Spectrum Pay TV signon long

[batterygrunt]

What a blast from the past. My P's got Group W cable after Spectrum ( three channel chump) Cable back then was like Atari and Michael Jackson was black back then. Metallica was on the rise!!! Those were the days when we played baseball and football outside and built ramps for our bike and rode skate boards and got real nice scars. Now our (not mine) kids are fat sittin with X-Box and internet games. Get your fat kids off that couch and throw them out! Dont buy their love.... earn it!

[batwayne62]

I remember spectrum would sign on around 5pm during the week and end around 5am

[JoebDragon]

DId Cablenet Niles, Des Plaines, Mt Prospect, Arl Hgts, out towards Schaumburg, Streamwood & Hanover Park. Have this / ON TV / SportsVision back in 1981-1985

[Shaun1gza]

my college roommate told me about this, he told me his uncles were able to hack the spectrum signal with an atari adapter and an old converter box, they got from a junkyard

[05309193]

Who Is That Voiceover At 0:13?

[pancakeman22]

Is it still on the air?!!!!!!!!!!!

[kargaroc386]

@pancakeman22 no

[JoebDragon]

@pancakeman22 Comcast sports net Chicago is the same thing that SportsVision was.

[ebf1957]

I remember ON TV (WSNS-44), Spectrum (WFBN/WGBO 66), and SportsVision (WPWR -60) during my days living in Chicago in the late 70's to the mid 90's.

[JoebDragon]

@ebf1957

Remember HawkVision?

The start of CLTV?

[ebf1957]

@JoebDragon

I remember HawkVision.

[JoebDragon]

@ebf1957

have any videos of it?

any videos of SportsVision ?

[ebf1957]

@JoebDragon

I don't have videos of either Hawk or SportsVision.

[JoebDragon]

any one got the SportsVision start up?

also SportsVision / HawksVision is now CSN.

[Ibusers1]

From year was this taken in?

[harps251]

Either 1982 or 1983.

[kargaroc386]

for commercial use only means it's illegal to listen to it by yourself.

[thesab]

Spectrum was the answer to the lack of cable in the Chicago area which for some reason was slower than most large urban areas to adopt. It was a pay service that ran scrambled content on a independent channel (66) several hours per day. You needed a special antenna and box. It competed with OnTV. OnTV added SportsVision which survived a transition to cable/satellite as SportsChannel in the Chicago area.

[Palmerholic]

Oh yeah, these are the services that were broadcast on UHF and you had to order a box to hook to your rabbit ears or antenna.

[MadameLil]

The programs descriptions seem too sweet & earnest to read in 2009. How did we get along without all the snarkiness that's here now?

[asnaes]

Reminds me of the channel that James Woods's character ran on Videodrome.

[rickjr37]

God,i miss ONTV....sigh....

[Cinemax1980]

What is Spectrum,is it A Subscription service like Ontv or Preview?

[godzilla1077]

LOL oh my god it was. The first movie I saw on Spectrum was Cannon Ball Run. It was also the reason why I got into horror movies. It was a big brown box with a chrome looking button that you had to switch if you wanted to watch.

[yogafan6500]

Very memorable. we subscribed to Spectrum Pay-TV from Nov, 1981 to Dec 1983. We seen lots of great Movies, kiddie programs, as well as the occaisional pay to order events like Boxing matches. and The pay-TV Premiere of STAR WARS. Ah! What precious memories that we had long before Cable arrives in Chicago in 1985. Today we now have Satelitte-tv and we seen a lot more Movies, Sports, and many others even sexy stuff on Cinemax. I'll always remember the glory days of Spectrum Pay-TV in our home.

[OPENARMS1981]

I like the backround music playing,as they list Today's Movies.

[baybuh]

hell yeah i miss shit like that

[radamail]

Yeah, I have a lot of good memories of local stations rolling good jazz whenever they needed music filler at the time. (Local event calendars, technical difficulties, etc)

I always wanted them to mention the artists & albums so I could purchase the same music. I'm sure some of it was for commercial use only, but not all of it. Sadly, I'm not sure it occurred to them that people cared.

[WHALER66]

Who can forget the days of Star Wars on Spectrum and x rated films playing on ON TV at four in the afternoon. LOL.

[Kargaroc286]

never mind

[hevyonez97]

did you find it already? i wish i knew how to do all that uploading stuff, but i don't have a computer of my own, and i'm a novice when it comes to doing that type of thing.....hope you found the song!!

[hevyonez97]

for those that may not know already, the col sounds that are playing during the movie times is "new york connection" by saxophonist tom scott...the song came out in 1976.....and i still have this lp, too!!! and this same song used to be heard during the late show commercials on wbbm-channel 2 chicago during the channel 2 community calendar segments.......

[Kargaroc286]

can you digitize it and send me an MP3 PLEASE!?

[Kargaroc286]

the movie times are called "continuity"

[ReturnofRetroBoy]

Out here in L.A. we had ON/Selectv that shared a UHF signal with KWHY-22. My old 1985 Goldstar tv was heaven sent because the tuning switch could pretty much remove the scramble. Esp. handy on Fri./Sat. nights for Selectv's "Adult Theater" presentations, heh heh.

[radiorob1]

Actually, "On TV" was channel 52, Select was 22, for the LA area.

[Kargaroc286]

the end looks like line shuffle scrambling. yeah i know they used SSAVI scrambling. maby they should have thought of Videocrypt in the early 80s instead of the 90s

[technodazed]

I miss those good old pre cable/satellite/internet days.

[ThatLogoDude]

That "focus" part scared the shit outta me when I was 10.

