My Analog Days Ended the Way They Began: With a Test Pattern

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At least it had a certain circular sense of closure to it: The first thing I saw on TV as a kid was this hypnotic test pattern, and it's the last thing I saw the night that the analog sets started turning into pumpkins in Madison -- at least for people who want to watch ABC, NBC or CBS.

NBC 15 apparently couldn't wait to show their analog viewers what they thought of them. At about 11:57, they started playing "The Star Spangled Banner." They couldn't even wait till midnight to unceremoniously kick the rabble off the bus. The national anthem was followed by about a minute of test pattern, and then promptly at midnight, in a avalanche of static and snow, channel 15 disappeared from the analog airwaves forever.

The three local "early adopters" who stuck with the original Feb. 17 date for transitioning to digital said that only 1 percent of their viewers would be affected (channel 3 switches at noon, and channel 27 at 1:00 p.m). Doesn't strike me as plausible, but we'll soon see.

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Comments

scribble1 says:

Haven't seen that pattern in decades--not since TV's had a multitude of adjustments that took a ton of fiddling to make the squares square, the circles round and the lines something other than a dark blur.

An era has passed.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Holden Richards says:

Have not seen one of those in years.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

james eugene frank says:

I was 5 when we came to the US, Virginia in 1953, and this was the first image I saw in TV.....we would get up early on Saturday and waited and waited.....I remember anticipating meeting real Indians when my dad told us we were moving out west.....
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Madison Guy says:

Jamie, wasn't it magical. Those phosphorescent forerunners of things we would someday call pixels just danced and shimmered on the screen as we waited expectantly. Wanting the program to begin so badly, you could almost start to imagine it in the random screen noise. Surely there was something hidden in there, if we could just decipher it.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

heet_myser says:

"Surely there was something hidden in there, if we could just decipher it."

"They're heeeere!"

I think you share a bond with Steven Spielberg.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

m. t. sullivan says:

i haven't seen this in a long either!
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

mjlmadison says:

I always wondered why Indians were often on test patterns. I used to watch one early while waiting for the 6am news to come on in Massachusetts.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

thechrisproject says:

I just saw an interview where a piece of equipment was displaying that in the background. I'd seen it before, but my first reaction was, "that'd make a nice tattoo."
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Gamma Infinity says:

Oh my god, they put on the Indian? Now THAT is a sense of humor. This is why i love engineers. There's no other reason to show it. It's not really relevant with modern equipment and usually it's the SMPTE bars and techs looking at lines on vector scopes.

Wow, you're not kidding. I notice a lot of stations up there pulled the plug today.

I had the same experience at the age of 5 or so. I woke up at some ungodly hour and put on the tube, and immediately understood what TV was really about. My life as a consequence has been SO much more meaningful.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Gamma Infinity says:

The test pattern was designed by RCA. All the various lines and circles mean things that you used to have to do to old TVs to keep them adjusted. I guess they wanted a picture for reference or whatever. It was drawn (from a famous photo of an Indian chief, I believe) by an artist whose name escapes me but who can be found fairly quickly with Google.

RCA had a copyright on this test pattern for years. It expired. Ultimately, as the story goes, when RCA became part of GE, someone was going through old stuff and found the original art in a pile of stuff bound for the trash.

My understanding (also Google-able) is that someone has refiled the lapsed copyright and now claims ownership of the Indian test pattern. How far he'll get given the de facto public domain status of the thing, is something I don't know.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Ann Marie Simard says:

Love that phrase me too "surely there was something hidden there, if we could just decipher it" that's beautiful writing. and At least it had a certain circular sense of closure to it and you know what, this is beautiful and guess one I've never seen although seen test patterns on several continents and also "snow" on screen I remember from my childhood, before highly colorful test patterns appeared in my childhood with stripes. I'm not TV nerdy but this brought different types of memories, and from studies, comparing NTSC and PAL systems and their color schemes and technology used. Wonderful piece of photo, writ and thought. Great angle in shot and so I guess I have to understand you guys have gone all digital there now for television. Supposed to come here too... I'll go read my morning paper they are still approximately 3D
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

Gamma Infinity says:

The entire US was supposed to go all-digital at midnight last night. It didn't, because the program designed to help people with low incomes convert their receivers ran out of money. The Congress changed the deadline to sometime in June, but something like 500 stations pulled the plug on their analog signals last night anyway.

The whole thing was handled very badly by the FCC. They really have had no clue on how to regulate broadcasting in a large industrial country. They should have changed over one market area at a time, saving the biggest ones for last. They also never solved the problem of what happens to cities along the Mexican border such as San Diego and El Paso, which get significant programming from Mexico.
Posted 10 months ago. ( permalink )

brainman2008 says:

any idea as to how they displayed the Test Pattern?Did they use an old RCA TK1 C Generator? I have a copy of this image not only as wallpaper but i printed it out as a momento of my early years watching analog TV.Brainy
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

scribble1 says:

brainman2008

my question when I first saw this--it had to be right on accurate if you used it to adjust TVs. The wiki for test patterns had a good explanation
Posted 7 months ago. ( permalink )

brainman2008 says:

Thanks.The Last Know station in East Tennessee to use this was WATE Analog Channel 6 in Knoxville.Although i subscribe to Comcast,my VCR/DVD combo has no tuner to match the rf jacks from the TV to it.Theefore a tuner such as a DTV box for about Ten Bucks after coupon would work.Thanks! Brainy
Posted 6 months ago. ( permalink )

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My Analog Days Ended the Way They Began: With a Test Pattern

Comments

scribble1 says:

Holden Richards says:

james eugene frank says:

Madison Guy says:

heet_myser says:

m. t. sullivan says:

mjlmadison says:

thechrisproject says:

Gamma Infinity says:

Gamma Infinity says:

Ann Marie Simard says:

Gamma Infinity says:

brainman2008 says:

scribble1 says:

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