Antenna Adventures

I was sitting in my recliner scrolling through the channels the other day looking for something interesting to watch. At last count my cable gives me access to 119 channels, none of which could hold a candle to the Ed Sullivan Show. For $212 dollars a month, you would think I could find something worth watching. I remember when TV was free except for commercial interruptions. We now have more commercials than we have ever had plus a cable bill that exceeds my first house payment.

We were one of the last houses in our area to get a TV. I would say we were the last ones on the block, but we didn’t live on a block. Our farm was well beyond the city limits. The main reason we were so late getting TV was because we didn’t have electricity. We were so excited when the power company provided service to us. They put a pole outside my bedroom window and installed an outlet just below the meter. We were able to plug a series of extension cords into the socket and ran them along the ceiling and hung a light bulb in each room. It was sure a step up from those old smokey kerosene lamps. We were able to replace our old ice box and splurged on an electric washing machine before we could justify a TV.

We installed one of those pull chain light sockets that had plugs above the bulb to branch off additional electric cords. We plugged in our brand-new Zenith and turned it on. All we got was visual static. Dad went back to the store and bought a set of rabbit ears. We had to turn the rabbit ears to optimize each of our three stations. It also helped when we wrapped one or both of the telescoping branches with aluminum foil. We could watch Howdy Doody, Kukla Fran and Ollie, the News and Friday Night Fights. We had entered a new era.

My Mom was embarrassed, however, when she discovered we were the only one of her relatives without a roof mounted antenna. Most of her friends had antennas old enough to be upgrading to new and better models. My Dad was the Little League coach and was grateful when the parents of one of his players suggested we dispose of their old one. Dad brought it home and spent all weekend bracing it against the chimney and hooking it up. By the time he secured it to the roof, he had broken off two or three of the fragile arms. We were not surprised when it didn’t improve the reception. We left the broken antenna on the roof for show, and went back to the rabbit ears. We tried to hide them behind a lava lamp, but some of Mom’s friends saw them and snickered, and she informed Dad of her embarrassment. He was a good husband with barely enough money to feed ten kids, but he had to do something. So, he decided to make his own antenna. He reasoned that the commercial models were just metal parts attached in some sort of array, and he had some left-over fence wire from building a hog pen. If he had any training in electronics, he would have known a length of hog wire wouldn’t work, but he wasn’t an electrical engineer, so he tried it. He rolled the wire into a bundle, pushed it through the attic access in the ceiling of the bathroom, and crawled up after it. Being careful to not step between the rafters, he unrolled the wire, nailed it to the roof trusses, and attached the flat antenna cable to one end. It worked! We had a better picture than any of Mom’s friends.

Mom asked that the old antenna be left on the roof so no one would know we got great reception from a piece of scrap from a hog pen. After Mom and Dad passed, the property was sold and the farm became part of an urban housing edition. The house remained for a few more years until it too succumbed to age. I wonder what the workers thought when they found the wire in the attic? I’ll bet they never dreamed that for a time it was the world’s best TV antenna.

The best programs available today come from the archives of shows from the 1950 and 60s. As the price for cable service goes up, one would think the amount of time dedicated for commercials would go down, but that is not the case. The past 70 years have seen vast changes in television. Changes, however, don’t always equal progress.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over 20 years.