SUBBER

TV Service Instruments for signal circuit analyzing.

When Castle introduced the TV Tuner SUBBER analyzing instrument a couple of years ago it became the first practical way to easily test the VHF tuner, UHF tuner and i.f. amplifier system of any TV receiver. Being lightweight, self contained and battery powered the TV Tuner SUBBER *Mk. IV is the first such instrument which may be carried on service calls and used with ANY color or black and white TV receiver … at $45.95 for the battery powered Mk. IV, or $54.95 for the a.c. plus battery powered Mk. IV-A the instruments have been known to pay for themselves in TIMESAVING in the first two weeks of use!

Now we have introduced the Mk. V Master SUBBER*, an instrument which is absolutely unique . . . there is nothing else like it anywhere! It is completely portable and battery powered, practically foolproof in it’s simplicity of operation when testing ALL the signal stages of any color or black and white TV receiver. The substitution signals available allow tests of the following stages: VHF tuner, UHF tuner, each video i.f. amplifier, video detectors, video amplifiers, 4.5 MHz sound i.f. amplifiers, sound limiter, sound detector and audio amplifier. It includes a signal level meter for testing the antenna signal. Inbuilt telescopic antenna makes the meter adaptable for true field strength measurements. Inbuilt monitor loudspeaker ensures foolproof substitution tests . . . every time!

At $169.95 the Master SUBBER* instrument is the best bargain in an analyzer that has ever been available. It will save oodles of time in the hands of a professional troubleshooter . . . and help advance the novice to professional status.

All SUBBER* instruments come complete with batteries, connecting cables and comprehensive instruction manual. The Master SUBBER* and Mk. IV-A TV Tuner SUBBER* come complete with wall plug-in transformer for 120vac 60 Hz operation.

As an added bonus, all SUBBER* instruments enable use of the high speed age system analyzing procedure invented by Castle . . . the first practical method for analyzing age system defects without confusion.

*A trademark of Castle TV Tuner Service, Inc.

These instruments boast the extra features of all Castle products — advanced technology — modern styling — and they work!

If you need to save some analyzing time . . . you need a SUBBER* instrument!

See your stocking distributor … or write for more details and complete specifications.

CASTLE TV TUNER SERVICE, INC.

5715 N. Western Ave., Chicago, Illinois 60645 Phone: (312) 561-6354

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IT’S NEW!

EMERGENCY FLOATS being tried here by Sikorsky S-55 helicopter can be inflated by pilot for any unscheduled landings on water.

TV COMBAT CAMERA developed by Army enables scout to send up-to-the-minute battle pictures to command post.

VACUUM CLEANER built by U. S. Hoffman Machinery Corp. weighs 15 tons, cleans runways of rubble to protect jet intakes.

SHOPPER’S MAILBOX, newly designed for people carrying a week’s provisions from the supermarket, was tried out recently in Washington, D. C. Foot pedal should be useful during Christmas rush.

EYE REACTIONS are recorded by camera as headclamped testee looks at boxes for Folding Paper Box Association’s study of sales appeal of various types of packages.

ARTIST IN STRAW. Berliner Friedrich Pruss von Zglinicke makes elaborate pictures of pieces of straw glued to wooden placards.

AVERT YO EYES. SUH! This lady is a cop and she’s hoisting her Roscoe. New holster is being tried out in Baltimore. Md.

HOLD IT! New TV tube (right) freezes selected images. Developed by Hughes Aircraft, it’s primarily an airborne radar weather aid. can retain an image up to three minutes for study.

DENTAL PANORAMA rivaling Grand Canyon is what you get with this new X-ray camera that takes all the teeth at one go.

TOY TRACTOR, radio-controlled, climbs 45-degree grades, can be operated at distance of over 200 yards. Made in Germany.

ROOF FIRST is the rule in new Army construction; concrete slabs for root floors, are raised on hydraulic hoists, then supporting walls are erected. Photo taken at Ft. Devens, Mass.

Television Picture Attachment Uses Any A.C. Set for Sound

Utilizing the chassis and loud speaker of any a.c.-operated radio for accompanying sound, this table-model attachment reproduces television images for direct viewing. It plugs into your regular receiver in the same manner that you would connect a record player. The picture is 3-3/8 in. by 4-3/8 in. Five television receiving channels are provided.

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TV’s Sheet-Metal Heroes

Here’s how Grandpa’s Pierce-Arrow might end up on television, co-starring with Bob Stack

By JACK B. KEMMERER

“I’M a co-star with a bunch of old cars,” moans Bob Stack, I relaxing between takes on the studio set of The Untouch- ables. “And if you don’t believe it, take a look at the fan mail. I wouldn’t be surprised if they get more mail than the rest of us put together.”

The Untouchables, ABC-TV’s tale of gangsters and government men in the ’30s, quickly skyrocketed to high popularity in the United States soon after its first appearance on the TV screen. And cars on the program share fan appeal with the human cast.

