Piece Of Oklahoma History Lives Again After Original KOTV Test Pattern Discovered

Long before HD and digital television, before cable and flat screens, Channel 6 looked a whole lot different.

A slide, called a test pattern, was the first-ever image broadcast on KOTV on October 15th, 1949. In the years that followed, the image changed a little, but its function remained the same. Late at night, instead of programming, the slide would air.

Most stations would air a generic slide using a device called a monoscope. The device that looks like a tube, basically allowed the station to still broadcast without turning off its transmitter. KOTV's slide was custom-made but thanks to changes in technology and programming, most monoscopes were thrown in the dumpster, never to be seen again – until now.

Mike Lins is an engineer and historian at News On 6, who recently made quite the find.

"It was in this drawer,” said Lins motioning at a cabinet. “We've moved some stuff around since then."

Hidden at the bottom of a cabinet, was a monoscope with a slide that many older Tulsans are sure to recognize.

"You look down the side of the tube, you can actually see a cut metal plate with the test pattern in it," said Lins.

With no machine to get a picture from it, Lins took to the internet for help and found Richard Diehl, a California man who builds and keeps old television equipment.

Diehl had built his own generator for test patterns.

“It has an electronic chassis, and then a support system to hold the tube and operate it,” said Diehl.

After just a couple of tries, Diehl was able to confirm Lins' suspicions by putting the test pattern on a TV for the first time in more than half of a century.

"By keeping this technology alive, it allows for visitors…to experience it in its original form,” said Diehl.

It's an original form long thought lost, and now a physical piece of history we'll keep for years to come.

You may recognize the pattern from another place as well.

This can also be seen on a television in the background of the 1983 movie “The Outsiders”.

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