Friday, January 1, 2010
11:28 PM
Antennae Tuner
Before we had cable television, we had to use antennas. We had the really huge kind of antenna that was anchored to the roof of our house. Whenever weather, etc. would interfere with reception, we had to rotate the antenna in order to clear it up. Also, if we wanted to try to watch a channel other than Channel 8 in T****, we also had to rotate the antenna. It rarely made enough difference to matter. Channel 8 was the only channel that came in clearly on a regular basis. As I wrote in an earlier post, all of the planets had to fall in line in order for us to get clear reception on other channels. Thank goodness for the invention of cable!
Operating the Antenna: The wires of the antenna were somehow connected to this little box which sat on top of the television inside of the house. Notice the N,S,E,W markings. The idea was to rotate the antenna in the direction of the tower you were trying to reach. We kept it mostly north for Channel 8 and Channel 6. For Channel 10, out of A**, we had to point it toward the West. I used to like to play with the controller. I would twist it in a random direction just to hear the sound of the antenna rotating. Small things amused us back then. Technology was still very simple and yet, we were always amazed to see all that it allowed us to do.