Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert Grant
While this is quite likely a 1963 or later model, be aware that there were sets made in the 1950's with factory UHF.
These sets were offered at a higher price than VHF-only models, and were usually hard to find, unless you were in a market where all TV was UHF (e.g. Fresno, South Bend, Youngstown) or there was only one VHF and more than one UHF (e.g. Austin).
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And Erie, Pennsylvania. Their first TV station was channel 12, WICU/NBC. I don't know when their other two network affiliates and PBS (channels 24, 35 and 54, respectively) signed on, but when the first of those did begin operations, I'll bet the appliance stores around the area were selling all-channel TVs like crazy (not to mention UHF converters for older VHF-only sets).
I live near Cleveland and remember when the city's first UHF station (WVIZ, channel 25, NET--National Educational TV, now PBS) went on the air in 1965. I'm sure the local TV shops sold quite a few UHF converters after the station began regular operations, although the reception any further than, say, 10-15 miles from the transmitter was terrible. (The station's effectve radiated power output was a measly [by today's standards] one megawatt at that time.) I was living in a Cleveland suburb at the time and we couldn't get channel 25 worth a darn; that is, I could see a picture, but it was so weak (lots of snow) as to be unwatchable.
I don't think the station's reception problems (for most of their intended viewing area) were really solved until they put in a much more powerful transmitter years later, but far-suburban areas such as the suburb in which I grew up still had problems until cable arrived in Lake County, Ohio in the early 1980s. I remember a large antenna on the roof of the elementary school I attended as a kid; it was installed mainly to receive the educational channel. It fed an amplified distribution system (MATV) and downconverted channel 25 to VHF channel 4. Our school had all-channel RCA Victor 25-inch b&w table model TVs on carts from the time channel 25 arrived in Cleveland; in fact, when I got to junior high in the late sixties-early 1970s they also had metal-cased all-channel RCAs, but no MATV system that I remember--the sets operated on rabbit ears.