Thread: Test pattern?
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Old 07-28-2012, 03:51 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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Television here in northeastern Ohio is also non-stop, with no Cleveland station signing off for any reason except technical problems. I used to get up a five a. m. just to watch the test patterns from the three (at the time, '60s-'70s and until all TV here went full-time) network affiliates before they signed on. It was also interesting to watch after the local stations had signed off; occasionally I'd see a test pattern from a distant station, usually on channel 3 or 5. I live in the Great Lakes region near Michigan and southwestern Ontario, and I would sometimes see actual programming from station WNEM-TV in Saginaw on channel 5 after Cleveland's ABC affiliate had called it quits for the night. I'd also see programs, and occasionally a test pattern, from channel 12 in Erie, Pennsylvania, channel 10 in London, Ontario, channels 11 and 13 in Toledo, Ohio, channels 2, 4 and 7 from Detroit, and a host of UHF station patterns as well.

I wonder about those late-night infomercials too. Not that they bother me (I often stay up late at night and will usually watch a DVD if there is nothing to interest me on standard broadcast TV), but I do think they waste the stations' RF and DC power, not to mention raising the question in my mind of who actually watches these things at the unearthly hours at which they air. The TV networks and local stations are trying to gain early-morning viewers by airing newscasts at 4:30 a. m., but sometimes I wonder who is actually up watching TV at that hour; five or six a.m. makes more sense to me. The only people I can think of who might watch those 4:30 newscasts would be those who begin their work day unusually early, say at five or six in the morning.

I have heard that some infomercials, known as "paid" programs or advertisements, can and do actually generate revenue for TV stations whether or not anyone watches them. I cannot for the life of me see how that is possible. These things cannot, to my way of thinking, raise one red cent if no one is watching. One of these days I'd like to find out just how paid programs/advertisements work to a TV station's advantage, and whether they are really worth the time and money the stations spend to put them on at hours when most folks are sound asleep.
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Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

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Last edited by Jeffhs; 07-28-2012 at 09:12 PM.
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