The series is filmed at Desilu Studios, Culver City, Calif., where the beloved old sheet metal stars even have their own private parking lot. The lineup is impressive: a 1927 Viking, a whole platoon of Buicks, a Pierce-Arrow here and there, a Chevy coupe, some Fords, a couple of Oldsmobiles, lots of LaSalles, both a Yellow and a Checker Cab, and three trucks, a White, a 1925 chain-drive Mack, and a Chevy—about 50 cars in all.

Gold Behind Chicken Coop? Where does the show get all these vintage cars? Aaron Dorn, Desilu’s transportation chief, has the answer—and the job of finding the particular cars needed. Many are offered to Dorn by Untouchables’ fans who figure they have a gold mine in their grandpappy’s old car out behind the chicken coop.

“Lots of people make us a fine offer of a ’27 or ’29 car for maybe only $5000,” Dorn said unhappily. “But the truth is, there are plenty around for a tenth of that. The only catch is, they must be in good mechanical shape.”

Actually, Dorn gets most of his cars from E.O. Smith who owns and operates a Hollywood rental and referral service for old cars. At 59, Smith is one of those rare individuals who retired several years ago, then turned a hobby into a lucrative business.

He took up the hobby about 10 years ago, buying a 1925 Stearns four-door sedan. After acquiring about seven or eight of the ancient cars and restoring them to mint condition, he found that considerable money and even more time were tied up in something that could only be looked at and driven occasionally.

Cars for Lawless Years. “I knew I had to find some way of making them pay or my hobby was over,” Smith recalls. Some weeks later he heard that M-G-M was looking for cars of the 1920s for a new TV series, The Lawless Years.

Driving one of his cars to the lot, Smith showed it, along with pictures of his other cars, to the transportation chief. Several cars were “signed up” immediately and Smith had a new business. Now, only three years later, he has about 65 vintage cars and is constantly adding more. He supplies cars to every movie studio in Hollywood as well as to television production companies.

Smith belongs to the Antique Car Club and the Horseless Carriage Club; most relics come from members of these two organizations. And, now that he’s well known in the field, Smith gets three or four letters and calls a day from people wanting to unload an old car. “Unfortunately,” he says, “most of these people have an exaggerated idea of what their car is worth.”

Judging the Value. There is no set price for an antique or classic car, according to Smith. It depends entirely on the car’s condition, its rarity, and how bad the would-be purchaser wants it. The least Smith ever paid for a car was $30 for a 1934 Oldsmobile; the most: $1000 each for a 1913 International truck and a 1918 Cadillac. A 1918 Dodge cost him $750 and a 1915 Model T Ford, $900. Each required considerable work to restore; in addition to the time involved, about $500 was spent on each car.

With the exception of major mechanical overhauls, Smith does all restoration work. Body work alone requires about two weeks’ labor and can easily take two months if the car is in really bad shape. He farms out his mechanical work to a neighborhood garage run by another antique car fan who thus has a personal interest in Smith’s problems.

Spare parts can be—and often are—a big headache. If Smith can’t find an engine part, he has it machined. Body parts are easier to come by; here again, Smith depends mostly on his fellow car club members.

The First Car He Bought (a 1925 Stearns) caused him the most trouble. “It was a case of pure ignorance,” Smith recalls wryly. “If I knew then what I know now, I never would have bought that particular car.”

It was only after a long search for a missing part and much work that he was able to completely restore the Stearns. Later he turned down $1000 for it. He rented it for use in The Lawless Years but now won’t rent it for any price. The make is now quite rare and, while Smith has heard of other Stearns sedans, he has never actually seen one. Those from our century’s “teens” period are valued from $5000 to $7000.

In The Untouchables, Federal Agent Eliot Ness (Bob Stack) uses a 1930 Buick 8 as his personal car. Actually there are two of these Buicks, both identical and both Smith’s. One Buick is used for the destructive scenes where the car gets shot up or wrecked; in one show it was partially burned.

Destructive Scenes Cause plenty of headaches for both Desilu and Smith. They get sacks of mail from angry fans when one of the elderly machines is consumed in a wreck or a fire—the blazing kind or by weapons of the early 1930s.

The wrecks and fires are all real— nothing is faked. If the car is to be totally destroyed, the studio buys it from Smith beforehand. And, naturally, they don’t destroy any of the rare vehicles. “They couldn’t afford to,” Smith grins. “It would cost a lot of money to keep wrecking cars worth four or five thousand dollars.”

When a car is only partially wrecked or burned, Smith is paid for the total damage and he restores it for further use.

Producers of The Untouchables are constantly amazed at the closeness with which its fans watch the show. During one show, some stock footage was used to show a street scene. The film had been checked thoroughly to see that it fits the proper time period. But 2200 letters received the following week disclosed that each viewer writing had spotted the 1941 Pontiac in the 1931 scene.

Death Car for Schultz. Smith has one car, a 1928 Cadillac, that he calls his Dutch Schultz car. Three times by three different studios this vehicle has served as the death car for the Dutchman.

