People stamping their feet to get better reception

[MHB]

Maybe one of you engineers can solve this riddle: Back in the '60s, before cable (and UHF for that matter), one house, 2-TVs. Reception of Channel 11 on the main TV set in the living room would turn snowy when the "family room" TV was on channel 7. Pounding or slapping upside either unit, nor slam dancing on the floor would solve this problem.

I remember something similar to this.

TV #1 was tuned to Channel 7.

TV #2 was turned on and tuned to Channel 7.

A little while later, TV #1 lost reception of Channel 7.

 

[jfrancispastirchak]

Turns out, if she had keys in her pocket or coins or metal, she'd be able to make a noise and it would, at times, change the channel. This is when remote control units where not infrared. She used to pedal her stationary bike and watch her soaps and sometimes the bike would change the channel too.

Yes, shaking coins worked for the first neighbor on our block to own a remote controlled TV. I witnessed it myself.

 

[Tom Wells]

Full silver quarters (pre 1967) were reasonant at the exact same frequency that the Zenith/Motorola tuning fork remotes used for the "change channel" signal.

Two TVs on the same antenna and twinlead would often have interactive effects between tuners...
There were both series and shunt selectivity in old chunk-chunk-chunk mechanical tuners and certain combinations would have
one television "shorting out" all the signal for other channels. When you also consider twinlead behavior, where
"stubs" and "shorts" cold be used to create filters, this was why antenna splitters were devised.
Those who didn't use antenna splitters suffered such effects. Antenna splitters DID attenuate the signal delivered to each TV,
but did prevent or minimize such interactions. Most TVs still had enough gain to deal with the lower signal after a splitter.

 

[frnkp2000]

I don't recall this, but I recall my mother could stomp her feet to change channels.

Turns out, if she had keys in her pocket or coins or metal, she'd be able to make a noise and it would, at times, change the channel. This is when remote control units where not infrared. She used to pedal her stationary bike and watch her soaps and sometimes the bike would change the channel too.

Those remote controls had tuning forks in them! Jingling coins and other sounds could trigger the TV to change channels/volume/turn on and off, etc. Completely valid story!

 

[visaman]

BTW I refer to hitting something to get it to work as "doing a Fonzie".

AYYYYYYYYY! 8)

 

[70 and 80s kid]

I am old enough to remember the days when:

(1) we'd put aluminum foil on the rabbit ears, thinking that will improve reception;

(2) we'd bang the side of the TV with our fist, to help reception;

but no I don't know about the stomping feet.

cd

I banged, but never stomped.