Long ago on independence square (Kansas City, Raytown: tournament, 2014, houses)

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by CrownVic95

That sounds like our first TV, though I don't remember having one before about 1955. Could be we did and I just don't remember, but I know it wasn't much before that. I think by '59 we had a more "modern" 17 inch screen. An Olympic set, as I recall.

Tube testing - that and stamp collecting became my first hobbies. Seems we were at the drug store tester every other week. It was kinda fun, actually. And satisfying - to get home with that new 6BQ6-GT, put it in, and have a stable picture again. For another couple of weeks, anyway.

I give up on the other station you're talking about.

At C&J United Super we installed a free standing tube tester and many people would bring in their TV tubes and insert them one by one in the different types of tube receptacles on the control panel. Once the electrical circuit was made, there was a red pointer that would point to good or bad and maybe something in between.

Underneath the tester was a locked cabinet that stored tubes. Once the customer determined which of his tubes was bad he would get an employee who would open the cabinet with a key and find the correct tube number. They weren't expensive by today's standards but they were back then.

Now it seems to me that one was not supposed to get into the back of a TV because of the high voltage factor, but maybe that was after tubes were replaced with transistors or whatever. At any rate, people would rather test their tubes than take the set to a repair man.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

How times have changed.

The Korean War broke out on June 25, 1950.

I recall seeing snippets of a few days old film of GIs fighting that was shown on the NBC John Cameron Swayze Camel News Caravan Monday thru Friday on WDAF TV locally at 6:30 pm.

Camel cigarettes were provided free to the men fighting in Korea, according to the announcer on the Swayze program. Camel sponsored the entire news program, but it was only fifteen minutes long.

Swayze later became a spokesman for Timex watches: “They take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.”

McCoy grade school at 1010 S Pearl, now home of the Music/Arts Institute, and other Independence schools took an active role in supporting the war in Korea and the schools encouraged kids and families to support the war.

How did the kids and familes provide this support?

By encouraging kids to purchase savings stamps that would support a War Bond drive.

The stamps were purchased at school for ten cents each and there might have even have been twenty-five cent stamps available—a good amount back then for parent or child. These stamps were licked and pasted into a savings book.

Each teacher apparently had a metal or wood stamp box to sell the stamps to whichever kid in her class that wanted one.

The stamp book was much like an S&H Green Stamp book.

Once $18.75 in stamps were accumulated in a book, students and parents either took the book to the post office to purchase a $25 bond or processed the paperwork in the school—I cannot recall, probably because I never purchased enough stamps to fill a book. I don’t know if I ever got reimbursed for the partial book, either.

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

But wait, Kansas City television fans, there is more.

There was yet another Kansas City TV station that came on the air in the earlier television days of the city and it also did not last very long—considerably less than two years.

I did get to see this station broadcast, but only a few hours worth.

What was this station?

While we were watching an Admiral 19 inch black and white (it may have been 17 inch, though) and a station or two was still coming on line in KC, RCA was developing color television and introduced the process in 1954, shortly after KCMO TV, channel 5 came on line.

In 1960, a year after I graduated from Willie Chris, I dated a fellow graduate and her folks had a color TV. This was the first color set I ever saw in a home.

In 1970, my empty nester folks splurged on their first color TV, a Magnavox 23 inch color TV stereo theater with UHF capabilities—plus it had a remote. All the remote did was change the dial like you would manually, spinning it around and around on the set and making that loud clunking noise that was a trait of all TVs back then.

Besides conveniently pulling in UHF, this Magnavox set was the first my folks had that would do a good job of pulling in KFEQ Channel 2 from St Joseph. My dad only watched channel 2 on Saturday nights when live professional wrestling complete with audience was staged within the studio. The commentator was a Gus Karras, who was supposed to be a major wrestling promoter. At that time, I was still somewhat of a wrestling fan, myself, but I always wondered how the last bout always conveniently ended just within the time frame allotted for the program, chuckle.

At any rate, in 1969 before my folks got their new set, a new station came on line in Kansas City—KCIT TV, channel 50. When visiting home for a week in 1970, I only remember it showing movies. It went off the air in the middle of 1971.

While channel 50 was still broadcasting, Channel 41 also started broadcasting.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

At C&J United Super we installed a free standing tube tester and many people would bring in their TV tubes and insert them one by one in the different types of tube receptacles on the control panel. Once the electrical circuit was made, there was a red pointer that would point to good or bad and maybe something in between.

Underneath the tester was a locked cabinet that stored tubes. Once the customer determined which of his tubes was bad he would get an employee who would open the cabinet with a key and find the correct tube number. They weren't expensive by today's standards but they were back then.

Now it seems to me that one was not supposed to get into the back of a TV because of the high voltage factor, but maybe that was after tubes were replaced with transistors or whatever. At any rate, people would rather test their tubes than take the set to a repair man.

Any TV set with a cathode ray tube had very high voltage in it. That voltage remained when the set was off and even unplugged due to capacitive components. TV repairmen knew where that voltage lurked and how to safely bleed it off. Fortunately it wasn't easy to encounter it inadvertently.

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by WCHS'59

At any rate, in 1969 before my folks got their new set, a new station came on line in Kansas City—KCIT TV, channel 50. When visiting home for a week in 1970, I only remember it showing movies. It went off the air in the middle of 1971.

Is KCIT the answer to your last question, or are we seeking an earlier station?

[Mad Anthonie]

What well known chain of events started on this property in old Independence?

[WCHS'59]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

Is KCIT the answer to your last question, or are we seeking an earlier station?

That was it, the last of the earlier stations/channels and it lasted less than two years. I dont know of any other stations except that some of the current ones changed their broadcast letters over the years and some changed their network affiliations.

[MRG Dallas]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

What well known chain of events started on this property in old Independence?

40 Hiway & Sterling . .car wreck eventually chaining to deaths of several Grand Ole Opry stars

Yeah I know that's not it but it's the only chain I can think of

[Mad Anthonie]

Originally Posted by MRG Dallas

40 Hiway & Sterling . .car wreck eventually chaining to deaths of several Grand Ole Opry stars

Yeah I know that's not it but it's the only chain I can think of

A valiant attempt, however you are several miles off! Please go north young man.

[Major Tom 58]

Originally Posted by Mad Anthonie

What well known chain of events started on this property in old Independence?

If I didn't know better........and I don't.