TV commercials offer another source of steady income for Smith. Many of the filmed advertisements require cars of a certain vintage and model. Smith always has four or five of his ancient buggies on loan at the studios that specialize in these short films.

The rental fee per car varies, depending on the vehicle involved, from $30 to $100 a day, with the price increasing with the age and rarity of the vehicle. Most requests are for cars of a particular model and year. Even with 65 on hand, Smith doesn’t have everything the studios want. If he has time, he’ll get the car and restore it, provided enough rental is assured to make it profitable.

“One thing is sure,” Smith says happily. “As long as they make motion pictures and TV films, they’re going to have to have cars of the right age to fit their time requirements. It looks like I’ve got a pretty good hobby.”

Pioneer Inventor Is Conducting a Radio Movie Station

DR. C. FRANCIS JENKINS, noted Washington scientist and pioneer in the field of radio vision, is now conducting a new high powered transmitting station near Washington, for the broadcasting of motion pictures by radio. Opening of his station was preceded by broadcasts from his laboratory for several months. The station was originally assigned to operate on a frequency of 2850 kilocycles with a power of 1.5 kilowatts. Dr. Jenkins has developed an instrument which changes the lights and shadows of the motion picture film into electrical impulses which operate the radio transmitter. The broadcasting equipment which is decidedly intricate includes a photo electric cell and a series of lenses for focussing.

It’s just part of a fascinating learn-at-home program in electronics from Bell & Howell Schools!

If you’re handy with a set of tools, you may already have some of the skills you’ll need to build Bell & Howell’s color TV … the TV with digital features! This program is the perfect way to discover the exciting field of digital electronics … and best of all, you can do it all at home, in your spare time. Get free information now about this first-of-a-kind learn-at-home program prepared for you by skilled instructors at Bell & Howell Schools.

Discover a new way to spend your spare time hours on evenings and weekends.

Even if you have no prior background in electronics, you’ll find digital electronics a fascinating world to explore. You’ll enjoy spending hours reading about the systems of digital circuitry, performing experiments to test what you learn, and building this advanced color TV. It’s completely absorbing, and you’re spending your spare time learning something new that could open up extra income opportunities for you.

Find out all about electronics equipment and how it works.

Once you complete this learn-at-home program, you’ll have the specialized skills to service color TVs plus the knowledge that you can apply to repair a variety of home electronic equipment. And because this Bell & Howell Schools’ program includes the study of digital circuitry, you’ll be among the first with professional home training in digital electronics, a field that’s growing in importance every day.

No electronics background necessary.

We start you off with the basics. You’ll receive a special Lab Starter Kit with your first lesson so that you can get immediate “hands on” experience to help you better understand newly-learned electronics principles. Later, you’ll use your knowledge and learn valuable skills as you build the color TV. You can take full advantage of our toll-free phone-in assistance service throughout the program and also our in-person “help sessions” held in 50 cities at various times throughout the year where you can “talk shop” with your instructors and fellow students. You learn valuable skills in electronics through experiments and testing as you build this advanced-design color TV.

You build and work with a revolutionary color TV.

Discover the technology behind such extraordinary features as channel numbers that flash on the screen, an on-screen digital clock that flashes the time in easy-to-read numbers, and an automatic pre-set channel selector that allows intermixing of VHF and UHF channels in any sequence. You’ll enjoy probing into advanced performance features like silent all-electronic tuning, Black Matrix picture tube, “state of the art” integrated circuitry, and the 100% solid-state chassis that makes possible a brighter sharper picture with long life and dependability.

You also build Bell & Howell’s exclusive Electro-Lab ® electronics training system.

You get valuable experience performing experiments and later testing your TV with a digital multimeter, solid-state “triggered sweep” oscilloscope, and design console you build yourself.

The skills you learn can lead to part-time income or a new career in a business of your own.

While many of our students do not ask for employment assistance, it is available. We will help you look for a job in a field of electronics that best fits your interests and abilities. Of course, no assurance of income opportunities can be offered. One thing you can be certain of: no better or more practical at-home training in electronics is available anywhere.

Find out more about this fascinating program … mail the card today for full details, free!

This Bell & Howell Schools’ program is approved by the state approval agency for Veterans’ Benefits. Please check the box on the card for free information.

If card has been removed, write:
An Electronics Home Study School
DeVRY INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
ONE OF THE Bell & Howell Schools
4141 Belmont, Chicago. Illinois 60641

Jerrold’s New Universal TV Remote Control

The Hottest New Product Since The Calculator…

* Makes every set on your floor a remote control model.

* Universal— Attaches to any set in minutes.

* Changes channel instantly and fine tunes.

* Turns set on/off.

* Silent push-button varactor—diode tuning— 12 channels.

* Amplifies signal and eliminates direct pick up ghosts.

* For homes, apartments, bars, hotels/motels, schools, hospitals and nursing homes.

Packaged in a sturdy, colorful, self-selling carton.

