Chapter 416 Doing big things and having meat on New Year’s Eve?
The sound of firecrackers is getting louder and louder, and every household has posted Spring Festival couplets. The air is filled with the smell of meat and the smoke of firecrackers, and the New Year is getting closer.
On New Year's Eve, firecrackers kept sounding in the team, especially at noon. The bursts of firecrackers made Li Long feel as if he had returned twenty years later.
After all, last year, the loudest firecrackers were on the morning of the first day of the new year.
It’s normal to think about it. This year, I and my team members have done quite a lot of big jobs, and every household has made some money. Plus, after household quotas have been implemented, God has also given me face. The harvests in each family's fields were much better than usual when they farmed together, so everyone I met in the past two days had smiles on their faces, and everyone was very happy.
While eating dumplings for lunch, Li Long wanted to return to his horse number, but Li Jianguo stopped him.
In the morning, he and Li Jianguo made couplets together. The house had been cleaned two days ago. A little earlier, Li Long went to do a big thing. He ran to a department store in Shicheng and bought an 18-inch color TV!
Originally, Li Long thought that he could get it for at most two thousand yuan, but when he arrived, he saw that in Shicheng Department Store, a 14-inch black and white TV costs more than 600 yuan, and a 14-inch color TV costs 1 It costs 1,600 yuan, and he wants an 18-inch color TV, which costs 2,400 yuan!
Here Li Long also saw a relatively friendly multi-purpose TV, a nine-inch one, with a TV on one side and a radio on the other.
How big is nine inches? Nowadays, many tablet computers are ten inches. Think about that size, it is a little bigger than an adult's palm.
Nine inches is too small, and it must be uncomfortable to look at. But they do have accessories. There is a thick 13-inch glass magnifying glass in front of the TV screen that weighs five kilograms!
Adjust the angle, and then magnify the scene through the glass. A nine-inch TV can see a twelve-inch effect.
Of course, it can only be seen as this effect, and the characters in it are still a bit distorted.
This is what Li Long recalled. Selling TVs at this time was not like later generations. In later generations, every TV in a booth would play a variety of programs for you, especially those with dazzling colors, allowing you to see how excellent the true colors of this TV were.
The TVs in this era were not plugged in at all - there were no programs during the day. At this time, the TV in Ma County could only receive two channels. Starting at seven o'clock in the evening, one was the second one. The channels are from CCTV. One is Channel 9, Shicheng TV Station. What Li Long remembers most clearly is CCTV's "News Network" and Shicheng's "Oasis News". During the day, except for CCTV's children's programs starting at 12 noon on Sundays, there are no channels at other times.
The second is not to let it become old products. Others want new products when buying TVs. In this era, if you turn on the TV and play it, it is assumed to be second-hand goods, so basically except for samples placed on the counter, everything else is unopened.
At this time, the place that sells TVs will also sell another magical thing - TV colored paper.
In fact, it is just a layer of colored plastic paper. This thing is pasted on the TV screen. If you look at the people on the TV screen, they will be colorful or single-color, no longer black and white. Of course, it is not real. The color is just a layer. It was popular for a while, but soon disappeared. After all, this thing is flashy and might as well be seen in black and white.
When Li Long went to buy a color TV, no one bought the 18-inch BJ color TV, which made him very happy.
Although it is a color TV, the screen is actually a convex screen. It will take 20 years for flat TVs to become popular. Flat-panel TVs will also appear 20 years later, but it will take a long time for them to become popular.
Li Long bought this ticket from a ticket dealer. What surprised him was that the color TV ticket was not expensive, and he got it for less than a hundred yuan.
Of course, from his point of view, it is not expensive, but from the perspective of the ticket seller, it is already a huge profit.
After all, in small counties, not many people can afford to buy color TVs, and even fewer can afford 18-inch color TVs.
Most people who can afford an 18-inch color TV don't need to get TV tickets from him.
