Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 416: Doing something big, having meat on New Year’s Eve?
The sound of firecrackers is getting louder and louder, Spring Festival couplets are posted on every household, the air is filled with the aroma of meat and the smell of gunpowder from firecrackers, and the New Year is getting closer.

On New Year's Eve, there were constant sounds of firecrackers in the team, especially at noon. The bursts of firecrackers made Li Long feel as if he had returned to twenty years later.

After all, last year, the loudest firecrackers were on the morning of New Year's Day.

It's normal when you think about it. This year, I have led my team to accomplish many major tasks, and every household has earned some money. In addition, after the household contract responsibility system was implemented, God has also been kind to them. The harvest from each family's fields is much better than when they were farming collectively in the past. So everyone I met these two days had a smile on their face, and they were all very happy.

While eating dumplings at noon, Li Long wanted to go back to the horse horn, but was stopped by Li Jianguo.

In the morning, he and Li Jianguo pasted up the couplets together. The house had been cleaned two days ago. Earlier, Li Long did something important. He went to the department store in Shicheng and bought an 18-inch color TV!
Li Long originally thought that he could get it done for a maximum of two thousand yuan, but when he arrived, he saw that in the Shicheng Department Store, a 14-inch black and white TV cost more than 600 yuan, a 14-inch color TV cost one thousand six hundred yuan, and he wanted an 18-inch color TV, which cost two thousand four!

Here Li Long also saw a more familiar multi-purpose TV, nine inches, with a TV on one side and a radio on the other.

How big is nine inches? Many tablet computers are ten inches now. Just think about that size, which is only slightly larger than an adult's palm.

Nine inches is really too small, and it must be uncomfortable to look at. But they have accessories. In front of the TV screen is a thick thirteen-inch glass magnifying glass that weighs five kilograms!
Adjust the angle and then magnify the scene through the glass, so that a nine-inch TV will look like a twelve-inch TV.

Of course, this is the only effect we can see, and the characters in it are a bit distorted.

This is what Li Long recalled. The TV sales at that time were not like those in later times. In later times, every TV in a booth played a variety of programs for you, especially those with dazzling colors, so that you can see how excellent the true color of the TV is.

The TVs of 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 7pm, one was Channel 2, CCTV, and the other was Channel 9, Shicheng TV. The ones Li Long remembered most clearly were 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 were no channels at other times.

The second is to prevent it from becoming a used product. People buy TVs in new condition, but nowadays, if you turn on the TV and play a song, it is considered second-hand, so basically, except for the samples on the counter, the others are not opened.

At this time, places that sell televisions will also sell another magical thing - TV colored paper.

Actually, it is a layer of colored plastic paper. When you stick it on the TV screen, the people on the TV screen are colorful or single color, not black and white. Of course, it is not real color, but just a layer of plastic. It was popular for a while, but soon disappeared. After all, it is flashy and not practical, and it is better to watch it in black and white.

When Li Long went to buy a color TV, the 18-inch BJ color TV was just there but no one bought it, which made him quite happy.

Although it is a color TV, its screen is actually convex. Flat-screen TVs would not become popular until 20 years later. Flat-screen TVs also appeared 20 years later, but it would take a long time for them to become popular.

Li Long bought this ticket from a ticket scalper. What surprised him was that the color TV ticket was not expensive. He got it for less than 100 yuan.

Of course, it is not expensive in his opinion, but from the perspective of ticket scalpers, it is already a big profit.

After all, in a small county, 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 ask him for TV tickets.

Li Long brought the color TV back to his eldest brother's house quietly. It was 1983, and he planned to watch the 1983 Spring Festival Gala with his family happily, so he never turned it on after he brought it back. Once this thing is turned on, the family will basically have no peace.

After all, it is the first TV in the village. When it is turned on, even in winter, the Li family’s house will be full of people, and they will not leave until all the TV programs are finished.

However, in the past two years, when land contracting began in the spring, each family contracted land and earned money by the end of the year, and then more people bought televisions.

It doesn't mean that you have to buy an 18-inch color TV. Basically, everyone buys according to their means. Some people buy 9-inch TVs, and some people also buy 12-inch or 14-inch black-and-white TVs.

At that time, fewer people went to other people's homes to watch TV.

Only Li Long, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei knew about buying the TV. Li Juan and Li Qiang were unaware - children's mouths are not as tight-lipped as one might imagine. Li Long remembered that he had asked Li Qiang to keep something a secret and had specifically told him that this was a test for him. Yet within an hour, he told another child about it, and then it spread.

Children are just as gossipy and vain as ever.

An antenna is indispensable for watching TV. The color TVs sold in Shicheng Department Store only have two built-in antennas and a coil. Li Long still remembers the 101 antenna that was popular in his previous life.