JERROLD
a GENERAL INSTRUMENT company

HEADQUARTERS & EASTERN OFFICE 200 Witmer Rd., Horsham, Penna. 19044, (215) 674-4800.
SOUTHERN OFFICE 1 Perimeter Place, Suite 101, Atlanta, Georgia 30339, (404) 432-3102.
WESTERN OFFICE 1255 Veterans Blvd , Redwood City, Calif. 94063, (415) 365-5050.
MIDWESTERN OFFICE 1334 Atlantic Street, North Kansas City, Mo. 64116, (816) 842-1555.

MlDEAS Come True

When these ideas were only on the drawing board. Ml predicted great futures for them. We were right.
BATTLEVISION

BACK in January 1952 Mechanix Illustrated ran a story called Why Don’t We Have Battlevision? In it we suggested that the generals of the future might be able to see the progress of battles on television screens from the relative safety of their headquarters. The series of photographs on this page show the U.S. Army using this very system to observe cadets during battle maneuvers at the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. Mobile Signal Corps camera units at the front relay the complete television coverage of the sham battle back to commanding officers four miles away.

Receiver Dressed in Glass Shows Secrets of Television

Some of the secrets of television reception are disclosed to the public by a glass-encased receiver exhibited by RCA at the New York World’s Fair. Although it is not in operation, those who see the set gain an impression of the genius out of which grew such an involved and intricate piece of magic in this newer field of radio.

That was actually a pretty good guess.

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COMSAT: Communication in the Space Age

Not experimental, but commercial, instant worldwide information transmission by satellite
By RAY D. THROWER

In the 17th century, it took about 4 months for news of the New World to reach Europe. Now, with satellite communication, news whips around the globe in seconds. In less than 3 years, instant global communication will be a reality. Advanced communications equipment and the space-age vehicle, the Communications Satellite Corp. and its international partner, Intelsat, are all together responsible for that.

“Just what is COMSAT?” is a question one frequently hears. Many have the idea that COMSAT is a government agency, staffed by Federal civil-service personnel. This mistaken idea probably comes from the fact that COMSAT was authorized by the Communications Satellite Act passed by Congress in 1962. The basic Communications Act of 1934 made no specific provisions for satellite communication. In fact, in 1934, satellite communication was placed in the category of Buck Rogers space adventure stories, popular in the late 1930′s. COMSAT’s relationship to the Federal Government is about the same as the relationship of other communication companies such as General Telephone & Electronics, American Telephone & Telegraph, and International Telephone & Telegraph. They are all Government-regulated, profit-making stockholder-owned organizations.

Radio-Electronics visited the new earth-station facilities at Brewster Flat, Wash., and Paumalu, Oahu, Hawaii, and obtained an interview with Wallace M. Lauterbach. Western area manager for the Communications Satellite Corp. Lauterbach has been in communications for about 25 years.

He was graduated in 1941 from the US Military Academy with a BS in electrical engineering. He obtained his MS from the University of Illinois. During World War II. he commanded signal troops in the Pacific Theater. Since then, he has been executive officer to the Chief Signal Officer, Department of the Army; a member of the US delegation to the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva; military assistant to the telecommunications adviser to the President; and first Commanding Officer, US Army Strategic Communications Command.

When Colonel Lauterbach retired from active duty in June, 1965, he was an obvious choice for Western area manager, Communications Satellite Corp.

After we toured the COMSAT site at Brewster Flat, Wash., Lauterbach invited us into his office for some discussion about COMSAT and the future of space-age communications.

RADIO-ELECTRONICS: What is COMSAT’s purpose?

COLONEL LAUTERBACH: It’s to be a world-wide commercial communications satellite network to provide communications services to business, government, and individuals. Understand one thing: When we speak in terms of “communications” here at COMSAT, we mean not just telephone conversations, though they will be an important part of COMSAT’s activity. But I think the important contributions will be data transmission and. to a lesser degree, video communication.

R-E: Well, will the communications satellites be flexible enough to handle the different kinds of communications circuits you’re talking about? For example, can one single satellite take care of voice, data and video traffic, too?

LAUTERBACH: I’ll give you a qualified yes to that question. Qualified only because of the way it was worded. Yes, the present satellites can handle voice, data and video. But not all at the same time. They can handle a mixture of voice and data. The exact number of circuits depends on the speed, and therefore the bandwidth, of the data circuit. The real limiting factor is the terminal equipment used at the earth stations. The receivers and transmitters are the same for all modes, but the demodulating and modulating equipment is different for voice, data and video.

R-E: How many of each type circuit can satellites handle?

LAUTERBACH: Early Bird, which was our first program, can handle 240 two-way telephone conversations, or 6,200 full duplex, simultaneous teletype circuits, or one television video circuit. It can handle a few computer circuits or hundreds. As I mentioned before, the exact number of computer circuits will depend on the speed of transmission of the data.

R-E: I see. I’d guess that the communications satellites launched early this year can handle more than the 240 voice circuits of Early Bird, true? Do you have a name for the current program?

LAUTERBACH: Let’s take those in reverse. Early Bird was one name for what we call Intelsat I. That’s a single satellite located over the Atlantic off the east coast of South America. The current program, the one that affects us here at Brewster Flat and at Paumalu. is called the Intelsat II series. We have several satellites for this second phase. One did not achieve a usable orbit and is idle. The second is stationed above the Pacific Ocean about halfway between here and Australia. A third will be put on the opposite side of the globe over the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa.

As to channel capacity, Intelsat II spacecraft have the same capacity as Early Bird but more than twice the area of coverage. However, we’re constructing what we call Intelsat III. That will be what we call a “multiple-access” type communications satellite. These so-called global satellites, for use starting in 1968, will have a capacity in excess of 1,200 voice circuits each.

R-E: You’ve mentioned Intelsat several times. What is that?

LAUTERBACH: Intelsat stands for International Telecommunications Satellite Consortium. It’s an organization made up of a group of the member nations of the ITU. the International Telecommunications Union, which is an arm of the United Nations. Right now we have more than 55 member nations in Intelsat. Intelsat owns the satellites. COMSAT holds a majority interest, and acts as manager of Intelsat. Each member nation, or its commercial representative, will own its own earth station. We expect to have as many as 30 earth stations operational by 1968.

R-E: You also mentioned ”multiple-access” satellites. What do you mean by that?

LAUTERBACH: Well, by using a single broadband input receiver, a large number of earth stations, say, 10 or more, can communicate through the same satellite simultaneously, even though each earth station transmits on a different frequency. In fact, for the system to work, each earth station must transmit on a different frequency. Each station is assigned a band in the satellite receiver’s spectrum so one earth station’s transmissions won’t interfere with those of another.

Actually, you know, the communications satellite is a glorified translator, comparable to the vhf/uhf translators used to serve a lot of communities with TV. Our translation frequency is 2.225 GHz.

R-E: What bands do you operate in? I read that it was in the 6-GHz and 4-GHz bands, but there are already so many microwave systems operating in those bands, it would seem you’d have quite an interference problem.

LAUTERBACH: Exactly. Actually, you have no idea of the number of common-carrier microwave systems in operation.

R-E: What are common carriers?

LAUTERBACH: A common carrier is an organization, like a telephone company, that sells communications services. There are so many in operation in the bands we operate in that we’ve had to get sort of a special dispensation from the FCC that any future systems in our vicinity will be installed and operated on a noninterference basis. General Telephone Co. of the Northwest brings in the microwave relay channels that carry the COMSAT circuits out of Brewster Flat. They had to do some special engineering to get their microwave in here in the 1 1-GHz band, so as not to interfere with our 4- and 6-GHz operation.

R-E: What about the case where there was already a system in operation in your band? What do you do then? I’d think this might be pretty important when it comes to site selection.

LAUTERBACH: You’ve just hit on one of the most difficult things about setting up an earth station: site selection. Yes, we have to have an “electronically quiet” environment. Our receivers, which are cryogenic systems by the way, have a sensitivity of —159 dBm*, so, not just any place will do. We looked for quite a while before finding the Brewster Flat site. We’re in the bottom of a saucer-shaped depression between several mountain ranges. The mountains shield us from other microwave systems. Of course, we have a certain maximum angular elevation limit on our surroundings. Anything above 4° might obstruct the path to the “bird.”

R-E: You mentioned your receivers are cryogenic devices. This means they’re supercooled to reduce the natural electron noise, doesn’t it?

LAUTERBACH: Yes. They’re cooled to 4° Kelvin. And that’s close to absolute zero.

R-E: That should keep anything quiet!

LAUTERBACH: It does a good job of it. Actually, we’re not the first to use cryogenics. Radioastronomy systems have been using them for years and many of the telemetry systems for space work use cryogenics.

R-E: Besides the use of cryogenics, are there any other specific technical details in the COMSAT system that aren’t used in the usual communications system?

LAUTERBACH: Oh, yes. One thing that seems to surprise quite a few technicians and even some of the younger engineers is the fact that we transmit and receive simultaneously on the same antenna.

R-E: Could you explain how that works?

LAUTERBACH: The technique has been used for years in microwave and vhf and uhf communications. We use what we call a duplexer. It’s a resonant-cavity device, actually two cavities, one tuned to the transmit frequency and one to the receive frequency. At the resonant frequency, the cavity represents a low impedance to any energy it sees. At any other frequency it looks like an extremely high impedance, so the transmitter output is effectively isolated from the receiver input, but the receiver can still “see” any signal that’s on its frequency.

R-E: Sounds like something very useful. It lets you get away from having to build two of these “monster” antennas for each direction of transmission, doesn’t it?

LAUTERBACH: It sure does. And that cuts down on the overhead. There are some microwave systems that connect as many as eight transmitters and eight receivers to the same antenna, all operating simultaneously.

