Remember TV Sign-offs?
Pittsburgh:It's not a very common thing to see a TV station sign-off anymore. That's why this little gem is so appealing.
That's former KQV Announcer Henry DaBecco giving the tech specs, address and telling you to listen to 1250 WTAE Radio and Sara Lockard through the night.
One YouTube Commenter remarked that after Pittsburgh's Channel 4 would sign off, he would, as a DXer pick up WRC-TV out of Washington, DC.
Enjoy.
Readers’ Forum
Speaking of sign on and sign off’s I’d be curious to know what Indian tribe the native American belongs to that was on the test pattern we used to see when stations signed on “back in the day?” (I would guess Clarke would have the answer to this one!)
Trefdawg - April 10, 2008 at 8:19 pm
My favorite was always the WQED “Monty Python” sign off. I would always turn it on just to hear the “Always look on the bright side of life”. I couldnl’t go to bed back in the day without it.
DJ - April 10, 2008 at 11:22 pm
When I first started at WQLN in 1997, the TV side was still signing off at 1am. The narration was by the late Paul Brown followed by the Canadian and American national anthems. We signed back on at 5:30am with the same procedure. I recall visiting Pittsburgh and saw that very Monty Python anthem but it was on WQEX at the time I saw it in ’92. I definitely got a huge laugh out of that one.
Tom Lavery (URL) - April 11, 2008 at 10:37 am
There is a great site for sign-offs from all over the country..
http://tv-signoffs.com/
This site has audio TV signoffs from as far back as the late 1950’s, as well as video sign-offs from the 70’s to 2000’s..I recommend it highly
Tim Lones (URL) - April 12, 2008 at 12:51 am
Many years ago, I visited the WTNH-8 transmitter on a hilltop near New Haven, CT when they were still signing off. The xmtr supervisor was another ham, so I asked him if he had considered mounting a 2 meter antenna 20 or 30 feet up on the tower to see how well he could “get out.”
“Thirty feet, hell!” he responded, “I load up the big stick!” – meaning that after the TV signoff, he disconnected the TV xmtr output from the transmission line up to the antenna system at the top of the tower and replaced it with the output of his little Gon-Set transceiver!
He “worked” a ham in Brooklyn, NY (about 75 air miles distant), who was very surprised to hear someone in Hamden, CT (before repeaters came into vogue).
“How much power are you running up there?”
“15 watts.”
“That’s all? How high do you have it off the ground?”
“Oh, about 900 feet!”
“TV station, huh?”
“Yep!”
Bill Davies - April 12, 2008 at 07:59 am
When I lived in Kane and Ridgway for a couple of years, I used to stay up through the wee hours of Friday night/Saturday morning and watch Buffalo’s WKBW (channel 7) sign off. That station, too, also played the U.S. and Canadian national anthems when it signed off. Thanks, Tom, for the memory.
Rick - April 17, 2008 at 11:33 pm
I remember the day when most TV stations signed off and some radio station too. IIRC, I think one Sunday night a month, even KDKA radio signed off for transmitter maintenance. I always liked the sign-off video from WTAE above with the F-16 in flight, I think WPTT, the first callsign for channel 22 used the same video. I think the only 24 hour TV station was KDKA-TV but back in the day here in Pittsburgh, you did have a market for people who are up at night because of the steel mills and factories we had here.
BTW, I’m that TV DX’er (NowhereMan1966) on YouTube that received WRC-TV out of DC, my friend and I hooked the rabbit ears from at 1959 Philco to my 1982 Zenith 25” console back in the late 1980’s, when WTAE signed off, we received the DC station fairly well. Today, I’m using the same rabbit ears for my HDTV to NTSC converter box and the Zenith is still in service.
Chuck Mandus - April 22, 2008 at 11:58 am
I can also remember way back when TV stations did their nightly sign-off night after night back when I was a kid growing from Lowellville, Ohio. At the home I live in, we used to have an 100-foot attenna, and that attenna can get out-of Youngstown, Ohio TV stations, particuarlly from Cleveland and Pittsburgh, and one of the stations that we picked up from that attenna was from Channel 4, WTAE, and yes I remember their nightly sign-off, first with the “FLAG EVOLUTION” SSB film when I was a little toddler, then the “AIM HIGH AMERICA” SSB film when I became a little boy in the mid-to-late 1980’s
Russell Pavlov - May 24, 2009 at 11:34 am
With the upcoming switch to digital television, I’d like to see WTAE, KDKA, WPXI and all local tv stations have a sign-off, complete with views of the city, either ‘God Bless America’, ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, ‘America the Beautiful’ or any U.S. Armed Forces Hymn. I always get emotional when I see tv signoffs online, and I think TV stations should drop the ‘paid program-length commercials’ (as KDKA calls the infomercials) and bring back the signoffs.
Fred Benson (URL) - May 30, 2009 at 10:37 am
BTW, I think KDKA-TV and even when it was WDTV was 24 hours when it first start, I’m not sure but with Pittsburgh being an industrial town at the time, you had many workers on 2nd shift who would come home around midnight or so and KDKA had “Swing Shift Theater” on. WIIC/WPXI, I don’t remember if they signed off or nor, I was born in 1966 but I remember WTAE-TV and WQED/WQEX signing off. WKBN-TV out of Youngstown used to sign off too.
I always find station sign-offs amazing, I always like to know the technical information of the station and so on and then see the national anthem or “America the Beautiful” play with some film and after that, the test pattern and then static. I’ll admit, I’m right wing politically as they come but there is a side of me that thinks when I see the static, I might be seeing a little bit of the background noise in the Universe, among the noise generated in the TV receiver, that was left over when God (or whomever you believe in) set off the Creation of the Universe with the Big Bang and here I am with a 1982 (or 1970) Zenith maybe just picking up the echoes of it all. It’s really astounding.
I wonder when and how TV stations do maintenance on their transmitters without signing off? Do they have backups in case if their main ones die? IIRC, back in the 1980’s, I remember having conversations over the old Fidonet with one of WPXI’s technical personnel, Otto Schellin, (you still out there?) and he said that WPXI had three transmitters, their original 1957 model and two newer ones they run in parallel. They can run one of them at half power if needed, maybe some stations do that, take one down and leave the other up and then switch over to work on the other one. I just think that even though they might not be as much of a maintenance hogs they used to be but still, you need to maintain them like anything else.
Charles D. Mandus - May 30, 2009 at 9:38 pm
In response to Fred’s suggestion, the TV stations should discontinue any and all programs that show women wearing those unsightly and unladylike jazz pants, as they often do on informercials.
rick - June 02, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Mr. Mandus, WKBN-TV used “AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL” for their daily sign-on/sign-off while WFMJ-TV and WYTV-TV used the “STAR SPANGLED BANNER” for their respective daily sign-on/sign-off. In fact, WFMJ and WYTV used the “Army SSB” film. I was born in 1980. By the way in the early 80’s every TV station from when I had the 100-foot attenna used to sign off every night, even KDKA and WPXI did so too.
Russell Pavlov - July 11, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Wasn’t ‘snow’ a great alarm clock?
Couldn’t tell you how many times I dozed off during program but snapped back when the xmtr went off leaving snow and noise….
Chauncey Ross (URL) - October 17, 2009 at 09:51 am
The announcer’s voice sounds an awful lot Jean Shepherd.
Rockin' Reed - January 30, 2010 at 01:07 am
Did any Pittsburgh stations do the sermonette? What SSB ffotage did WPXI use?
Steelers Fan - September 07, 2011 at 12:47 am
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