Do You Remember When TV Stations Signed Off And Signed On?

[Tom]

On a related note, movies played on Navy base theaters were preceded by the national anthem.

On Air Force bases the same. Still will stop if I happen to be on a base at 5pm when the flag is lowered and Retreat is played. You face the flag when you can see it but I always thought it a little funny that you were supposed to face the direction of the music when you did not see the flag. On bases usually buildings distorted the sound or in many of my stations the howling wind took it away.

I wonder if that is where the saying 'Face the Music' comes from.

 

[MobiusGrey]

In the UK in the late 80s we had the same thing, I remember as a child being mildly traumatised by the test card of this girl and a strange evil clown. Seriously, who wouldn't be scarred by this:

 

[FreeDiver]

In the UK in the late 80s we had the same thing, I remember as a child being mildly traumatised by the test card of this girl and a strange evil clown. Seriously, who wouldn't be scarred by this:

You wanna talk about being traumatized? Check out the cover from this children's album from 1980.

Doesn't look like anything scary, RIGHT? I mean all were talking about is 4 seriously "sun-baked" elves here. Now take a look at the back of the album cover.

Now you might be thinking that this is a good opportunity to check out their asses. But it's was the two children's faces in the background that was the most traumatizing to me. I believed that looking at the front cover of that album was sucking your soul out and trapping in that album just to let you see it in the back. Now my Mom told me that those kids were experiencing a sense of wonder. I don't know about you. But those kids looked very terrified to me.

 

[clg114]

As late as the 1980s the local TV stations in Sacramento and even a couple in San Francisco would sign off at the end of the day. By the end of the decade the sign offs were limited to once a week, on Sunday nights.

The point was to check out the transmitting equipment to make sure that no components were about to fail. This was when microchips and other integrated component systems were considered toys and the Heavy Lifting was done with vacuum tubes. A single transmitter could fill an entire building the size of a small house, maybe around 600 square feet. The transmitter was a rat nest of capacitors, resistors, coils, and of course the tubes themselves, most of which were gigantic and sheathed in thick steel.

Technicians had to physically climb into the foreboding looking mess and use their Simpson multimeters to physically test every single component to make sure it was testing within spec. The job was fairly dangerous, especially around ultra-high-value capacitors that could hold a lethal amount of DC voltage long after the circuit was turned off. The techs carried what was known as "chicken sticks" to drain the caps before testing them so the multimeter didn't explode like a grenade.

Gradually the reign of vacuum tubes and of carbon resistors and wax paper (and primitive aluminum) capacitors came to an end. Today, everything is computerized. Transmitters consist of dozens of modules that are "hot swappable" and monitored by computers. When the computer says a module is bad, a single tech drives out with the replacement, swaps them, then heads back.

In the old days several DOZEN techs with Simpson 260 meters would crawl around a transmitter for HOURS every single night, then once a week, trying to see if anything was about to blow. If they missed something, the viewing public would suddenly see their favorite program replaced with a "PLEASE STAND BY" message that could last for quite a while.

This was a regular occurrence when I was a little kid in the 70s. My mom had to explain to me that the message did NOT mean that I had to physically stand next to the TV until the show resumed, or that doing so would make it return quicker.

Your mention of the Simpson VOM meter really brings back some memories. My first meter was a Simpson 260 analog meter. I used that meter for many years before I got a digital meter. I prefer a analog meter for checking potentiometers (pots) and capacitors. For me it is a lot easier to watch a smooth needle sweep than a string of rapidly changing numbers. I use a digital meter for everything else. However I do not like self ranging meters. I guess those strings of rapidly numbers just do not agree with me.

 

[MobiusGrey]

You wanna talk about being traumatized? Check out the cover from this children's album from 1980.
View attachment 72884
Doesn't look like anything scary, RIGHT? I mean all were talking about is 4 seriously "sun-baked" elves here. Now take a look at the back of the album cover.
View attachment 72885
Now you might be thinking that this is a good opportunity to check out their asses. But it's was the two children's faces in the background that was the most traumatizing to me. I believed that looking at the front cover of that album was sucking your soul out and trapping in that album just to let you see it in the back. Now my Mom told me that those kids were experiencing a sense of wonder. I don't know about you. But those kids looked very terrified to me.

Lolliwinks. Lolli…winks. Good lord that alone is mildly traumatic.

 

[Bolletje]

Yeah, I was always an early riser, so as a kid I’d watch the “test” screen until my channels went on air again.

