Extra channels during the summer.

briany

Did anybody experience this phenomenon back in the day? Basically, on a warm summers day the aerial on the roof could pick up extra 'exotic' channels from the UK like Border TV, Grenada and HTV. It must have been something to do with the warmth because in the evening when it got it got cool we'd lose the signal....just as Jasper Carrott was coming on! Damn!:mad:

gramlab

Remember that during summer holidays in the caravan alright. Rarely got a perfect picture but it was watchable at times. My mother used to drive us nuts trying to constantly re-tune the signal - poor dear didn't seem to appreciate that it was because of the weather and not the TV.

kelle

briany wrote: »

Did anybody experience this phenomenon back in the day? Basically, on a warm summers day

Alas, I vaguely remember experiencing warm summer days....

nlgbbbblth

East coast phenomenon. Remember it in Courtown c1981

Although HTV was standard in Wexford anyway

Big Tone

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

East coast phenomenon

Not just, it was a South coast phenomenon too. And sometimes in Winter too!

I remember in Cork (on a hilly part of the city with a view in a South-easterly direction) we had a rather large UHF yagi aerial on a tall pole on the roof, which appeared arrow shaped with an angular mesh at the back which in turn was hooked into a masthead amplifer which was powered by a power supply next to the TV. We had earlier had a "Colour King" flat aerial but this was totally outperformed by the German "Arrow" aerial.

We regularly got Westward TV (ITV in Plymouth), BBC1 South West, BBC2 and later Channel4, when weather conditions were favourable, Summer AND Winter with sometimes dodgy but sometimes crystal clear reception "better than RTE" as we used to say, and it was..in every way.

briany

This raises another question......could people on the west coast of england and wales pick up rte given the weather and a decent aerial? And if they could, how novel for them!:P

My dad lived in Northampton during the 1970s. One summer, he was picking up German television for several days.

Down in Kerry in November 2005 I got Channel 4, UTV and BBC 2 from Belfast, earlier that day I also got BBC Radio 1 on a car radio. I also managed to get a weak TVE from Spain in 1996, no sound since it was a PAL-B signal though.

irish1967

briany wrote: »

extra 'exotic' channels from the UK like Border TV, Grenada and HTV. Damn!:mad:

Was this before or after the Americans invaded?;)

briany

Ok, beg pardon....Granada:P.

Thargor

I remember watching BBC (He-Man specifically) in Galway around late 80s early 90s at my cousins house, they had a massive aerial out the back though, like the kind you'd see on top of some Garda stations.

TheScribbler

Goodness that takes me back. In the early 60s I lived in Bray as a teenager and the enormous TV aerial on the side of our house that fed an equally enormous 21 inch Philips TV set (about the size of a Nissan Micra) picked up several stations. However they came with the obligatory snow!

We used to get Teledi Cymru from south Wales, UTV and Border TV on a bright sunny afternoon (they were few and far between back then as well). The Telefis Eireann signal was woeful - always had double images scooting across the screen. Made watching such programmes as The Fugitive and Mission Impossible, well.....impossible!

While we are on this subject, how many people remember trying to listen to Radio Luxembourg on 208 Metres on MW before it got dark? It was a real challenge. Life as we knew it changed with the arrival of Radio Caroline in 1964.

TheDriver

Big Tone wrote: »

Not just, it was a South coast phenomenon too. And sometimes in Winter too!

I remember in Cork (on a hilly part of the city with a view in a South-easterly direction) we had a rather large UHF yagi aerial on a tall pole on the roof, which appeared arrow shaped with an angular mesh at the back which in turn was hooked into a masthead amplifer which was powered by a power supply next to the TV. We had earlier had a "Colour King" flat aerial but this was totally outperformed by the German "Arrow" aerial.

We regularly got Westward TV (ITV in Plymouth), BBC1 South West, BBC2 and later Channel4, when weather conditions were favourable, Summer AND Winter with sometimes dodgy but sometimes crystal clear reception "better than RTE" as we used to say, and it was..in every way.

Sad thing is the colour king still works with the powersupply beside the tv and i only put it in last year!!

mike65

Should be some radio from Spain heading our way over the next week or so.