Hey, there! Log in / Register
For the good old days when Boston TV stations were on just one channel
By adamg on Fri, 03/23/2018 - 3:50pm
NBC Boston, which now calls itself NBC 10 Boston, has alerted people who watch it the old-fashioned way, with an antenna, on channel 60.5, that they'll have to rescan to pick up NBC 10 on channel 15.1 because 60.5 is going away forever on April 1.
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
The old way
The old way is still ingrained in my mind.
PBS (NET at the time)-Channel 2
NBC-Channel 4
CBS-Channel 5
ABC-Channel 7
Then there were the UHF channels 38 and 56. One of them was on channel 6. I forget where the other was.
i think...
pbs was 2
nbc was 4
abc was 5
cbs was 7
and then along came fox 25
and channels 38 and 56 were actually channels 38 and 56 on the UHF dial
Except
for that time when ABC and CBS swapped, then swapped back. And the time NBC swapped with one of them. I lost track...
Old As Dirt
That would be me, so I'll try to help with my memories.
First, it was 2 (WGBH), 4 (WBZ), 5 (WHDH) and 7 (WNAC).
2 was an affiliate of NET, not PBS, since PBS wasn't a thing. 4 was NBC. 5 was CBS. 7 was ABC.
Then, 5 (WHDH) was sold and became WCVB. Soon thereafter, they took the ABC programming and 7 took CBS. Meanwhile, PBS had been franchised and so 2 became PBS.
The UHF channels were always on UHF. However, some folks - My Dad included - bought converters for their old TV sets that only had a dial running from 2 through 13. In order for the converter to pick up 25, 38, 44 and 56, it had to be attuned (if that's the correct word) to a non-used 2 - 13 channel. I believe we used 3 for that purpose, but others may have used 6 or 8 or 11 or 13 (most folks didn't use 6, 9, 10, or 12 because they were actual receiving channels for stations from New Bedford, Manchester and Providence.)
Now, this is from memory, so if you have better info, have at it, please!
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
There was also Channel 27 (Univision)
It operated on UHF from 1970 to 2008or 2009
Before Univision...
... that was one of my favorite stations. Not that Univision doesn't have its charms, but 27 was way cheesy and thus a lot of fun. Their local commercials were sometimes a hoot, very cheaply produced and often with whoever owned the business as the star. Puppets were sometimes involved.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
A friend of mine still has a
A friend of mine still has a VHS copy of "The Gong Show Movie" he recorded off channel 27 around 1989-90 or so
I remember as a kid watching
I remember as a kid watching the old Superman series with George Reeves during the 70s.
If memory serves correct didn't they convert to a pay channel during the early or mid 80s. I remember you had to buy a descrambler to attach to your antenna to receive programming.
Fits with my memory since
Fits with my memory since arriving in 1971.
--gpm
If you had an outdoor antenna
you could also pick up Channel 9 - ABC (WMUR) out of Manchester, NH, Channel 10 - NBC (WJAR) out of Providence, RI, and Channel 11 - PBS (WENH) out of Durham, NH. And on UHF, there was also Channel 44 - PBS (WGBX, which was WGBH's sister station).
Even with the limited choices then, all the old over-the-air broadcast stations provided far better quality programming than what's on 99% of the 2,800 channels of cable TV today.
I really liked Ch 44
when they showed Harvard hockey games, and the Mass. House of Representatives live.
they still do
I watch OTA TV today.. there's alot of neat digital subs that have reurns and are very 'SBK-esque like. Sure its less indy but there's always something to watch.
The other night at 3am I could not sleep and some digital sub was showing Cherry 2000 (movie). No netflix needed.
V66
For the win!
">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djvksufqpxA&ytbChannel=null[/youtube]
Two weeks ago during the nor'easter, I get a knock on my door. It was the drummer for the Freeze telling me a tree crushed my car. Now I can't get that song out of my head (the Newbury comics commercial song in the above youtube).
V66 was kinda nice to have around
I didn't have cable (still don't, in fact), so I couldn't watch MTV -- not that I was terribly aggrieved about this, mind you. V66 was just a nice sort of background to have when getting for work, or puttering around the house or something to stare at if you were in that end-of-the-week, brain-zonked state. Hey, rock videos were still a relatively New Thing then, so it was reasonably enjoyable to watch ones you liked, or others you hadn't seen before.
I remember that V66 dropped in its own visual content for Starship's "We Built This City on Rock 'n Roll," with clips of various Boston nightclubs, bands/performers, and personalities, notably Arnie "Woo-Woo" Ginsburg.
UHF channels
Dunno how old we're talking about but other UHF channels-
channel 25 (before it was FOX)
channel 66 (Boston's attempt at a music channel, the short-lived V-66, in 1985-6)
and channel 68
Don't forget how 68 got its
Don't forget how 68 got its start.
A subscription over-the-air channel requiring a rented de-scrambling box.
