I grew up in Wickliffe, Ohio, an eastern suburb of Cleveland about 16 miles from downtown. Was in Cleveland Heights (another eastern Cleveland suburb) for three years in the early '70s, then came back to Wickliffe and stayed there the next 24 years. Due to a huge change in my life in 1999, I had to move from the house I grew up in. I always wanted to live in a small town, so when I found out I'd be moving I decided to come to where I live now. The name of the place is Fairport Harbor, Ohio, a village of some 3,180 population (as of the 2000 census; it's probably less now) about 33 miles east of downtown Cleveland, just about a mile, more or less, from the south shore of Lake Erie (at least that's where my apartment is; I live on the main street of Fairport Harbor which ends almost right at the shore, so I am practically on the lake).
No room for old TVs here in my small 1-bedroom apartment, unfortunately.
(When I was in my old house in Wickliffe I collected old sets like crazy--fully half my basement was full of sets in varying degrees of working order; my pride and joy was a 23" Zenith console, a trash-day find in the late '60s, which I retubed from the ground up, as someone had swiped all but the HV rectifier and CRT. Had to get rid of it when I moved to Cleveland Heights; nearly broke my heart to do it, after all the work I had put into it and considering how well it worked with the new tubes.) However, I
do have room in my bedroom for my amateur radio station and a small collection of radios, many of them Zeniths. I have a Zenith color TV in my bedroom as well, 1995 model SMS1917SG which still makes a very nice picture on analog cable here; so does my RCA 19" set in the living room, which is hooked up to Comcast digital cable through a set-top box (indoor antennas don't work well in this area, as it is 40+ miles southwest of the Cleveland TV transmitters, and I can't have an outdoor TV antenna, the rule permitting apartment dwellers to have outside antennas notwithstanding--the terms of my lease absolutely forbid any kind of structure mounted on windowsills or on the overhang between the two stories of the building), so I'm stuck with cable--but I don't mind it as I get many more stations with it than I ever would with an antenna, even if I had one. (I have a VCR and a DVD player, along with a subscription to Netflix.com, so I would never be at a loss for something to watch even if I didn't have cable). The reception is much better with cable as well. One channel, NBC channel 3 from Cleveland, absolutely will not reach here without it--no kidding, I get absolutely nothing on my TVs on that channel using rabbit ears. The reception on that station is bad all over town, apparently; our one grocery store, three blocks from me, has a TV they use during football season--it doesn't get channel 3 with rabbit ears either. The only station they do get well enough to watch is CBS channel 19 from Cleveland. The problem must be the sheer distance my town is from the TV stations; most everyone here has cable so it's not much of an issue anymore, whatever the reason may be for the poor reception on antennas. Who knows?
