Posted by mace  May 14, 2025 2:16 pm | #1 |
May 14, 1948 saw the arrival of the first television station available to Southern Ontario viewers. At least the wealthy ones. In January 1949 Eaton's was selling GE sets with a 10" screen and 12" speaker for $791 PLUS in the fine print, another $100-$150 depending on location for installation of the outdoor antenna. For its first seven months of existence, ch 4 was an NBC affilliate. In January 1949, it became a primary CBS affilliate, while carrying some NBC and ABC programming. When WGR ch 2 signed on in 1954, ch 4 became an exclusive CBS affiliate. Although today you would never know it. The CBS eye never appears on any of WIVB's station logo's or ID's.
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Posted by Buzzy Krumhunger May 14, 2025 2:56 pm | #2 |
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.
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Posted by RadioActive May 14, 2025 3:28 pm | #3 |
Buffalo media historian Steve Cichon relives that very first day, including a ton of stunning photos.
WBEN-TV signs-on, 1948
Here's a 1955 WBEN-TV ad that mentions Toronto viewers, followed by a 1963 Toronto Star ad for an antenna installer. (Notice the "RU" prefix in the phone number, which was "78." That sounds very familiar to me, since our home number when I was a kid also started with "RU," which stood for "Russell.")
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Posted by mace May 14, 2025 4:19 pm | #4 |
That TV Tower ad is insteresting. Growing up in Oakville, almost everyone had chimney mounted antennas.
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Posted by MJ Vancouver May 14, 2025 4:57 pm | #5 |
mace wrote:
May 14, 1948 saw the arrival of the first television station available to Southern Ontario viewers. At least the wealthy ones. In January 1949 Eaton's was selling GE sets with a 10" screen and 12" speaker for $791 PLUS in the fine print, another $100-$150 depending on location for installation of the outdoor antenna. For its first seven months of existence, ch 4 was an NBC affilliate. In January 1949, it became a primary CBS affilliate, while carrying some NBC and ABC programming. When WGR ch 2 signed on in 1954, ch 4 became an exclusive CBS affiliate. Although today you would never know it. The CBS eye never appears on any of WIVB's station logo's or ID's.
First in the GTA, but not quite the first in Southern Ontario - WWJ in Detroit (now WDIV) signed on March 4, 1947 and WEWS in Cleveland signed on December 17 of that year.
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Posted by Hansa May 14, 2025 8:52 pm | #6 |
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.
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Posted by mace May 15, 2025 8:31 am | #7 |
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.
I remember in the early days of Rogers Cable, if you signed up for their service, they would remove your "old unsightly antenna" free of charge. I remember my cousin's family signing up early so they could finally receive WKBW. They had a tower but the antenna was one of the early versions capable of only receiving ch 2-6.
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Posted by Evuguy May 25, 2025 12:25 pm | #8 |
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.
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Posted by mace May 26, 2025 9:10 am | #9 |
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.
Growing up in Oakville, I recognized the top two antennas pictured. My parents had the one on the right.
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Posted by Evuguy May 28, 2025 1:08 pm | #10 |
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!
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Posted by mace May 29, 2025 2:45 am | #11 |
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!
Since it was only a VHF antenna, today I imagine it would receive just CFTO ch 8.
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Posted by Evuguy May 29, 2025 8:21 pm | #12 |
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 (May 29, 2025 8:21 pm)
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Posted by fybush May 29, 2025 9:38 pm | #13 |
Small historic point of order: WNED never transmitted from 184 Barton. When it took over channel 17 in 1959, it had studio and transmitter at the Hotel Lafayette downtown. In 1968, WNED moved its transmitter to the Elmwood Avenue tower behind the channel 4 studios (which had been built by NBC in the late 1950s for WBUF 17), and in 1973 the WNED studios moved to Barton Street, which had been the studio site for both WBUF and WGR-TV 2.
The WNED transmitter then moved to Grand Island in 1987, followed by the studio move to Horizons Plaza downtown a few years later.
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Posted by mace May 30, 2025 7:49 am | #14 |
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.
