The Offical RETRO TELEVISION (RTV) Thread!
 

Offical Videokarma RETRO TELEVISION (RTV) Thread!


I wanted to create this thread for a while now dedicated to the Retro Television Network (RTV). Basicly anything you want to talk about that has to do with or related to RTV can go; Like the TV shows, actors, the director/writers, cars in the episodes, places that the show was shot in, guns or etc...

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, RTV is an over the air digital channel (usually on affiliate stations) that shows nothing but old TV shows. For example:

The Rockford Files
Airwolf
Knight Rider
Laredo
The Incredible
and many more...

If you want to know if RTV even broadcast’s in your area, click on the link below:
http://www.myretrotv.com/affiliates.html *

Broadcasting schedules can be found here:
http://www.myretrotv.com/programming.html


*

According to the website, they are still testing the transmitter for channel 24 in Chicago. I'm not picking anything up yet. The prospect of a new OTA channel is awesome though.

Bummer I use to get WTEN from Albany Analog. They have Retro tv. Anyone get This-Tv? http://www.thistv.com/ We have found ourselves watching this network more and more. Great old movies, Outer Limits, Stargate, etc. How about ion? they are pretty good too...... Seems like this digital tv stuff is an opportunity for NEW networks that offer some pretty good old stuff that in some cases is much more appealing than new network programing. Anyone watch W-I-P-E-O-U-T-! on ABC? its got my vote for best gameshow of all time! ! !

ok, I'm sleepy now........ nite all.

Yep, I get MeTV, MeToo, and ThisTV on 26.2, 26.3 and 26.4. Awesome stuff.

It looks like RTV is finally getting a Saturday morning line up starting in October. Which will be:

8am Fat Albert
830am Ghostbusters (1986 verson)
9am Archies
930am Brave Starr
10am She-Ra
1030am He-Man
11am Lassie
1130a Lassie

alfred hitchcock,adam 12,dragnet,wagon train,peter gunn,incredible hulk,the saturday night movie,etc.love this channel.mytv is also reasonably good.as long as it is over the air and not pay tv!

I saw a tidbit of I Spy on RTV this eve...
 

My mom liked that show and it looks like it would be a great show. I loved seeing the high quality color picture of 1965. I read that at that time Bill Cosby bought a red '64 Ferrari that he still has today. Another time I noticed the intro to The Bill Cosby Show. I never saw that show either. It is interesting they have three shows with Bill Cosby.

Anyone here likes staying up to watch the The Alfred Hitchcock Hour? I really like how each episode starts off normal then turns into something cynical or evil...

Alright!!!!!!!! I remember I said a while back that I'd like to see some TV station do a duplicate of Saturday mornings from the mid 1960's to the late 1980's. This is a good start. The downside, I work Saturdays, I'll have to get some VHS tapes now. :)

I'd like to see some more stuff lime "Shazam" and "Smurfs" tossed in, but RTV seems to be closely affliated with Universal and these cartoons, except Lassie, was made by Filmation so hopefully at some point I can see some more stuff by them like "Shazam," "Jason of Star Command" and so on.

We get two RTV's here in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh and Steubenville, Ohio, I wonder if they will be the same or different. I'll have to run two VCR's.

I get it here in Pittsburgh, Channel 4.2 (UHF channel 51)

I'm 35 miles east of Cleveland and have Time Warner BB (bare-bones--broadcast only) basic cable. If they have RTV or RTN in this area, it must be on one of the digital tiers which I don't get anymore, since I dropped digital cable some five years ago. I now get my vintage TV shows on DVD and VHS. Netflix is a lot cheaper than digital cable, and I have many old TV series and movies on VHS as well as some 1970s shows on DVD, so I don't miss digital or x-basic (expanded basic cable). If RTN had a website on which they streamed their programming, I'd be watching that quite a bit; however, the website only shows what programs are available on the cable channel, and a list of their affiliates across the country. The closest RTN affiliate to me is in Toledo, Ohio, some 120 miles west of here. Cleveland does have a THIStv affiliate on a subchannel of the local MyTV station (WUAB, virtual channel 43), but again, since I have only broadcast channels on my cable, I have no way of seeing THIStv unless the MyTV station runs one of its movies, as they often do on weekends.

