Asklemmy

44151 readers

1263 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

150

In your area/country, did you have a word or phrase to describe the static white noise on a television set not tuned to a channel? (upload.wikimedia.org)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

101 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Bonus points if there's a known onomatopoeia to describe the sound.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Back in the days when we all had antennas and cable hadn't been born yet, the static stations were a great thing to watch if there might be a tornado in your area. Apparently if one formed, it would significantly change the look of the snow on the TV and give you a warning to quickly head to the basement. I never actually saw it happen, but there were a couple times we had local warnings and my parents plopped me down to keep an eye on the TV.

[–] andrewta 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Never heard about this. Interesting tid bit.

I remember getting our first tv about 1982 I think.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I actually started questioning whether this was something my parent's told me to keep me busy, but turns out it's a real thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

That is an interesting source. Thanks for the link!