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Old 05-15-2018, 07:51 PM
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Early color sets in... Escanaba?

I need the help of the Wisconsinites. I recently stumbled across some ads for early color sets in Escanaba, Michigan circa 1956 and 1957. Anybody from Michigan, or Wisconsin for that matter, knows that Michigan's Upper Penninsula was, and is, pretty desolate. The only television station in the UP that would have been broadcasting at that time, WDMJ in Marquette, was a strictly monochrome affair.

That leaves only the north-eastern Wisconsin stations in range of Escanaba, and even then, only in the deep fringe at about 100 miles. I can't find any references to a station in the Green Bay or Marinette areas broadcasting in color. I briefly considered that they may have been picking up Milwaukee, but reception at 192 miles seems unlikely to me.

Any ideas?

Attached are the relevant advertisements:


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Old 05-15-2018, 08:16 PM
WISCOJIM WISCOJIM is offline
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The only two stations in the UP before the 1960's were WMBV and WDMJ. Neither had color at that time.

Canada had one station that reached the UP market, but it was also B&W only at that time.

Green Bay's first color broadcasts were in 1958 by WFRV.

Maybe Milwaukee TV did reach that far in the 1950's. The strongest AM radio station in many areas of the UP is still Milwaukee's WTMJ (620AM).

.
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Old 05-15-2018, 08:29 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WISCOJIM View Post
The only two stations in the UP before the 1960's were WMBV and WDMJ. Neither had color at that time.

Canada had one station that reached the UP market, but it was also B&W only at that time.

Green Bay's first color broadcasts were in 1958 by WFRV.

Maybe Milwaukee TV did reach that far in the 1950's. The strongest AM radio station in many areas of the UP is still Milwaukee's WTMJ (620AM).

.
The city of license I found for WMBV was Marinette, making that a Wisconsin station. The second station on the air in the UP was WWUP, which was just a full power repeater of WWTV in Cadillac, Michigan.

The Canuck station you're referring to is in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario, channel two IIRC. WWUP was in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. That's clear over on the east side of the UP and it would have been impossible to pick up either in Escanaba. Hell, the terrain is rugged enough, and the forests dense enough, that pulling in WDMJ out of Marquette would have been hit and miss on occasion, especially given the lower transmitter power. I guess the one thing Milwaukee reception would have had going for it would have been Lake Michigan itself....
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Old 05-15-2018, 08:58 PM
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Sorry, yes WMBV was in Wisconsin in the "Twin Cities" of "Marinette-Menominee" often thought of as one community. The only difference we see when crossing from one into the other is the different amount of taxes on fuel.

.
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Old 05-15-2018, 09:15 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WISCOJIM View Post
Sorry, yes WMBV was in Wisconsin in the "Twin Cities" of "Marinette-Menominee" often thought of as one community. The only difference we see when crossing from one into the other is the different amount of taxes on fuel.

.
We're being robbed at 26.3 cents per gallon plus the 6 percent sales tax and our roads still look like shit... hopefully the crooks in Madison have more sense than our crooks in Lansing...

Anyway, I'm going to look and see if color sets were being advertised in Marquette and see if they weren't strictly monochrome at WDMJ. Perhaps WDMJ was capable of broadcasting color network programs. I'll also check Ironwood, MI papers for color ads.

I do know that WBAY was the easiest station to pull in if you were in Escanaba pre-WDMJ, but as you said, they weren't color capable.
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Old 05-15-2018, 10:00 PM
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Could those ads actually be 1958? Don't know what years Admiral sold that model.
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Old 05-16-2018, 12:36 AM
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Wonder what the stores looked like back then?...If there was a 50'+ antenna tower behind them I could see attempting to DX Milwaukee. TV DX was doing very good in the 50's and many magazines of the day had fascinating reports.
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Old 05-16-2018, 04:17 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by old_tv_nut View Post
Could those ads actually be 1958? Don't know what years Admiral sold that model.
Nope, late 1956 and early 1957. I double checked the dates on the newspapers they were culled from.
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Old 05-16-2018, 04:21 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
Wonder what the stores looked like back then?...If there was a 50'+ antenna tower behind them I could see attempting to DX Milwaukee. TV DX was doing very good in the 50's and many magazines of the day had fascinating reports.
I suppose there was much less man made noise to contend with, and much of the LOS path being over water helped tremendously I'm sure, but that's a quite a long haul.
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Old 05-16-2018, 09:09 AM
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I think Milwaukee isnt so hard in those days. Some life
examples.......
On Cape Cod I could easily get FM from Nova Scotia. Since putting
RF over the ocean is a waste I would imagine they were quite
directional to the north. TV from Maine was near perfect on
rabbit ears (6 &13). Probably 150 miles.
In the evening most days Europe, Africa & Mid East AM's come in
if you have an analog tuner or can tune the 9K spacing.
At home ch 8 Mt. Washington on ears 130 miles with heavy adjacents
on ch 7 & 9. The FM from there was ride around quality in stereo.
Remember also on a good set you will get color on the weakest of signals.
IIRC some ducting normally does happen over a water route aso.
In the north country it used to be common to see towers or roof
tripods for TV antennas. Some used Yagies just to eke out another
station.
See if you can find an area Sunday paper from then & what the
TV guide lists for stations.

