Before the ascension ofNetflix , Hulu , and Roku control stick , consumers get their small sieve entertainment through parallel television . “ Flipping the dial ” meant pedal through a number of cable or over - the - line channels , hoping to bewitch something of stake . For video recording game rooter , it might be pee-pee sure your exercise set was on channel 3 ( or 4 ) so yourNintendoappeared onscreen .
But one channel was usuallyabsent — canal 37 . Land on it , and you ’d credibly get nothing but static . Like a missing 13th flooring in a edifice , this strange deletion could be perplex . ( And then you ’d findMatlock , orALF , and you probably forget about it . ) But there was a legitimate understanding no television could blame up a channel 37 : The U.S. government said they could n’t .
A history forVice ’s Motherboardby Ernie Smith explain it . For channel 37 to go over the melodic line , it would have to transmit from the 610 MHz band . Unfortunately , that was also the frequence need by the University of Illinois ’s Vermilion River Observatory near Danville . It ’s one of three frequencies , along with 410 Mc and 1.4 Gc , that are used extensively in radio uranology .
Put in unmistakable terms — if a channel 37 had been require up the 610 MHz frequency within 600 mile of the observation tower , it would have interfered with their mammoth 400 - foot telescope . That ’s a pretty full-grown wheel spoke that wrap virtually all of the East Coast and major city like Chicago , Detroit , St. Louis , and Washington , D.C.
A working distribution channel 37 would have effectively blocked out one of three major “ pane ” of a metaphorical windowpane into the universe — just so people could watchGilligan ’s Island .
spreader apparently did n’t care about scientific advancement and often buttonhole to have groove 37 put to practice . But scientific discipline forestall and garnered keep from the Federal Communications Commission ( FCC ) start in 1960 , shortly after UHF signals were being put into wide use . Attempts for a kind of compromise — allowing a station to take the band but confine its programming hours — disgruntle scientists . The FCC agreed and forbid a station from taking the channel 37 spot indefinitely .
Even though the Vermilion River Observatory closed in 1980 , the moratorium is still in effect . Then again , you ’d have to be receiving over - the - airwave signals on an analog television to deal .
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