Analogue TV memories

My Grandmother in Mansfield could get both Central East from Waltham and Yorkshire from Belmont.

I stayed with her at a time I was a massive Home & Away fan, and you could watch the same episode four times a day! I found that novel.

Way back in the 405 line days, Haddington was in the service areas of STV, Grampian and Border thanks to its geographic location - signals from Angus, Black Hill and Selkirk were all at decent strength.

Durris was receivable all down the east coast as far as Whitby. If it hadn’t been co channel with Belmont, I suspect the signal would have been useable even further south

Digital switch over proved that, MYP switched a week before Winter Hill did, lots of people were picking up BBC/ITV Wales and S4C ahead of WH. I could still pick up a watchable S4C analogue (Channel 42) signal from MYP up to digital switchover with an indoor aerial.

This discussion puts me in mind of a Victoria Wood line...

“My Uncle Albert had a metal plate in his head. It was a blessing really. If he sat with his back to the aerial we could get Welsh television.”

We can't talk about setting up a TV aerial without this:

I'm probably way overthinking this but surely since Mr Bean at that point lived in a flat there would have been a communal aerial he could have connected that TV to rather than going through the charade of waving an aerial around and taking his clothes off? (mind you it shouldn't have worked anyway due to the way he wired the plug up earlier in the sketch ) But then I suppose it wouldn't have been much of a sketch if Bean bought a telly, charged up the meter, connected the TV to the communal socket and sat and watched TV until the meter ran out again.

Mind you the whole "sitting in a certain place to get a decent signal" applies sometimes with indoor aerials especially in this era of Freeview where low signal = blockiness, whereas in the old days it would just generally ghost.

I remember before having Freeview in my room at home keeping an eye on Ceefax for the imminent demise of the Pope back in 2005. The station manager of our student radio station at the time insisted we went into Obit (I mean, come on, but both his Number 2 and his missus were Catholic so that was that) so I had VNC ready to go at home and Ceefax on the box.

In many ways I do miss the old Teletext system. It was far quicker than anything that's superseded it.

Would News 24 not have told you sooner?

Quicker than the Internet?