I'd be a little cautious of their affiliates page on their website as it isn't entirely accurate and STILL hasn't been updated. The parent company of the TV station I work for was in talks with RTV a couple years ago (back when they were known as RTN) about us carrying them on a subchannel... those talks broke down and it didn't happen and we decided to go with ThisTV instead... yet we are still listed as an affiliate on the RTV site... strange... Anyway, since RTV isn't available in my market, I can pull them in with my C-Band satellite dish if I want to watch them. Watching it that way is great, as its full broadcast quality, and there's like 5 different feeds to choose from, instead of having to watch a highly compressed dtv subchannel.

Which bird are the feeds on? Are they free or scrambled/analog or digital?

jr

We dont have it in the Quincy IL area, but when I travel I catch it in Effingham IL and St. Louis MO. Love it!

Here are the satellite coordinates for both RTV and ThisTV. They are all digital and unencrypted. You will need a FTA DVB receiver to get them. I use a commercial Scientific Atlanta PowerVu satellite receiver and it works fine except that its a pain to tune feeds in with its cumbersome menus.

RTV on Ku-band:

Satellite: AMC 9
DVB-S
Transponder 1 (11735) Horizontal
Symbol Rate: 4444
FEC: 3/4

RTV on C-band:

Satellite: AMC 3
Two DVB-S2 muxes
Trasponders 5 (3800) and 19 (4080) Horizontal
Symbol Rate: 29125
FEC: 5/6
(8PSK)

ThisTV:

Satellite: AMC 3
DVB-S
Transponder 7 (3833) Horizontal
Symbol Rate: 2734
FEC: 5/6

Thanks much for the info!
AMC 3 and AMC 9 are pretty weak to zero signal at my location due to tree growth. :tears:
Galaxy 17 at 91 degrees is about the last bird to the east that I can clearly "see".
I get "This" on a local DTV sub channel, so for now that will have to do.

Got a chain saw? :D
jr

Yea I'm pretty lucky to have a good view of the clarke belt from my back yard. Get that chainsaw out!! :p:

We just got RTV over here in GR in the last 5 months or so. Interesting channel. It has many of my mom's old favorite shows from when she was a teen and I'm starting to like a couple shows too such as Emergency! and Adam-12 even though they occasionally have their "that wouldn't work/be how they would react today!" type moments. Broadcasting on channel 64.2 WLLA.

Most of the time, our roundies are tuned on the converter box to Retro TV. We enjoy it. Love the A-Team, Knight Rider, and other old favorites. Here in Athens, our budget basic Cable TV has RTV. We usually watch it a lot here as well.

Am I correct in assuming that I'd need one of the old large dishes like what was popular in the '80's for this purpose? If so, that lets me out because my Mother would throw a fit if I tried to mount a big dish in the backyard.

For those who have not read my thread on the rectangular TV forum, we got an RTV affiliate in early 2009. Unfortunately, this channel was shared with FOX and FOX programming took priority. With that said, we only got a fraction of what RTV puts out. I still didn't complain since I could see "Adam 12", "Dragnet '67", "Knight Rider", "Incredible Hulk" from 4-7 PM, and "Emergency" from 9-10 PM. Within a few months, they chopped off the 4-7 slot for such crap like "AFV", "Dr. Phil", and "Deal or no Deal". Then, they hacked off "Emergency" from 9-10 PM and replaced it with "Law & Order". It all finally came to an end the other day when I switched on the TV, only to be greeted by a "Judge Jane" show. After checking the programming schedule, I discovered that the entire RTV line had been replaced with all day programming of "Judge This" and "Judge That". Of course, they didn't pull "AFV", "Phil", or "DOND". I finally got so PO'ed that I sent the following email to the station manager and program director:

"When you launched RTV on channel 30.1 in, I believe, early 2009; I was very excited to finally be able to see decent TV programming on a local TV station. I recently noticed, however, that all RTV programming had been removed and replaced by the same type of "Judge This", "Judge That", and other "sludge" programming that can be seen on any other TV station in the area. Regretfully, you have lost a viewer over your recent decision to drop RTV and I'm sure there are many more people in the area who feel the same way over this matter."