For quite a long time, the 101 antenna was a popular item in the county's Wujiaohua shopping malls and the TV counters in department stores. It consisted of a set of aluminum tubes with wires. Of course, the wires were not long, and customers had to make more wires themselves.

Before the 101 antenna became popular, villagers had already started making similar antennas. They used six strands of aluminum wire with a steel wire in the middle, cut the wires into to cm long wires on a wooden frame, connected them with a household wire, and finally used a wooden pole to prop up the antenna.

I think most people over 40 who come from rural areas should have had similar experiences. When the weather is bad, they need to turn the antenna pole outside to adjust the TV signal to make it less "snowy" and more stable.

It was not difficult for Li Long to make this kind of antenna. When he was making this antenna in the horse room, Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang saw it and asked what it was for. Li Long did not tell them, but just told them that they looked good and they would definitely be able to use it next year.

Li Long worked very seriously. After all, this thing was not like the 101 antenna. Theirs was a professional one, while his was an amateur imitation. Although the materials were okay, if the combination was not good, it would be embarrassing if the signal could not be received.

The wires were left over from the rewiring and reinstallation last year. The engineering team left in a hurry, after all, many production teams still had no electricity and needed to have it this year, so the remaining scraps were left with the team.

There were not only sections of wires, but also porcelain bottles on the poles and other novel parts. The team also assigned a person to be in charge of electricity. This era was not like later times, where there were almost no power outages, or if there were power outages, they would be notified in advance and would arrive within half a day or a whole day.

At this time, due to the unstable voltage, fuses often burn out, and sometimes the poles at the transformers are knocked down. The team members, especially the kids, like to ask Old Huang, who is in charge of electricity, to close the transformers - that requires a special insulating pole, and when it is closed, an arc light will be emitted, which is quite beautiful.

However, children born in the 1990s and 1990s of the 21st century no longer know what a fuse is.

Although these wires are relatively short, only about one meter at most, and are of little use in other areas, they are just right for Li Long.

Of course, children also like it. They will peel off the aluminum wires on it, cut them with pliers, make them into bullets in the shape of a check mark, and then shoot them out with a slingshot made of wire and rubber bands.

The power is greater than the water bullets of later generations.

After the antenna was ordered, Li Long took it to his eldest brother's house. Then he needed to find a wooden pole to erect as the antenna pole, and also some wires wrapped in a sheath - these were not the wires on the telephone pole, but household wires.

The wooden pole needs to be movable, so we can only use wire to circle it. Because we plan to put the TV in the west room of the Li family, which is also the main house, the antenna pole is at the corner between the western end of the house and the courtyard wall. The corner is easy to tie the wire and fix, and then the antenna can be passed through the window gap.

When Li Long was erecting the antenna pole, there were not many people outside. When the pole was finished, Mrs. Lu from the opposite side saw it when she went out to get water. She muttered a few words, but then everyone was busy and forgot to ask. After all, everyone was busy with the New Year's things. The Li family often had rare things happen, but this one was not the most.

"We'll move this TV to your house once it's built." Liang Yuemei said, "The TV you bought will be temporarily placed here. We'll move it back when you two get married."

"Yes, that's right." Li Jianguo also said, "After we contract the land next year and raise pigs, we will be able to buy a TV by the end of the year."

Li Long smiled but said nothing. It doesn't matter where the TV is placed. What matters these days is being happy. Reading books every day can get boring sometimes, and you need to watch some TV shows. I guess "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" should be out by now? "Going to Tiger Mountain Again" should be out too, right? "Water Margin" is also being shown, right? It seems that the old version of "Huo Yuanjia" was also released this year.
"Journey to the West" is coming out soon, as well as "The Legend of Kant's First Bodyguard" and so on, they are all classics!
This homemade antenna was used for a few years, and then came the 101 antenna, and later there was the satellite dish. At first it was a mesh-shaped one, and later it was a real dish-shaped one, and then... it was banned.

After all, this thing is quite complicated. This is a border area and some things are quite sensitive.

After everything was done, they were just waiting to be debugged in the evening. At this time, Li Juan and Li Qiang were already wearing new clothes and couldn't wait to go out and play, and Liang Yuemei was also preparing the New Year's Eve dinner.

Li Long actually wanted to invite Uncle Luo to watch the Spring Festival Gala together, but Uncle Luo refused to come, saying that he would be fine listening to the radio by himself. Li Long did not insist, and planned to return to Mahao after watching the Spring Festival Gala - Mahao also posted couplets and the word "Fu" for the first time this year, making it quite festive.

In the afternoon, Li Juan and Li Qiang had not returned yet, but Liang Yuemei had told them to come back home before 7 o'clock to have the New Year's Eve dinner. Although there was a custom of staying up all night in his hometown, Li Jianguo thought it was unnecessary after arriving here. He would sleep when he was tired, and there was no entertainment at night. He couldn't play cards all day - the Li family was determined not to allow gambling. Only Li Jianguo and Li Long knew how to play poker, Liang Yuemei didn't know much, so it was unnecessary.

