How to Change the Channel on a Dial TV

Have you heard the phrase, "don't touch that dial", coming from your television? Today with push button remotes, it sounds a bit quaint. It wasn't too long ago you had to get up and cross the room to change the channel on the TV. Of course you could bribe or threaten smaller siblings to do it for you, but that had limited success. There are a few of these TVs still out there and functioning. It occurred to me that someone might be young enough to need a little help understanding how to work the two dials.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Old Dial TV
• Hand

1. To turn on the TV, look for a small dial. Many older TVs have a dial that you twist to turn it on. Sometimes the volume control is integrated into the on dial. The more you twist it the louder it gets. Some TVs have a separate control for volume.

2. The upper dial is generally for stations 2-13. To turn to channels 2-13, just turn this dial to line up the channel you want with the mark next to the dial.

3. To turn to channels 14 on up, you need to change the 2-13 dial to UHF. UHF stands for ultra high frequency. On some dials it just says U. On others it says UF. The UHF spot is generally on the dial between the 2 and 13 stations.

4. Once you have the top dial on UHF you can turn the second dial to get to stations 14 an on up. Just line up the station you want with the mark next to that dial. If you want a station that's above the highest number on the dial you're out of luck.

Tips & Warnings

• Some of the later dial televisions can be hooked up to a VCR, and the VCR remote can be used to change channels by remote.
• The same goes for cable tv, and DVD players.