Quote:
Originally Posted by esquire
Man. You guys who grew up with less than six TV channels are the true OGs.
When I was a kid in the 80s I only had channels 2-13, and I thought I had it rough. My parents' TV only went up to 13 so that even when basic cable pushed beyond channel 13, we didn't have a device capable of viewing them until we got a new VCR maybe around 1989 or so?
Going out to the cottage meant only pulling in CTV, CKND (Global), MTN and CBC. It felt primitive 
---
If I lived in a place like Toronto with a lot of channels available over the air I think I'd cut my cable package and just use rabbit ears like in ye olde days at the cottage. But alas, here in Winnipeg the OTA offerings are a little sparse. Basically CBC, Global and City, along with some sort of religious broadcaster. Apparently CTV is available too but I have no idea how to actually pull it in. |
I grew up with cable in London, but my extended family all lived in rural Ontario and had antennas.
Some of my family lived in the North Bay area. They got MCTV (CBC on ch. 4 and CTV on ch. 10), and TVO on Ch. 6. In Sturgeon Falls you could also get Radio-Canada on Ch. 7. MCTV-CBC had quite a bit of non-CBC programming, they had The Price is Right. When my dad was a kid, there was no TV when he was really young, though Ch. 10 from North Bay signed on for the first time when he was about 9, and they could sometimes also get CKVR from Barrie. They moved to the Sault Ste. Marie area when he was in high school and they got their first colour station, WTOM from Cheboygan, Michigan. They bought a colour TV just to watch WTOM.
Other family lived between Belleville and Kingston, and they got a lot more channels, because of their proximity to the US border. The clear stations were CJOH (CTV) Ch. 6, CKWS (CBC) Ch. 11, and WWNY (CBS, plus secondary NBC) Ch. 7 from Watertown, NY. They also could get Ch. 3, 5, and 9 from Syracuse and Ch. 8, 10 and 13 from Rochester. They did not have a UHF antenna, but they later got a C-Band dish.
My mother grew up in Calgary, they had one channel initially, CFCN went on the air while she lived there so then they had two channels. Then when they moved to Ontario they had a full VHF dial - stations from Detroit, Cleveland, and Erie, plus the locals from London and Kitchener.
As a kid we went to a cottage in Muskoka, but there was a good slate of stations available with the rabbit ears - Global on Ch. 7, CKVR on Ch. 3, CFTO (CTV) on Ch. 21, and CHCH on Ch. 67. CBC was on both Ch. 8 and 16 but it did not come in reliably during the day, CKCO (CTV) was on Ch. 11 but also didn't come in that well.
I have cable where I live now, but it's provided by the landlord in all units. The area I live in gets very poor OTA reception because of terrain - Vancouver's signals all broadcast from Mount Seymour, but parts of Burnaby and New Westminster can't get reliable reception because of Burnaby Mountain being in the way. The only reliable signals in this part of Metro Vancouver are KVOS from Bellingham, and a religious station from the same area. If I didn't have landlord-provided cable I would still subscribe to cable on my own, if for no other reason than to be able to watch Jeopardy.