 

[Bolletje]

In the UK in the late 80s we had the same thing, I remember as a child being mildly traumatised by the test card of this girl and a strange evil clown. Seriously, who wouldn't be scarred by this:

I remember a plot line in the Life on Mars tv show revolving around this test card

 

[oregano]

There's a whole subculture (well, there USED to be, at least) of vintage electronics geeks who would collect and share old test cards and signoff/on sequences. This was maybe 20 years ago so they had to be creative in sharing their stuff. Test cards got made into ASCII binaries and posted to usenet. Clips had to be made into such formats as Real Movie (an offshoot of Real Audio, a dot.com era startup with a proprietary audio/video encoding and playing system). There's a test card used in the 1950s that showed the head of an Indigenous man, a very stereotyped one of course. The card was called the Indian Head Card and was well known.

 

[oregano]

Your mention of the Simpson VOM meter really brings back some memories. My first meter was a Simpson 260 analog meter. I used that meter for many years before I got a digital meter. I prefer a analog meter for checking potentiometers (pots) and capacitors. For me it is a lot easier to watch a smooth needle sweep than a string of rapidly changing numbers. I use a digital meter for everything else. However I do not like self ranging meters. I guess those strings of rapidly numbers just do not agree with me.

I like the accuracy of the digital autoranging multimeters, but I've never liked anything analog, including traditional 12 hour analog clocks. At one point my dad took away my digital clock and bought me a small analog clock in a desperate attempt to force me to learn how to tell time the old fashioned way. I eventually did figure it out, but have never been fond of analog clocks, and I love clocks. So yeah, I don't comprehend analog meters well either.

 

[Judge]

Ah yes..those days when I'd tag along with my father to the supermarket. Not for groceries, but to use the public device that allowed people to test their tv tubes if they failed. Cheaper to replace those tubes than go to a tv repairman. Of course nowadays you just buy a new one. LOL....very different times with those test patterns and when stations would shut down until the next day.

Nothing like seeing the tv come on and start singing "it's howdy doody day!".

 

[Au Naturel]

Your mention of the Simpson VOM meter really brings back some memories. My first meter was a Simpson 260 analog meter. I used that meter for many years before I got a digital meter. I prefer a analog meter for checking potentiometers (pots) and capacitors. For me it is a lot easier to watch a smooth needle sweep than a string of rapidly changing numbers. I use a digital meter for everything else. However I do not like self ranging meters. I guess those strings of rapidly numbers just do not agree with me.

I still use a Simpson clone. It is a 40 year old Radio Shack Micronta that looks just like a Simpson.

But back to the OP... There was a local PBS affiliate that would play the third verse instead of the first verse when they concluded broadcasting for the day. (Usually midnight.) A woman would sing it softly with an acoustic guitar against happy peaceful images of a diverse collection of people. This was the 1970s and considered progressive.

O thus be it ever when freemen shall stand
Between their lov’d home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vict’ry and peace may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the power that hath made and preserv’d us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto–“In God is our trust,”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

[Tom]

In the UK in the late 80s we had the same thing, I remember as a child being mildly traumatised by the test card of this girl and a strange evil clown. Seriously, who wouldn't be scarred by this:

Idk. Seems pretty innocent to me. A little girl playing Tic Tac Toe with her imaginary friend. Whoever wins gets to kill the other.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Ah yes..those days when I'd tag along with my father to the supermarket. Not for groceries, but to use the public device that allowed people to test their tv tubes if they failed. Cheaper to replace those tubes than go to a tv repairman. Of course nowadays you just buy a new one. LOL....very different times with those test patterns and when stations would shut down until the next day.

Nothing like seeing the tv come on and start singing "it's howdy doody day!".

I wonder if navigating a tube tester was some kind of IQ test. I always looked for a glowing filament first before removing them from the chassis, but then got to know where to look depending on the failure. My intro to electronics.

 

[watersprite]

Idk. Seems pretty innocent to me. A little girl playing Tic Tac Toe with her imaginary friend. Whoever wins gets to kill the other.

I’m borrowing this.

 

[FreeDiver]

I wonder if navigating a tube tester was some kind of IQ test. I always looked for a glowing filament first before removing them from the chassis, but then got to know where to look depending on the failure. My intro to electronics.

You can't always go by a glowing filament when testing an AA5 of any other radio that uses a series wired filament circuit. Just like fairylights. If one is burned out, they all go out.

 

[WildCat]

Interesting topic...I just barely remember when television stations here in the US used to do this, it was around the tail end of the 80s going into the 90s before the 24 hour format started to gain ground. Even after that, some stations would still sign off every now and then as far as I remember but these days it seems like there's always something to fill the airwaves and I don't know how many stations still do it today. I'd be interested to know though.

The test pattern and the tone that went with it would terrify me...don't ask me why I stayed up that late to catch it, I'm just recalling my experience here.

Since I don't want to stray too much from the topic at hand, here's what it would have looked like if you were growing up at that time. This video is from my local NBC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth back in 1989: