quote:
all the older ones seem to have that
Back in days of old--late 70's--you needed a25-30' mast to pick up anything other than KBTX or KAMU. So, when cable became available (20, 30, 60 channels*--O my!) it was hugely popular and in great demand. Greater demand than there were competent install techs.
A certain cable company (<koff>not Midwest<koff>
had a problem with feet through ceilings (also with apartments with no attic access), so, they "cured" that by only drilling from the outside wall into where the interior fixture would go. Which meant that the cable had to be attached, somewhere, on the outside of the house--either at the eave, or down at the bottom of the siding (or both, if a certain company made two different installation calls).
Telco wire stapled to base boards and along trim goes back to when there was only the one Phone Company, and their manual for adding fixtures actually recommended not going inside the walls. The price for the installation was cheaper, too.
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*The Cities extorted a "basic" cable package for all of their citizens as part of the City franchise to provide cable. If memory serves, Bryan mandated 5 channels and CS mandated 13; customers then paid for "extended basic" cable which was another 25 or 40 channels. There were only 4 "premium" channels. Discovery Channel was only the one channel (99) and the first year it was on, only had commercials every 30 minutes.