If I even get a reply, I'm sure it will be along the lines of "We're sorry you feel that way; but, the decision to drop RTV was a business decision" line.

I know afternoon TV is nothing like it was in the early '80's (wait, all TV is nothing like it was in the early '80's). Back then, it was cartoons and re-runs of old TV shows in the afternoon. I remember watching "He-Man" and "Scooby Doo" (the late '60's version) every afternoon after school. Then, Oprah and Donnahue came on the scene followed by a few judge shows. That's when daytime TV started going to heck in a handbasket. Now, it's Maury Povich, Jerry Springer, and Judge so-and-so. If this is truly the type of programming that society wants to watch, it just shows how far down the toilet society has gone. At night, we could easily find something to watch on network TV. Now, it's stupid reality shows and the comedy and drama shows don't do a thing for me.

I'm not crazy about the fact that today's TV is nothing like what it was 30 years ago, either, but unfortunately, as the late Walter Cronkite used to end the old CBS Evening News, that's the way it is. The only way nowadays to get the old '60s-'70s TV shows most UHF independent stations used to program (years and decades before MyTV and The CW turned these stations into network affiliates -- sheeeesh!) is to get the shows on DVD, which is what I am doing. My DVD collection consists of mostly '60s-'70s detective shows and comedy series, although I do have season 8 of Law and Order SVU as well as a couple of recent films that were just released on DVD last year. One nice thing about watching these old favorites on DVD is that there are no commercials, which also permits the production companies to insert scenes that may never have aired on TV when the programs were new.

For RadioTVNut: Things have changed since the '80s as far as satellite TV is concerned; you don't need a huge dish these days. The satellite providers, such as Dish Network, et al. use rather small dishes that can be mounted almost anywhere. Satellite TV is also, in many cases, cheaper than cable and offers a wider selection of programming, although the providers will often (more often than not) give you a promotional rate when you first sign up for the service, then once the promotional period ends (anywhere from six months to a year or so) they will charge the going rate.

We have RTV here in Cleveland. It is on an analog low-power station, channel 35, WAX.
I like all the programs on RTV. I especially like Ironside, I Spy, Adam 12, Magnum P.I., Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Peter Gunn and the A-Team. I also like the movies that they show on late nights on weekends.
Channel 35 started carrying RTV in 2009. It shows RTV from 9:00 A.M. to 1:00 A.M. I love it.

I wonder why that station isn't on cable in Lake County, as the cable here is supposed to carry all stations from Cleveland, Akron and Canton -- including LPs. I live in Fairport Harbor in Lake County, 35 miles from Cleveland, and never saw it when TV was all analog, because the OTA signal doesn't reach here.

Channel 35 isn't carried on Time Warner Cable that we have in the Cleveland area either. I sent an e-mail to TWC recently suggesting to them to carry channel 35 and they e-mailed me back and they said that they will take it under consideration. I watch RTV on channel 35 with an OTA antenna and I like it very much.

I have Direct tv and Comcast Cable/HD Ch 20-WLLA is not retro anymore, all I get is John Hagee??? Comcast actually moved RETRO to ch 168 and not on WLLA regular cable

Just wanted to let everyone know that I heard from the station owner. He understood my discontent and said he missed the old shows himself; but, RTV was not getting the positive reaction from viewers that they had hoped for; thus, they dropped RTV and replaced it with sludge programming. He said that the new shows had already received positive comments and ratings from viewers. Just goes to show how far downhill society has gone.

blank

I've been watching RTV on the WSB affiliate, channel 2.2, from Atlanta. They have a late night monster movie type show on Saturday nights that really intrigues me.

http://www.midnightmonsterhop.com/

I love a bad movie and a funny host to present it to me.

Who has the rights to The Andy Griffith Show and The Beverly Hillbillies these days? I like Lassie and Leave It to Beaver as much as the next guy, but if they'd show those two they'd have me every night.

In post 15 above FTA transponders for RTV are listed. C-band channels would require a large (6 to10 ft) dish for recovery. One Ku channel is listed for RTV, Perhaps a 3 foot dish would provide decent reception of that transponder.
As far as I can tell neither Dish nor Direct carries RTV, so "Free to Air" satellite reception is the only "bird" option.
jr

How about a high power laser? :scratch2: