.M. We didn't have cable or 24-hr tv stations.
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Let's not forget the tin foil
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Sometimes you became an antenna yourself and had to stand next to the tv.
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Here’s an old cat. Looks very friendly. Photo with my grandfather. I’m 63. Picture maybe 75-80 years old.
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As the youngest in the family, I often had to stand and hold my hand on it, serving as a human antenna, to get a clearer picture.
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Not only did you have to wiggle the antenna, sometimes you had to stand in the right place!
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We had to put aluminum foil on the rabbit to enhance the the chance of actually getting a picture…. 1950s
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You may have had to stand up and walk over to the TV to change the 3 or 4 channels who had to choose from.
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Further back than that you had to pound on the TV to get it to quit rolling
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got one of a cat near rabbit ears?
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I remember going out in the back yard and turning the antenna when we changed the channel. Lots of fun i the rain.
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My dad set up an indoor control to move an outdoor antenna (big one on a metal pole), presumably with items he got from Radio Shack. It used to make a clacking sound to turn the antenna. 😂
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In the '60s and '70s, most households had rooftop antennas that would need to be adjusted. Being a nimble lad back then, I was called upon to do this until my gadget-loving dad attached the antenna to a rotor that could be adjusted from inside the house.
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I was my dad’s remote control.
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I distinctly remember owning a black and white television with dials.
DIALS
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Thank you for making me feel old, since I remember TVs like this.
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Sometimes you'd wrap that antennae with aluminum foil to catch a better signal.
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We live out in a rural area. We had a big goddamn metal antenna on the roof that only came down in the early aughts because we got Dish, and the roof was being replaced. I'm actually looking at getting a new digital one up there so I can run it into the router for local channels again.
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Batman The Animated Series on a grandmother's barely-color TV.
Fond memories.
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However, role of cat in blocking visual media remains unchanged
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I have a core memory of stop watching a regular show because someone moved the antenna and we couldn't find the channel again
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And/or, wrap it in aluminum foil.
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Don’t forget the tin foil
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Who remembers this? Stations used to sign off at night, and all you would see was the test pattern. [Wikipedia page entry]
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I was the youngest son so I was my father's remote
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and if the TV was on the fritz you'd hit it.
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do you remember when you had to make one out of a coat hanger wire?
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I still have rabbit ears. When the internet is down, we get the local channels.
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I can even remember standing by it to hold it in position. Ah, the joys of being the youngest!
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And sometimes, you’d have to stand by the tv and hold it “right there!” long enough for your Granny to view the local weather forecast on the nightly news.
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And remotes were very remote.
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Don’t tell Spamton. He’ll have an electronic aneurysm.
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Also, youngs…
This is what phones looked like back in the 1920’s to the 1980’s..
![The Wikipedia page for the Indian-head test pattern used by early TV broadcast stations when they signed off at night.
Yes, it was B&W televisions with antennas and shows were not on 24 hours a day.
[Le Sigh]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ll7rb5c7rylmrs2vp3orbfyd/bafkreidtfxvhjmhkkg4356jyw732bt6gpr53rrobkqt2xdvz3wzdl6xenq@jpeg)
