Throwback Thursday – TV Reception in the 60’s

As a child, by TV viewing was limited. Not because of parental restrictions, but because of the number of available channels.

I lived in the middle of nowhere during my childhood, and since it was before the cable/internet era, choices of Radio and TV stations was limited. I could pick up the local AM radio stations during the day, but at sundown, they went off the air. At night, I could pick up far away radio stations from New York, Chicago, Detroit and Buffalo, but they came and went with the static.

As for TV, the flimsy roof antenna would pick up three stations from Syracuse - ABC, NBC and CBS. That was it. Depending on the weather, it was a crap shoot whether we would get decent reception from all three, or none at all. In the Winter, if the antenna moved in the wrong direction due to high winds, my Father told us in his stern voice, there was no way in hell he's going to climb on the roof and repair it.

How would I get my fix of those great Saturday Morning cartoons, followed by the 1pm Monster Movie Matinee featuring a campy science fiction or monster movie in beautiful black and white? We couldn't afford a color TV. The only other option was to go outside and find something to do. Is that concept lost on kids today? Maybe three TV channels was enough after all.