R-E: Whew! Let’s see. COMSAT was organized in 1962, and you launched your first satellite, Early Bird, in 1965, if memory serves me right . . . ?

LAUTERBACH: That’s correct.

R-E: Then, how did you manage to get all the engineering talent together to design your systems on such short notice?

LAUTERBACH: Our initial ground systems were designed and built by private contractors such as Page Communication Engineers, Sylvania, ITT Federal Labs and others. This may change with COMSAT engineers designing at least portions of the systems. Also, we already find ourselves having to provide engineering and technician advisory services to many national governments. Our transportable earth stations can be taken to remote locations and made fully operational in about 30 days and for a fraction of the cost of the large fixed station. [Since this interview, the 42-foot transportable antenna at Brewster Flat has been dismantled and shipped to the Philippines, where it has been leased for a year.—Editor] We realize that many of the countries that install these systems won’t have personnel trained. So, there is the definite possibility that COMSAT, through Intelsat, may provide the technicians and engineers to train some of the technicians and engineers of newer Intelsat members.

R-E: It seems like COMSAT will be a very interesting job opportunity. I imagine a few engineers and technicians would like to work for a prestige organization like yours.

LAUTERBACH: Definitely. And, with our expansion programs, we’re always looking for people with skills we can use. At a typical earth station, we need about 40 to 50 technical people. About 20% are engineers, the rest technicians. Multiply that by those 30 earth stations I mentioned a moment ago and you have a sizable work force around the world involved in commercial satellite communications.

R-E: What kind of background do you look for in an engineer or technician?

LAUTERBACH: Experienced communications people. We need technicians with vhf and microwave experience and backgrounds in multiplex carrier communications. Solid-state and cryogenic experience is highly desirable.

R-E: Mr. Lauterbach, is a satellite communications system really necessary? Aren’t the undersea cables reliable enough?

LAUTERBACH: The undersea cables? Yes, they certainly are reliable. They’ve served us well for many years and they’ll continue. But their capacity and flexibility are limited. In 1960, there were only about 600 communication circuits out of the United States to the rest of the world overseas. Most of these were by cable, a few by radio. With the growth of the world’s population and the increasing business and government communication needs, we’ll need 12,000 circuits by 1980. We added 240 circuits with Early Bird. This amounted to an increase of about 30%, but the most impressive improvement is the instantaneous availability of these circuits over an area of tens of thousands of square miles.

R-E: What kinds of customers will COMSAT serve?

LAUTERBACH: The most often mentioned example is NASA. We’re providing just about every conceivable type communications circuit to NASA for the Apollo program. Probably one of the most interesting services we propose is to provide voice and data communication to aircraft in flight on trans-oceanic runs.

R-E: Oh, I think I understand. On long over-water flights, vhf communication won’t work, and the hf radio bands are pretty crowded—and not always reliable.

LAUTERBACH: Exactly. Direct communication will play an important role in air traffic control in the future, especially when the 2,000-mile-per-hour passenger liners go into service. Recent estimates show that at any given moment there are over 280 aircraft over the Atlantic alone. And don’t forget the ships at sea. We can provide them with telephone and data service to the home office. That way, if there’s a change in the price of say, oil, in a certain port, the home office can direct the tanker to go to another port where the price is better.

R-E: What about the possibilities of satellite communications systems being used for worldwide educational television? Does COMSAT or anyone else have anything along these lines?

LAUTERBACH: Yes. ABC, CBS and NBC have already expressed interest in this area. Certainly it would be technically feasible. Actually, when we consider the ETV aspect of satellite communications, the only thing that keeps us from doing it is “doing it.” The technology exists. The only thing still necessary is the political and economic backing. COMSAT has already outlined a program for a domestic US satellite system that would serve the major TV networks as well as handle ETV.

R-E: How about computers? Couldn’t they be tied together by communications satellites? This would help in making data available on a world-wide scale. Hugo Gernsback, editor-in-chief of Radio-Electronics, in editorials for December 1959 and May 1964, urged the establishment of a “national facts center.” Using your facilities, a facts center could be international, couldn’t it?

LAUTERBACH: Someone’s been reading our mail! Seriously, though, the establishment of information grids, connected by relay satellite, has already been proposed. Some authorities think that in less than 10 years a student will be able to dial a local computer on his home telephone and program problems into it. This is already being done on a limited scale, but not with relay satellites for computer interconnect. But it could be done.

R-E: I’ll bet engineering firms and other businesses would benefit from being able to tie into such a system.

LAUTERBACH: They certainly would. And they’d find the cost not much more than a monthly telephone bill and a lot less than owning and maintaining their own computer.

R-E: Seems like you’re going to have a lot of people relying on your satellite. What happens if it goes bad after just a few days of operation? Or what if it doesn’t work to begin with? You can’t send a man up to fix it—not yet, anyway. What do you do?