Li Long took the color TV back to his eldest brother's house quietly. Isn't this 1983? He planned to watch the 1983 Spring Festival Gala as a family, so he never showed it after he got it back. Once this thing is revealed, the family will basically no longer think about peace of mind.
After all, it is the first TV set in the village. When it is unveiled, even in winter, the Li family's house will be absolutely full of people, and people will not leave until they see all the TV programs end.
But in the past two years, when the spring comes, land contracting will begin. Each family will contract the land and make money by the end of the year. By then, more people will buy TVs.
I don’t say you must buy an 18-inch color TV. Basically, everyone buys a 9-inch TV according to their ability. Some people buy a 9-inch TV, and some people buy a 12-inch or 14-inch black and white TV.
In those days, there were fewer people going to other people’s homes to watch TV.
Only Li Long, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei knew about buying a TV. Neither Li Juan nor Li Qiang knew - the child was not as strict as he thought. Li Long remembered asking Li Qiang to keep something secret. , and specifically told him that this was a test for him, but within an hour, he told the story to another child, and then it spread.
There is no shortage of gossip and vanity in children.
Watching TV is indispensable without an antenna. The color TVs sold in Shicheng Department Store only had two built-in antennas and one coil. Li Long still remembered the popular 101 antenna in his previous life.
For a long time, the 101 antenna has been a popular product in the TV counters of Wujiaohua shopping malls and department stores in the county. Inside is a set of aluminum tubes with wires. Of course, the wires are not long, and more Customers need to do more lines themselves.
While 101 antennas were not yet popular, people in the village had already begun to make similar antennas themselves. Six strands of aluminum wire are used - there is a steel wire in the middle of the wire. These wires are cut into wires ranging from 25 centimeters to 60 centimeters on a wooden shelf and fixed, then connected with a household wire, and finally with Just use a wooden pole to hold the antenna up.
I think most people over 40 years old who come from rural areas should have had a similar experience. When the weather is bad, you need to turn the antenna pole outside to adjust the TV signal so that it is less " Snowflake”, becomes stable.
Making this kind of antenna is not difficult for Li Long. When he was making this antenna in Ma Hao's room, Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang both saw it and asked what it was for. Li Long didn't tell them, he just told them that this thing looked good to them and they would definitely be able to use it next year.
Li Long is very serious about his work. After all, this thing is not like a 101 antenna. It is a professional one and he imitated it as an amateur. Although the materials are not bad, if the combination is not good, the signal reception will not be possible. It would be embarrassing if it arrived.
The wires were leftover from last year’s rewiring and installation of electricity. The engineering team was in a hurry at that time. After all, many production teams did not have electricity and needed to be powered on during the year, so some leftover materials were left in the team.
There are not only lengths of wires, but also various novel parts such as porcelain bottles on the telephone poles. The team even assigned a person to take charge of electricity. This era is not like later generations, where there is almost no power outage, or power outage will be notified in advance, and it will probably happen in half a day or a whole day.
At this time, because of the unstable voltage, fuses often burn, and sometimes the poles connecting electrical appliances on the transformer are removed. The people in the team, especially the kids, like Old Huang, who is in charge of the electricity, to close the transformer gate - that requires the use of a special insulating rod, and when closed, an electric arc will be emitted, which is very beautiful.
And children born in the 10s and 20s of the 21st century no longer know what a fuse is.
Although these wires are relatively short, only more than one meter at most, and are of little use in other aspects, they are just fine for Li Long.
Of course, children also like it. They will peel off the strands of aluminum wire, cut them off with pliers, nest them into hook-shaped bullets, and then use slingshots made of wire and rubber bands to shoot. go out.
It is more powerful than the water gun bullets of later generations.
After ordering the antenna, Li Long took it to his eldest brother's house. Then he needed to find a wooden pole to put up as an antenna pole, and a wire wrapped in a sheath - this is not a telephone pole. The wires on the phone are household wires.