enuf
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Old 05-16-2018, 11:54 AM
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In the late 50s, many isolated communities had fairly decent community tv antenna systems. I remember my parents staying in a motel in Bend Oregon and being pleasantly surprised that the tv dial was nearly filled with channels from distant cities; Portland, Eugene, Medford and even Bosie Idaho (over 250 miles), apparently received by an antenna system on a hill east of town.

Bosie (channel 2) was a little grainy, but quite watchable, but was several times overrun by another station which turned out to be ch 2 from Denver (KFEL). Apparently, this was a fairly regular occurrence in the summer.

jr
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Old 05-16-2018, 02:52 PM
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I may add to that when the Boston stations shut down for the night
the NYC stations were there just barely. Add a little ducting
and they were quite watchable. A big rotor antenna VERY watchable.
Thats abt 200 miles all over land & my house was down low.
There is no way it was LOS ........ Try that with allegedly better digital !

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Old 05-16-2018, 06:12 PM
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Getting WTMJ-TV in Upper Michigan some of the time would be not at all far-fetched. When times were better, we would rent a cabin for a week or two in Manistique. On days when warm humid air was over Lake Michigan and there was little or no wind, Milwaukee and Chicago stations would boom in. Both digital and analog. I literally watched two Willis Tower stations, digital, with an unfurled jumbo paperclip for an antenna.

Of note, however, is that highband VHF signals were weaker, and low VHFs even weaker, sometimes missing outright. So WTMJ on 4 would not often be strong.

If you're wondering about WJMN, it was an NBC affiliate in its early years, but only came to air in the early seventies.
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Old 05-16-2018, 09:38 PM
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Actually the lower the channel number, the further it can be picked up, giving WTMJ-4 the greatest reach.

WTMJ was all-RCA equipped, in the 1980s they had RCA 'new-look' blue-toned-color-cabinet Transmitters, replacing earlier generation RCA installed in late 1940's and used for color in 1954.

The deco chrome & red pin-stripe trims on my avatar pic are from early 1950s RCA disused equipment that was stored in WTMJ basement: It was like a candy store, the assistant engineer would let me fish around down there!
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Old 05-17-2018, 07:23 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NewVista View Post
Actually the lower the channel number, the further it can be picked up, giving WTMJ-4 the greatest reach.

<snip>
In terms of normal reception*, absolutely correct.
However, the effects of tropospheric refraction (an abnormal propagation mode, but not uncommon over Lake Michigan in the summer), are far more profound at UHF, and worse on low-VHF than they are on high-VHF.

On a typical summer's day (and in late Spring), warm, humid air can be cooled where it is close to the cold lake's surface, whilst the air above is still warm and dry by comparison. The speed of light (and thus of radio waves) is faster in the warm dry air than in the humid air immediately above the lake surface. The radio wave thus assumes a curved path following the transition zone where the humid air and the dry air meet.

*Without tropospheric refraction, a channel 4 signal will be usable over a greater distance than a channel 9 signal, which, in turn, would work at a greater distance than a channel 48 signal.
Keep in mind that low-VHF analog stations were generally limited to 100kW ERP, while high-VHF stations could and usually did have 316kW ERP. Analog UHF stations could use up to 5000kW ERP (1000kW before a 1958 rule change), but few used the maximum.

Normal VHF reception is of both the signal travelling directly to the antenna, and the signal travelling from the transmitting antenna, and reflecting off the earth (near the receiving antenna) back to the receiving antenna. These two paths cancel each other out to a degree, the longer the wave, the closer to 180° out of phase the reflected signal is, thus the receiving antenna needs to be high off the ground to make use of the low-VHF benefit.

Last edited by Robert Grant; 05-17-2018 at 07:45 AM.
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