Test Pattern

41” by 30”

by Diana Fox

When I grew up television was not broadcast 24 hours a day and programming would typically end at midnight. Once turned on, the old televisions would take a while to warm up and would have a test pattern displayed on the screen, which also had a distinct tonal sound. At the end of programming at night the test pattern would appear for a time until the final shutdown. TVs then also had antennas nicknamed rabbit ears on top of the television. One could easily adjust and move the antennas to get better reception of the limited channels from which one was able to choose.