Satellite Television

These days we take all of those ubiquitous satellite dishes we see on rooftops and lawns across America for granted, but I can remember a time when it was just a dream for rural folks who had a hard time getting decent reception on their TV sets.

Back in the 1970′s we lived “up in the holler” in rural Widener Valley, Virginia, and to say that our television reception was poor would be quite an understatement. For years my dad spent his hard-earned money and lots of his time buying and installing all types of TV antennae and cabling, but it all came to nothing. Not only was our house located in the “fringe” area of all of the local TV signals, but it was also, well, “down in a holler” with a high hill blocking what remained of those signals from reaching our abode.

It made no difference how high we mounted an antenna or how strong the “booster amplifier” was, the only station we could watch with any satisfaction was channel 5 (WCYB out of Bristol, Virginia). And to add insult to injury, even that channel was always “snowy”.

Then one day I read in Popular Science magazine that the Hughes Aerospace company was planning to launch a series of satellites that would deliver high-quality television signals directly into homes and businesses all across most of North America. Of course this would mean an end to our reception problems, and I for one couldn’t wait.

After all, the other kids at school were always talking about the latest episode of “Happy Days” or “Charlie’s Angels”, and all I could talk about was the Major League “Game of the Week on NBC (carried by affiliate WCYB of course). Now don’t get me wrong, I loved watching big league baseball, but it would have been nice to see the Fonze and Charlie’s pretty Angels on occasion as well.

I excitedly told dad about the amazing new satellite TV signals that we would soon be able to “pull in”, but he wasn’t the least bit impressed. He said something like “I’ve tried to get a decent signal from a transmitter just 40 miles away, and you’re telling me that we’ll be able to get one from out in space! It’ll never work.” Of course work it did, and before long we had one of those massive 10 foot satellite dishes sitting square in our front yard.

And let me tell you, after watching the Skipper chase Gilligan around that tropical island through what looked like a snowstorm for years, the picture we received from the dish was absolutely amazing! Every once in a while if the wind was causing the dish to shake we would see a few “sparklies”, but for the most part the reception was “picture perfect”.

Well, dad is no longer with us, and neither are those behemoth satellite dishes that made yards and rooftops look as tacky as your average junkyard. I miss my dad very much, and I’ll never forget the ecstatic look on his face on our first day watching “satellite television”.