Wacky old antennas

[Tripelo]

Originally Posted by DavGoodlin

Channel Master - much more to come but here is what I consider to be the ultimate and most beautiful sight on a rooftop circa 1970

Yes.

Thanks DavGoodlin, for the photos and comments. Hope you do have some more to post.

Fond memories of studying those TV antennas while riding in a school bus. Practically memorized shape and configuration of every antenna along a 8-10 mile rural route. Alas, they are gone. Never had any photos.

In searching for TV antenna info, realized that there was very little published in the 1960 thru mid-1970's (the peak of the large TV antenna days). Much TV antenna development was done in the 50's and there were a couple of books that recoded some of that development. Seems to be some history and technical details lost, or nearly lost.

was also climbed more than once to replace a dead mast preamp!

Oh yes, in those days (the 70s), preamps were more failure prone (static discharge nearby lightning etc.), preamps still are failure-prone of course but some of them they are a bit better.

Don't think there was much available in preamp lineup in the 60s. Vacuum tube type set-top tunable boosters were used before transistorized antenna mounted preamps became available. Guess those fared better with lightning, hey, they could probably make some sparks of their own.