How Some In L.A.-LB-OC Watched <nobr>Blacked-Out</nobr> First Superbowl

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How Some In L.A.-LB-OC Watched Blacked-Out First Superbowl

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(Jan. 31, 2015) -- The first Superbowl (offically dubbed football's "World Championship") was played at the L.A. Coliseum (Green Bay Packers vs. Kansas City Chiefs) in January, 1967 and carried on two TV networks (NBC and CBS)...but was blacked out on Los Angeles television (with less than a Coliseum sellout crowd) by edict of professional football's brass.

Some football fans made plans to travel to Palm Springs, Bakersfield or San Diego to see the telecast...but an L.A. area radio outlet came up with an endearing self-promotion that enabled some L.A. area residents to view the game.

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KRLA/1110 AM (at that time a Pasadena Top 40 station) offered to send listeners instructions on how to build a TV antenna -- using five coathangers and a broomstick -- designed to pull in San Diego's NBC and CBS affiliates.

Apparently a KRLA engineer wisecracked that it shouldn't be hard to build a directional antenna to pick up the San Diego TV channels "using coat hangers and a broomstick" and the idea percolated up to KRLA management, which turned the offhand remark into a station promotion.

With little time to spare (and no "Power Point" or computer powered software) KRLA's engineers applied basic formulas and devised a "Yagi" antenna, a tried and true self-amplifying design (dating back to the 1920's) still seen on some remaining rooftop TV antennas. In KRLA's version, three metal rods of increasing length ("directing" elements) projected the signal back to a fourth rod (the "driven element" to which a TV lead-in wire was attached) behind which was a fifth larger rod (a "reflecting" element). The five rods consisted of five straightened coathangers, cut to specific lengths and spaced so as to maximize the San Diego TV stations' signal frequencies.

With no time for professional printing; photocopies had to suffice. Typed on what appears to be an IBM Selectric typewriter and using hand-drawn graphics, KRLA offered Los Angeles a way to beat pro-football's blackout using the electronically solid but the less-than-slick instructions below.

Pro football's brass and TV execs weren't amused...and the spectacle of sports and TV suits exercised over a ramshackle coathanger-and-broomstick way to evade their big time blackout drew more attention to the David vs. Goliath promotion.

And yes, the coathanger-and-broomstick antenna worked.

Central L.A. viewers reported watchable although snowy black and white video, sometimes of sufficient strength to enable color pictures. In Long Beach and the south bay, signals were quite strong. Viewers in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys had a tougher time but many reported seeing all or parts of the game.