"Todd Allcock" <elecconnec@AmericaOnLine.com> wrote in
news:fvjauc$cqu$1@aioe.org:

> Yep, I grew up in 70's in a suburb of Providence, RI. With a typical
> rooftop antenna (and the satisfying "cl-clunk, cl-clunk, cl-clunk" of
> the rotator!) we could pickup Providence's four stations and most of
> Boston's six very well. On days of freak atmospheric cooperation, we
> could get Hartford, CT's CBS affiliate, if conditions were _just_
> right. (Once in a blue moon they'd be clear as a Providence station,
> most days you couldn't tell them from the snow on unused channels!)
>
>

By the early 60's, our little town (pop about 1400) had a TV cable
distribution system installed by Dyer's TV and Appliance all over town.
Unlike today's "cable TV", however, Dyer's Cable was simply a remote TV
antenna farm located on top of the 800' hill to the East of the town
feeding line amps and 75 ohm distribution system across the town, the
earliest cable TV systems America had. Dyer customers got Syracuse,
Binghampton, Rochester channels, about 12 of them by that time. The deep
valley made sure almost everyone in town was a Dyer customer. I'm sure
his system was bought up by one of the big guns in later years after I
left for the Navy, never to return. Dyers was an RCA dealer and had the
very first RCA round-screen color TVs ever produced....a real amazement.
The first model was setup in their display window for everyone in town to
stand and gawk at from the street in the middle of town. It was 21" or
17" and in COLOR!.....well, during the 3 or 4 color shows NBC broadcast
each week to sell them...