Why even in 1976-1982 color tv where still expensive for people from USA?

[Colly0410]

Interesting thread... Here in England it'd be the early/mid 1970's when colour TV's started to become popular, a lot were rented, some with a 50 pence coin meter on the back or side. My parents bought a Sony 18 inches colour set in 72 or 73, they got a free Elizabetan T12 B/W TV free. (I've still got it) The Sony cost just over 200 pounds, you can buy a new flat screen TV from Aldi for 179 pounds (about 210 dollars) today. Last time I saw a B/W as someones main TV would be early 80's. A thing putting a lot of people off colour TV was the more expensive colour TV licence, it was (still is) about 3 times the cost of a B/W one...

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Colly0410

Interesting thread... Here in England it'd be the early/mid 1970's when colour TV's started to become popular, a lot were rented, some with a 50 pence coin meter on the back or side. My parents bought a Sony 18 inches colour set in 72 or 73, they got a free Elizabetan T12 B/W TV free. (I've still got it) The Sony cost just over 200 pounds, you can buy a new flat screen TV from Aldi for 179 pounds (about 210 dollars) today. Last time I saw a B/W as someones main TV would be early 80's. A thing putting a lot of people off colour TV was the more expensive colour TV licence, it was (still is) about 3 times the cost of a B/W one...

Is the color licence only for one set, as many people have more than one TV.
I know, the TV licence subsidizes BBC programing.
Some people might disagree with me but the BBC has some excellent programing. PBS shows much of their best.

[Colly0410]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

Is the color licence only for one set, as many people have more than one TV.
I know, the TV licence subsidizes BBC programing.
Some people might disagree with me but the BBC has some excellent programing. PBS shows much of their best.

The TV licence covers a house/apt & you can have as many TV's as you want, we have 5 TV's = 3 colour & 2 B/W, one from 1972. You need a licence to watch or record any live TV & watch BBC i-player catch up service. You can watch ITV, channel's 4 & 5 catch up services & you tube/online films with no licence though..

[DavGoodlin]

Originally Posted by Colly0410

The TV licence covers a house/apt & you can have as many TV's as you want, we have 5 TV's = 3 colour & 2 B/W, one from 1972. You need a licence to watch or record any live TV & watch BBC i-player catch up service. You can watch ITV, channel's 4 & 5 catch up services & you tube/online films with no licence though..

I recall a visit to Great Britain in the late 70's, maybe there were only BB1,2 and ITV. The UHF Yagi antenna mountings varied with the odd chimneys and building structures yet were all pretty consistent. The different bands of UHF had their own specific antenna but all looked similar.

I was given by this one innkeeper an indoor, set top UHF antenna "Labgear", zig-zag helical with a 72 ohm push-on connector. It works as good as any other non-amplified indoor UHF I've tried, even with ATSC.

[Colly0410]

Yes the 1970's/80's UHF antennas all seemed to look the same, some were a bit longer in the few weak signal areas. When digital terrestrial TV fired up in the late 1990's/2000's the sales people would tell buyers their old antennas would no longer work & millions of people bought new ones. (including my in-laws, I was annoyed when I found out they'd paid 225 pounds for a new so called digital antenna) & now there are lots of antennas with 4 to 6 reflectors, a dipole & up to 10 X shaped directors. My old loft antenna works perfect on digital TV but the digital sales lady tried her best to get me to have a new antenna.

In 1982 a new channel called channel 4 fired up, although it didn't transmit on VHF channel 4, (BBC1 was on there till 1985) in my area it was confusingly on channels UHF 31 & 54. In 1997 channel 5 fired up, that was on UHF 37 from 2 distant TX's that interfered with each other, a year later it fired up on the local TX's on 34 & 35. We thought it was great to have 5 channels after so long with only 3. Now we have about 50 odd on digital freeview...