The jittery static is something special, Saffo argues. "The universe started out very small and very hot, and has been expanding and cooling ever since. As it cools, the Big Bang's fossil radiation sheds radio energy in the same way a cake on a cooling rack gives up heat. And when those indescribably ancient radio waves run down the rabbit ears and into your analog TV, the TV's circuitry interprets it as an image, and voila! — Snow."That is indeed cool.
But this is irking me because: Ugh, someday I'm going to have to explain this to my kids, the way my parents had to explain to me what network sign-offs were. I don't remember ever seeing a sign-off in actual life, but I remember asking about it when it came up in movies we were watching. So when I show my future tykes Poltergeist, it's going to have to come with TWO warnings: One, this movie is pretend, so don't be too freaked (except in real life, the film was tooootes cursed, so be a little freaked, haha), and two, that used to happen to old-fashioned TVs.
Who's aboard the nostalgia train with me, PopWatchers?
*Best job title ever?
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Well, the idea of x-billion year-old radio waves as the cause of snow is an amazingly cool idea, though maybe any random radio signal could be interpreted that way. Anyway, I do remember sign-offs (lots of flags and patriotic music, generally), and the old test pattern overnight. I remember getting up early (6 a.m.!) on Saturday mornings to see episodes of Green Hornet with Van Williams and Bruce Lee; sitting there for a few minutes with the test pattern before the local TV station signed on. Speaking of Green Hornet, Seth Rogen? Ugh.
you may not any longer get to hear the static, but you can still see it — if you have a cable box and your tv is on channel 3, simply change the channel — you’ll get the static, just no sound (at least this is what happens with my cable system)
This reminds of Cavlin & Hobbes, where Calvin asks his father why old photographs are black and white, and he replies, because back then the world was in black and white.
I had to take my oldest daughter to the after-hours care office associated with our family doctor. She must have been maybe 6 or 7 (she’s 22 now). They had an ancient “portable” TV in the corner and, since we were the only ones out in the thread-bare waiting room, I told my daughter to go ahead and change the channel on the TV.
She walked over, stood there and looked at the TV a minute, then came back to me and asked “How do I change the channels?”
I looked over and realized she had never seen a TV with dials before. Geesh! Of course, just the fact that she had to get up to change the channel was probably confusing too.
And TV snow. I remember swearing I could see patterns and people/things moving in it if I looked at it for too long. Knowing now that it was caused by fossil radiation rates a pretty big “Oh Wow!”.