The cost of televisions back in the day isn’t all that surprising but the added cost of outdoor antennas is a shocker.  Would these be the rooftop or tower antennas?  Our home in the early 60’s Scarberia (as well as everyone else on our street) were the of the tower variety.  
Eight year old me made the discovery that climbing up the tower to retrieve a ball from the roof was much easier than trying to climb down!  A belated nod of grateful thanks to my neighbour Mr. Norton for getting that idiot me down safely.

That TV Tower ad is insteresting. Growing up in Oakville, almost everyone had chimney mounted antennas.

Buzzy Krumhunger wrote:

The cost of televisions back in the day isn’t all that surprising but the added cost of outdoor antennas is a shocker.  Would these be the rooftop or tower antennas?  Our home in the early 60’s Scarberia (as well as everyone else on our street) were the of the tower variety.  
Eight year old me made the discovery that climbing up the tower to retrieve a ball from the roof was much easier than trying to climb down!  A belated nod of grateful thanks to my neighbour Mr. Norton for getting that idiot me down safely.

I recall being told that the cable companies lobbied municipalities to pass laws requiring rooftop and antenna towers be removed. I don't know if that's true but they seem to have largely disappeared in a short period of time and you'd think removing the towers at least wouldn't be an inexpensive operation.

Correct Mace. Rogers did offer that service. I have the pamphlet from them offering the antenna removal, free of charge if you signed up.

Here are a couple of shots from the January 1968 Electrosonic catalogue. For those not familiar, Electrosonic was an electronic parts distributor here in Toronto, which got its start downtown, eventually moving up to a larger warehouse around Vic Park/Steeles area in the 70's.  They sold TV antennas and associated hardware and carried the Delhi brand, a firm from Delhi, Ont. I'm sure some of you will recognize some of these antennas, especially the smaller B&W models like the 213M and the 2-4-7, which adorned thousands of rooftops in Ontario back in the day. I still see the odd one around but they are becoming increasing rare.




 

Yes, they were very common.  I have an unused 213 up in the loft. Sonic was clearing them out back in the late 80's. It was a cheap price I recall but I certainly paid more than $6.15!

Well, it's really not so cut and dry. While that 213 antenna is optimized for VHF, it will receive UHF signals but with some loss or impairment due to reflections from buildings nearby as directivity is also compromised. The performance would also vary widely across the UHF band, with it performing better on some frequencies than others. Back in the day, my uncle had one of these up on his tower in West Hill. It brought in a crystal clear WUTV 29. Even WNED was good and that's when it was broadcasting from Barton St. in downtown Buffalo. The 3 Buffalo VHF channels were all "cable quality" for him. He was lucky in this regard but it's all about location. He was less than a kilometer from the lake and had no noisy power lines nearby. He didn't take cable until the early 90's, when he wanted to watch Larry King on CNN.

Last edited by Evuguy (Yesterday 8:21 pm)

Evuguy wrote:

Well, it's really not so cut and dry. While that 213 antenna is optimized for VHF, it will receive UHF signals but with some loss or impairment due to reflections from buildings nearby as directivity is also compromised. The performance would also vary widely across the UHF band, with it performing better on some frequencies than others. Back in the day, my uncle had one of these up on his tower in West Hill. It brought in a crystal clear WUTV 29. Even WNED was good and that's when it was broadcasting from Barton St. in downtown Buffalo. The 3 Buffalo VHF channels were all "cable quality" for him. He was lucky in this regard but it's all about location. He was less than a kilometer from the lake and had no noisy power lines nearby. He didn't take cable until the early 90's, when he wanted to watch Larry King on CNN.

That is interesting. My dad, in West Oakville, well south of the QEW, had one of the DWE 2-4-7'[s erected on the chimney. Around 1972 he added one of those flytrap looking UHF antennas. Crystal clear reception on 17, 19 and 29. Nothing but snow on 79.