The wooden pole needs to be moved, so it can only be circled with wire. Because we planned to place the phone in the west room of the Li family, which was also considered the main room, the antenna pole was located at the corner between the westernmost end of the house and the courtyard wall. It is easy to tie wires to the corners of the wall and fix them, and then the antenna can be passed through the crack in the window.
When Li Long was planting the antenna pole, there was no one outside. When the tree was finished, Mrs. Lu from across the door saw her when she went out to pour water, and she muttered two words. Since everyone was busy later, I forgot to ask. After all, everyone here is busy with New Year celebrations. Rare things often happen in the Li family, but this is not the case.
“This TV will be moved to your house when your house is built.” This is what Liang Yuemei said. “The TV you bought will be temporarily placed here until you two get married. We must move back.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Li Jianguo said the same. “After the land is contracted next year, and with the addition of pig farming, we will be able to buy a TV here before the end of the year.”
Li Long smiled and said nothing. It doesn’t matter where the TV is placed, what matters is being happy these days. When I feel tired of reading every day, I also need to watch TV shows. I think "The Condor Shooting" should be available by now, right? It's time for "Travel to Hushan Again" to be released, right? "Water Margin" is also being played, right? It seems that this year the old version of "Fearless" is also coming out,
"Journey to the West" is also coming soon, and "The Legend of Kant's First Bodyguard" and so on, they are all classics!
This homemade antenna was used for a few years, then it was the 101 antenna, and then there was the satellite pot. At first it was a mesh type, then it was really pot-shaped, and then... it was banned.
After all, this thing is quite complicated. This is a borderland, and some things are quite sensitive.
After all this is done, we can wait for debugging in the evening. At this time, Li Juan and Li Qiang were already wearing new clothes and couldn't wait to go out to play. Liang Yuemei was also preparing for the New Year's Eve dinner in the evening.
Li Long actually wanted to invite Uncle Luo to watch the Spring Festival Gala together, but Uncle Luo refused to come. He said he could just listen to the radio alone. Li Long didn't insist anymore. He planned to return to Ma Hao after watching the Spring Festival Gala - Ma Hao also posted couplets for the first time this year, with the word "Fu" blurred out, making it very festive.
In the afternoon, Li Juan and Li Qiang had not come back yet, but Liang Yuemei had told them to come back home before dark at seven o'clock for the New Year's Eve dinner. Although there was a habit of keeping vigil in his hometown, Li Jianguo thought it was not necessary after arriving here. He would go to bed when he was tired. Since there were no entertainment activities at night, he couldn't play cards all day - the Li family was determined not to allow gambling. When it comes to playing poker, only Li Jianguo, Li Long, and Liang Yuemei are not good at it, so there is no need.
Usually after midnight, after firing the cannon, I will go to bed, because I have to get up before dawn the next day to make dumplings. I’ve known since I was a child that dumplings should be eaten early on New Year’s Day, so I should go to bed early.
But this time, Li Long didn't plan to get up early on the first day of the new year. He planned to watch the Spring Festival Gala at his eldest brother's house before going back, and then have a good sleep. As for when to get up, it depends on his mood.
At around six o'clock, the sun was already setting. Li Long and Li Jianguo packed up the chest of drawers in the house, mainly taking down the things on it, and then moved the TV out of the spare house. Li Long I bought a plugboard. The plugboard at this time was very simple, just an ordinary rectangular white board with two and three holes on it.
The place where the power strip can be plugged in at home is usually on the wall, with a black hemispherical cover. Sometimes the plug can be connected to the electric lamp. You can connect one to the adapter of the bayonet light bulb, and you can also connect the lamp at the same time.
When the TV was placed on the chest of drawers, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei both stepped back and watched Li Long operate it.
Things worth more than two thousand yuan - the whole family's belongings are not worth so much money. Such expensive things cannot be damaged.