[OpenArmsRoxxAgain]

I guess It could be kinda creepy.That bizarre synthesizer.

[Kargaroc286]

i noticed that all the most popular pay tv services (OnTV ans Spectra), the stations that they ran off of both became Spanish stations (WSNS is with Telemundo, WFBN (now WGBO) is with univision)

[Kargaroc286]

they yoused the SSAVI system

[skystarless]

Man, Chicago had all the pay-TV services back then, haha.

Penitentiary II...sounds pretty darn cheesy. Lol.

[SilkyGreensleeves]

I love the music,when Focus comes up.Wish we had Spectrum.

[Kargaroc286]

what's the music while the list plays?

[jPHQ]

Focus stood for Focus Broadcasting--Channel 66's original owner. The opening logo is pretty much a branding like Field Communications did with Channel 32 during that time. In fact, WFBN (now WGBO) stood for Focus Broadcasting.

[OpenArms82]

Thanks.

[OpenArms82]

What does that focus logo mean,was that the stations slogan or What?

[LightningLogos]

I like the Focus logo.

[AutisticPsycho]

It looks like a logo you'd see today, pretty ahead of time in terms of graphic design, IMO.

[jPHQ]

Looking at the release dates of the recent movies based on iMDb and Wikipedia and the June preview, I would say this aircheck dates to May 1983. I remember channel 66 during their music video period in '84, but I didn't remeember the Spectrum era on 66. I do remeber seeing Channel 60 transitioning into SportsVision whenever they would have White Sox games though (They always used to delay the game shows that normally aired during the 6pm hour)

[blank77]

Yeah,Channel 60 would have like "Treasure Hunt" or the "Dating Game" at the 6:00 hour.But say like if the Sox were playing in New York or Boston at 6:30 that night,then SportsVision would come on earlier than normal.

[jPHQ]

Joker's Wild aired at 6:30 back in the Summer of '82.  I was always disappointed when it would be preempted for White Sox Baseball.

[SpecialTVOffer]

WIHT in Ann Arbor/Detroit was so easy to scramble.

[SpecialTVOffer]

Oops, this was meant as a reply to RetroBoy76. Sorry.

[blank77]

I think to my understanding,WFBN's unscrambled show that I could think of is Steve Dahl and Garry Meier's show called "It's Too Early".Didn't last too long,however.I wondered what Channel 66 programing consisted of druing the "Spectrum" era (1981-early '84).Was it like "Super 66" long after that,or was it like CAN-TV public access now of days?

[harps251]

blank, I think WFBN's programming back then in "SPECTRUM times" was, if my memory serves correct, cheap infomercials and some religious programming. My favorite memory of 66 was their 24/7 music video heyday - I was glued to it! They didn't start going to "reruns" until after the "MV66" stage in about...oh...maybe late 1984 I believe.

[Kelski1998]

I had Spectrum as a kid so I an shed some light on this WFBN ch 66 then had ONE show on it was a local news update I swore it was the same woman who later ran Ch. 20. We had Spectrum from 80 till 82 when Continental came in and is now Concrap. On a side note you are right about the Summer of 84 being Music Videos on 66 till WGBO took the signal over in the fall of 84

[Wildcock23]

Jesus Christ...... VISITING HOURS and THE BURNING, absolutely wonderful

[eyeh8cbs]

If the movies started at 9 AM and went on past 2 AM, there must have only been a couple hours of unscrambled programming. The only station near me that did this was KTSF-26 in San Francisco, it went scrambled about 7 or 8 PM I think.

[drripco]

I'm pretty sure all the pay-tv stations here in Chicago were NOT 24 hours ones, except at the end. Reason was the tv station still needed to comply with that "operating in the interest of the public" mandate the FCC required for license renewal.

[harps251]

WSNS 44 was the only one that went pay-tv (ONTV) 24/7 right around 1983 until its demise in early 1985 of failing to "operate in the interest of the public" (i.e. showing hard 'R' movies during the day so kids would see [or hear] them). This led to numerous complaints/lawsuits even years after 44's switch to Spanish TV in July of 85. Great channel you have, drripco! Love it.

[JoebDragon]

@drripco

I think On tv was 24 hours on week ends.

[blank77]

You know,that piece of music I heard a few years later on WBBM-TV Channel 2 on the "Community Calender" piece druing the "Late Movie".On another note,I saw the movie line-up,and it's sad that the only movie I know was "Young Lady Chatterly".

[harps251]

Which music was on 2, blank? The one in the 66 bumper, the Spectrum movie line-up or the scramble mode warning? All the music played here is awesome, well, to me anyway. The only flicks I saw out of this line-up was DEAD MEN DON'T WEAR PLAID (in the intro) and THE BURNING. I love THE BURNING. Very gory. Great effects. Not for the squeamish. DMDWP was great too. Vintage Steve Martin. I never saw YOUNG LADY CHATTERLY.

[blank77]

The music they were listing the movies for that very day.That's the music i'm reffering to."DMDWP" was a good Steve Martin flick (His best since "The Jerk").You never saw "YLC"?I did,and taught me a little bit of the birds and bees (And I caught hell from my folks seeing that movie!).

[harps251]

There were other "back-seat education" movies I watched instead as a teen but it sure felt weird to me viewing them because THE REAL THING WASN'T NEXT TO ME!

[harps251]

SPECTRUM-TACULAR find, man! I had forgotten how they did that. If you ever find WSNS 44's transition to ONTV, I'd be in heaven! I'm loving your channel, drripco. Keep 'em comin'! You've got my attention...