Subscription, or a soldering iron
For $10 I bought a set of plans for a de-scrambler box from a friend of a friend. A trip to You Do It Electronics and a couple of afternoons work and I was able to watch Channel 68. They ran some rather lively stuff late at night.
No signal on 15.1 in Davis Square, Somerville
I get 60.5 just fine, but no signal at all on 15.1 .
Adam should know...
That the real stations were 2,4,5,7,9,11 and 13
Looks like we got ...
Another Nooyawka in the house.
Nah
2 (CBS), 5 (NBC), 7 (ABC), 9 (the almighty WGN), and 11 (photo-PBS).
--gpm
Everything old is new again
We got rid of Comcast Xfinity last night due to our bill slowly going up from $100 (introductory) to $190 or so, after taxes, with no added package except HBO (which we don't need until next year because .. GoT).
The "digital" antenna was $20 (one-time) from Amazon, Sling TV (you watch using your internet connection instead of a cable from the wall) is $25/month plus $5/month for cloud storage (like a DVR), and Verizon Fios for internet is $50.62 (introductory, for a year). We pay $5.99 for CBS All Access in order to watch stuff on demand. So, from $190 to $90 or so right now. We already had a Roku but you can get a free one if you sign up with Sling, or just pay $30 one-time and be all set.
The antenna is needed because Channel 5 (ABC, lol) isn't on Sling. If you don't watch The Bachelor or Shark Tank, you won't miss not having it (especially since Frank Avruch doesn't do late night movies any longer).
I have to admit, Verizon Fios has not been as great as Comcast but that might just be our building, being all the way over here in the Seaport. I think it's our building and construction, but we have had the TV black out for a few seconds every now and then which never happened with Comcast. We end up turning off our phones and wireless devices and it mostly helps. The internet comes in fine.
We thought we'd be all set with the antenna picking up local TV stations but we did have trouble, especially in bad weather. This confused me b/c I always thought the TV stations went through the Prudential but, they don't - they're down off 128, right.
Oddly, if we unplugged the Roku while watching "regular" TV, we stopped having problems. That doesn't seem to make any sense but what do I know, I'm not an electrical engineer
V66 and Live Aid
Oh and in 1985 we watched the first half of Live Aid on Channel 66 which was awesome but extremely gray. I think it was a different feed from MTV? Or did MTV not show most of the day? I forget.
http://www.lifeonthev.com/the_story.html
Live Aid
MTV broadcast the entire of Live Aid from beginning to end. During prime time one of the major networks (I forget which one) broadcast a few hours of it for the (at the time) biggies like Hall and Oates and Mick Jagger and Tina Turner. I'm not sure where channel 66 factors into this, but they must have had some kind of feed. WBCN broadcast the entire audio.
Definitely Over Air As Well
I was working that day and took a portable TV with me - no cable, obviously - to watch as much of it as I could. Must have been 66.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
V66 and Channel 5
http://www.lifeonthev.com/the_story.html
V66 was more like raw coverage airing. ABC kept yammering and cutting out to commercial.
I forget if it was Live Aid Princes Trust or Farm Aid but WBCN simulcasted one of them and I was very disappointed that due to lags, I couldn't turn down the volume of the television and crank the superior stereo. Surround sound was not too common for common folk like me in the 80s.
Some of us remember getting
Some of us remember getting Channel 14 out of NH! Extra episodes of the Simpsons at 7pm AND Weather with AL!
If you don't know what Weather with AL is , there is literally nothing I could say to describe him.
Hi, Everybody!
Weather with Al
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Sorry
I think I screwed up the comment above with a non-functioning link. Let's try again...
Weather with Al
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
STAY OFF MY LAWN!
STAY OFF MY LAWN!
10 or 15?
If they're branding themselves as Channel 10, why are they using virtual channel 15? Or conversely, if they're using virtual channel 15, why don't they brand themselves as Channel 15?
Now what kind of a sensible,
Now what kind of a sensible, reasonable-to-ask question is that?
Ticks me off that NBC Boston wants to be "channelized" as NBC 10, same as Providence's WJAR-TV ALWAYS has, at least since 1949 or so.
NBC should've paid Ed Ansin what he wanted for WHDH-TV channel 7 and we wouldn't be having this discussion.
imagine: multiple obscure digital channels to cover a major market with a (still) major TV network. Don't forget, 15.1 is only ONE spot in the greater Boston market on which NBC Boston is transmitting.
why does rescanning give me a channel I didn't get before?
An update on my previous comment: once I rescanned channels (on an digital-to-analog converter box), I can now get 15.1, and also 8.1. I could not get them before rescanning. Can someone explain why?
Variable signal strength?
I am not a broadcast expert, but when that sort of thing happens to me, I assume that the broadcast signal strength was below the threshold that my receiver would accept. When you re-scanned, the signal had strengthened enough that the receiver accepted it. I find that the opposite happens, too; channels I used to get sometimes give me a "No Signal" message.