Usually, after midnight, after the opening cannon is fired, people go to sleep, because they have to get up before dawn the next day to make dumplings. Since childhood, we know that dumplings should be made early on the first day of the Chinese New Year, so it is reasonable to go to bed early.

However, this time Li Long did not 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 setting. Li Long and Li Jianguo tidied up the chest of drawers in the house, mainly taking down the things on it, and then moved the TV out of the spare room. Li Long bought an extension cord. At that time, the extension cord was very simple, just an ordinary rectangular white board with two or three holes on it.

The place where you can plug in the power strip at home is usually on the wall, with a black hemispherical cover. Sometimes you can also plug in the light bulb, where you can connect one and the light bulb 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.

It’s something worth more than two thousand dollars—all the family’s belongings are not worth that much money. Such an expensive thing cannot be damaged.

"I'll find some time... I don't have time today. You're not allowed to use scissors or needles these days. After the fifth day of the New Year, I'll find a piece of cloth to sew a cover for this TV." Liang Yuemei suddenly said, "Don't let it get dusty."

Li Long, who was connecting the antenna, laughed when he heard this. It seemed to be the same across the country. In the 1980s and 1990s, household appliances all had their own covers. They were covered when not in use, and some families even covered them when they were in use.

Ordinary people use light and thin cloth for TV covers, which are breathable and can also keep out dust. But some people use expensive and thick fabrics for color TV covers, and only pull up the front of the cover when watching TV, while still covering the back - in the 1980s, there were cases where the picture tube or the parts on the circuit board were burned out due to overheating of the TV.

Think about it, it is obviously for heat dissipation, but if you add a cover, the temperature will rise - no matter how tough the circuit board is, it can't withstand such a burn, right? Especially color TVs are used very frequently, as long as there are TV programs, they can usually be turned on all night, and over time, they will break down.

"Sister-in-law, just put on the cover to prevent dust. Take it off when watching TV. This TV will emit heat when it is turned on. If you don't take it off, it will burn the TV."

"Oh, I understand." Liang Yuemei nodded seriously.

"Xiaolong, have you ever used TV? Why does it look so familiar?" Li Jianguo couldn't help asking.

He saw that Li Long didn't even read the instructions, but just fiddled with it, and his movements didn't seem to be fooling around at all, but were very methodical, so he asked this question.

At that time, televisions came with a thick instruction manual, with every operation written on it, even explaining how to return if you pressed the panel incorrectly; the instruction manual would also clearly draw the circuit board, which should be convenient for repair personnel to perform repairs.

The manuals at that time were like textbooks at that time. They taught things clearly. What the first step was, what the second step was, and what the third step was. The learners also knew it clearly. Unlike the manuals or textbooks of later generations, they had to explain the meaning and classification. 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 inventing color TV, the third part describes the classification of color TV and which manufacturers produce it, and the fourth part describes the composition of the parts. If it is really written like this, it will make people angry.

But many textbooks in later generations, especially those in primary schools, are like this. They are not very practical and contain a lot of empty stuff - primary school students learn how to use it, the significance of the major, etc., and those who study this major in university can understand it.

Ugh.

Li Long just complained like this, connected the antenna, turned on the power, Li Long turned on the TV, and there was a lot of snow on the screen.

"This... isn't broken, is it?" Liang Yuemei asked worriedly when she saw the TV screen was covered with snow. "It's too late to replace it now..."

"It's not broken, it's not broken." The channels on this TV were turned instead of pressed. It was still relatively primitive at that time. He said as he turned the channels:
"We are going to watch CCTV, Channel 2." He turned the channel to 2 and continued:
"Shicheng Station is Channel 9. We can currently receive these two stations. They should both start at around 7 or 8 in the evening. It's almost time now..."

"Got it, got it!" Liang Yuemei said excitedly when she saw the vague picture on the screen.

"I just don't know..."

"Brother, you guys watch here. I'll go outside and twist the antenna pole. I'll turn it slowly. When you see it's clear, call me."

Li Long was about to leave when Li Jianguo said hurriedly:

"I'll do it, I'll do it. You just watch. I don't know how to do this."

"No, just watch. Call me when you are clear." Li Long hoped to make fine adjustments by himself. The process and feeling would be better than waiting in the house. "I will adjust it slowly. You just watch."

Li Long left the house. It was quite cold outside, but his heart was burning.

This is the first TV in the village and also the first color TV. Today we will watch the first national Spring Festival Gala on it - it will definitely be full of stars.

Li Long held the antenna pole and slowly moved it.

In the past three years, we have finally had some foreign food. ——We are the only one in the team that can watch TV.

(End of this chapter)