LAUTERBACH: To begin with, our systems are designed to minimize failure. Each component and each unit is designed and tested to meet extreme requirements. The chance of failure is pretty remote. If a failure should occur in a critical component after the bird is up, we still wouldn’t have a failure because the equipment has built-in redundancy. That means there is a parallel unit that will take over the function of the defective unit. And, if, just if, the bird should be a total failure, we do have a couple of spares we can send up. But that’s expensive.

R-E: I guess you’re pleased with Early Bird’s performance. It went up in, let’s see, April of 1965, wasn’t it? And it’s still operating.

LAUTERBACH: Yes, Early Bird had a life expectancy of 18 months. It’s exceeded that by quite a margin. And looks like it will keep going for a while yet. The satellites orbited this year are designed to operate for 3 years and the ones planned for Intelsat III are being designed for a life of 5 years. R-E: What is the power of the transmitter in the satellite?

LAUTERBACH: Six Watts.

R-E: Six watts? But the one at the earth station is 12,000 watts!

LAUTERBACH: It does seem strange, but remember that right now our techniques don’t permit a very high power-to-weight ratio. We’re limited to low-powered transmitters on the satellites. We make up for this by using the large antennas and cryogenic receivers at the earth station. Going the other way, we can transmit from earth with high power and large antennas, with their high gain, and come up with a respectable signal level for the satellite receiver. This way, we can use fairly conventional circuits for the receivers in the birds and get away from having to put huge antennas and cryogenic receiver systems in orbit.

R-E: Then, actually, the complicated circuits are at the earth stations, more so than in the satellites?

LAUTERBACH: In a manner of speaking, that’s true. But that isn’t to say that the circuits in the satellites aren’t up to the state of the art. Some of our equipment is far advanced from the equipment of the more conventional, earthbound systems.

It has to be, because of size and weight limits.

There’s a great future for satellite communications and its engineers and technicians—a future where not even the sky is the limit.

In late January, Intelsat II’s Pacific satellite Lani Bird began to serve in two major functions. AT&T started using the satellite for commercial telephone service—with 6 circuits to Hawaii and 30 to Japan. And ITT initiated commercial TV use of Intelsat II with transmission of an NBC newscast to Nippon Television Corp. Fulltime commercial service is now underway between North America, Hawaii and Japan. The Atlantic satellite Canary Bird was lofted March 22. —Editor

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Wanted: Young Men to Earn BIG MONEY in Television

by ROBERT FRANCIS

The growing industry of television is sounding its call for young men. Here is an article which tells how you can earn $5,000 to $20,000 a year in this new field.

HORACE GREELEY was a wise and sanguine man. Long before the golden West was anything but a riot of natural beauty and a buried treasure of national wealth, he said, “Young man, go west and grow up with the country.” Those young men who heeded his words lived to learn the value of his advice.

If Greeley were alive today he would undoubtedly be saying: “Young man, get into television and grow up with this new science.” Although the writer is by no means impudent or conceited enough to compare himself with so great a figure as Greeley, he is giving the same advice.

When radio first engaged the attentions of the writer, code coming over it sounded like a match being struck on the cellar wall—it was raw and crude. Yet a great industry grew out of these raucous sounds.

In 1920 another industry was founded on the old one; broadcasting came into its own and the pioneers of the “wireless” days, many of them old friends and associates of the writer’s, just naturally fell into the big jobs. They were prepared and they are still working today at salaries ranging anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 a year. They were yesterday’s opportunity seekers, and today they are reaping the profits.

Now the third child of radio has been born: television. It is a more robust, more promising infant than the other two. It is making bigger promises, it foreshadows still greater things because it appeals to a more important human sense, the sense of sight. We depend upon our eyes far more than we depend upon our ears and the writer dares to predict that this fact will make television a billion dollar industry within the next ten years. Indeed he is glad that he is alive and in a position to urge young men to cast their lot with an industry that has such an almost indescribably beautiful, romantic and fascinating future.

It is strange that so many people believe that television is coming and so few KNOW THAT IT IS HERE. Already young men are receiving as high as $10,000 a year designing and perfecting television equipment. As young as the science is, we already have no less than eight television stations supplying regular programs. The $250,000,000 Radio City which is being built in New York City will alone have seven television studios that will be in operation in a little over two years. Strange that so many people only think that television is on the way. Young men who think the same way will wake up one day to find that many of the really big opportuni- ties have slipped through their fingers.

One might think that a device capable of transmitting living images over the ether would of necessity be a most complicated and inextricable piece of mechanism. Indeed, the writer has talked to several young men who have thought that television was utterly beyond their intelligence. They insisted upon believing that such a wondrous result could be brought about only by a mechanism so intricate and delicate as to defy the average intelligence. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Television equipment, contrary to current popular opinion, is amazingly simple and its principles are just as easy to learn as are the principles of radio or mechanical engineering.

Television will need practically the same complement of men as does broadcasting. It will have to have first its technicians, who will be, by far and wide, the most important part of the personnel. It will be these men who will not only design the necessary equipment, but who will supervise its operation as well.

