Before television became wireless after all those years of connection by coaxial cable, they had, in fact, originally been wireless…believe it or not!

Broadcasts would send a signal out into the air where they were captured by antennas connected to individual TV sets to be viewed by any and all. The earliest antennas were little more than metal rods whose greater surface area captured more of the radio waves carrying the sound and picture and turned it into electric power. Later models added all sorts of electronic gadgetry to boost the signal and improve the picture on your screen; in the olden days it wasn’t unusual to spend several minutes adjusting set top antennas—popularly known as “rabbit ears” for their V-shaped design—to get the clearest signal. If you lived in an area where TV reception was poor, you could augment your reception with a larger rooftop antenna, or try to boost the signal by wrapping a large piece of aluminum foil around the antenna to capture more of the signal.

I wrote all there was to write on the subject in the June 1981 issue of Video Action…

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