"I have some time... I don't have time today. I won't let you use scissors or needlework these days. When the fifth day of the Lunar New Year is over, I will find a piece of cloth and sew a cover for the TV." Liang Yuemei suddenly said, " Don’t let it get dusty.”
Li Long, who was fixing the antenna, laughed. As if unified across the country, household appliances in the 1980s and 1990s all had their own covers. They would cover them when they were not in use, and in some homes they would even cover them when they were being looked at.
The covers used by ordinary people at home are made of lighter and thinner cloth, which is breathable and can trap dust. But some people think that because it is a color TV, the cover fabric used is very expensive and very thick. When watching TV, they just pull up the front of the cover and keep the back covered - in the 1980s, TV sets overheated. Burn out the picture tube or the parts on the circuit board inside.
Think about it, it’s obviously for heat dissipation, but if you add a cover, it’s not holding back the heat - no matter how solid the circuit board is, it can’t withstand such a heat, right? In particular, color TVs are used very frequently. As long as there are TV programs, they can usually be turned on all night. Over time, they will break down.
"Sister-in-law, just put a cover on it to prevent dust. You should take it off when watching TV. This TV will emit heat when it is turned on. If you don't take it off, the TV will burn out."< br>
"Oh, I understand." Liang Yuemei nodded seriously.
"Xiaolong, have you ever used TV? Does it look so familiar?" Li Jianguo couldn't help but ask.
He saw that Li Long didn't even read the instructions, he was just fiddling with it, and the movements didn't look like he was messing around or being serious, so he asked.
At this time, the TVs came with a thick stack of instructions, and every operation was written on it. They even explained how to return if you pressed the wrong button on the panel; the instruction manual also clearly drew the circuit board. , which should be convenient for repairmen to repair.
The instructions at this time are the same as the textbooks at this time. Things are taught clearly. What to do in the first step, what to do in the second step, and what to do in the third step are also clear to the learners. Unlike the manuals or textbooks of later generations, what meanings should be made and what classifications should be made. For example, in the manual of a color TV, the first part describes the origin of color TV, the second part describes the significance of the invention of color TV, the third part describes the classification of color TVs and which manufacturers produce them, and the fourth part describes the composition of the parts - really Writing like this can make people angry to death.
But many later textbooks, especially those in primary schools, are like this. It's not very practical and has a lot of fluff - primary school students learn how to use it, what it means in a major, etc. People who go to university to study this major can just understand it.
Alas.
Li Long just complained like this, connected the antenna, turned on the power, turned on the TV, and there were snowflakes on the screen.
"This... won't be broken, right?" Liang Yuemei saw that the TV screen was full of snowflakes, and couldn't help but asked worriedly, "It can't be replaced at this time..."
"It's not broken, it's not broken." The channel on this TV was turned up, not pressed. It was still relatively primitive at this time. He turned the channel while While saying:
"What we want to watch is CCTV, channel 2." After saying that, he turned the channel to the top of 2 and continued:
"Shicheng TV is channel 9. Currently, We will be able to receive these two stations at 7 or 8 o'clock in the evening, it will be soon..."
"Yes, yes!" Liang Yuemei said excitedly when she saw the vague picture on the screen.
"It's just not clear..."
"Brother, you guys are watching here. I will go outside to twist the antenna pole. I will turn it slowly. When will you see it clearly? Call I'll do it."
Li Long said he was about to go out, and Li Jianguo said hurriedly:
"I'll do it, just watch, I don't know how to do this yet."
"No, just watch and call me when you get it clear." Li Long hoped that the process and feeling would be better than waiting in the room for fine-tuning. "I'll adjust slowly and you just watch."
Li Long left the house. It was cold outside, but his heart was hot.
This is the first TV set in the village, and it is also the first color TV set. Today we will watch the country's first Spring Festival Gala on it - it is definitely a gathering of stars.
Li Long held the antenna pole and slowly moved it.
In the past three years, it can be regarded as a feast for foreigners. ——This is the only one in the team who can watch TV.
(End of this chapter)