[BC] Interesting sign-offs

[Jeffrey Kopp]

>[Ron:]  I remember one Portland, OR. station back in the '80's would show
>a bare lightbulb hanging on its cord with the announcement something
>like "We now end our broadcast day.  Goodnight!"  Then a hand would
>reach out and pull the chain on the cord and the screen went to black
>with squelch noise.

I remember seeing that one, too. Probably KPTV, as they had a legacy
of a hearty sense of humor.

>The good old days :)

Oh, like Tom Peterson knocking on the "screen" and yelling, "Wake up!" in the middle of
the night... (His innovative and self-deprecating, mock-obnoxious marketing is a local
legend; one Halloween The Oregonian printed cut-out face masks, one of which was
Tom's face.)

>[Mark and Dave:]  I recall that the founders of KDHX-TV in St. Louis ...
>wanted [to] broadcast "black" all night until sign-on, when the door
>would be seen opening and the lights turned on again.

>Correct me if I am wrong.....but as I recall total black uses the most
>power in the TV visual transmitter..

Note Mark recalls this as a proposal; I doubt it happened (or for long, if it did) as dead
carriers are frowned upon by the FCC (as well as the ITU, which is why SW BCers who
want to stake out their freqs run loops, like RNZ's hysterically pretentious anno of the
70's), as well as the expense of power consumption.

About ten years ago KOPB would sign off by gently easing back the power over several
minutes; I think they were nursing a failing TX along until the new one was funded. (I noted
at the time it was struggling to maintain a quiet black level.) It was a rare and interesting
thing to see.

See third anecdote on http://www.bvws.org.uk/405alive/info/and_finally.html claiming ATV engineers once would progressively raise the black level of a late-night movie so they could
get a better view of what was going on in a flat across the street, illuminated by only the
television set.