Naturally the full-fledged designing engineer will be a high salaried man capable of earning from $.5,000 to $20,000 a year depending upon the corporation he is working for and his responsibilities. He shall have to have a firm foundation in radio engineering, he shall have to know photo-electricity and have a rather sound knowledge of optics as well. Not only this, but he shall have to have expert knowledge of sound broadcasting, too, for our television images of the immediate future will talk to us. This is quite a large order indeed but not so large when one thinks of the size of the reward in store for the men who can successfully meet the requirements. Such men will sit upon the thrones of the new industry.

Next in importance, we come to the operating engineers—the men who will keep the television wheels turning free from the proverbial monkey-wrenches. Salaries in this work will range from $2,500 to $8,000 a year, depending largely upon the size and importance of the stations being attended. Of course, there will be a chief operating engineer as well as several assistants in each transmitter. The salaries for assistants may run anywhere between $2,000 and $5,000 per year. There will also be the usual staff in the studio and a studio director whose job it will be to co-ordinate the various departments.

The greatest opportunities in this new work will come no doubt in the manufacturing of television receiving equipment. Here there will be a crying need for designing engineers, plant engineers, inspectors, research physicists, assistant engineers and foremen. As a matter of fact, it must be admitted that the field of transmission, although lucrative, will be more or less limited, and that the larger opportunities will lie in the actual production of receiving equipment, for America will eventually need over 15,000,000 pieces of receivers.

A designing television engineer will be worth $10,000 yearly and his assistant will be worth half of that sum. A production engineer will be worth anywhere from $5,000 to $8,000 a year while inspectors can demand at least $3,500 to $5,000 a year. These salaries compare with the salaries that are today being received by men holding similar positions in the radio broadcasting industry. There is no reason to believe why they should not hold or even be improved upon in television.

A few days before the writer prepared this manuscript for Modern Mechanics and Inventions, he talked to a very successful young radio service man who was quite thrilled over the fact that he had just made his first call to service a television receiver owned by a prominent banker in town. Although he got five dollars for the call, this did not impress him half as much as the fact that it was his first experience, and, incidentally, an experience that he had prepared for by actual study. “Someday,” he said, “I’ll be making nothing but television calls.”

He was right and he was sensible enough to be preparing himself now. Although he is now making on the average of $4,000 a year, he will be able to double that amount within the next few years, for the radio television service man is going to be very much in demand. When a radio receiver goes “hay-wire” today, people are very anxious to get their “radio hearing” hack, but wait until they lose their “radio seeing!”

Already there is an urgent need for specialization in television. It has three very important associated sciences upon which it largely depends. As a matter of fact, take these sciences away and there is nothing but pure radio left. We refer to the science of photo-electricity, the science of the discharge of electricity through gases and the science of optics. Images are caused to modulate a radio wave through the medium of some sort of photo-electric device, usually a vacuum type photo-electric cell. Better cells are needed and television must turn to the experts and specialists in this science for them. It is the photo-electric cell that takes on the function of “light microphone.”

The “loudspeaker” in a television receiver will take the form of a tube, the light from which can be modulated by the impulses making up the picture. This tube or lamp will depend for its operation upon the discharge of electricity through certain gases like neon or better yet, argon. An ordinary electric light cannot be used because it is far too sluggish in its action and too much current is necessary. Then, too, we must look forward to the day when television receivers will be operated by cathode ray tubes and the successful development of such an instrument lies entirely in the hands of men who understand the discharge of electricity through gases. Even today there is a million dollars waiting for anybody who can turn this trick.

The optical expert is very badly needed in television today. The engineers who are struggling with the new problems of this infant science, lean heavily upon men who have mastered the science of optics. The services of men who have specialized in this work will be in great demand for many years to come.

Within a few years time, television cameras will be used to cover national events just as today such events are covered by sound microphones and announcers. That will mean plenty of travel for the men whose job it will be to take care of the portable equipment. It will not only mean travel but big pay as well for these men will be extremely important, inasmuch as program success or failure shall lie largely in their hands.

And so runs the story of television so full of promise and reward for those who will prepare for its fascinating opportunities now.

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What’s Keeping Television Out of your Home?

Why hasn’t television achieved popularity as a means of home entertainment? Here’s an authoritative article on television’s present status that outlines the reasons for delay in public acceptance.

by J. EARLE MILLER

FOR four years the radio world, as represented by several million American homes, has been waiting for television. With a number of stations now transmitting radio television programs on schedule, together with a decided indication of real showmanship about to replace haywire experimentation, the average household is waiting in readiness to consider radio-vision as something more than a passing news item. But what equipment is necessary? What stations are broadcasting? Most of all, what is delaying the ultimate popularity of television? Such questions are becoming commonplace.

For nearly two years now a few broadcast stations have been giving picture programs on regular schedules. At the turn of the year there were no less than nineteen television transmitters in more or less regular operation, with outputs ranging from 100 to 20,000 watts. But at the same date, according to the best estimate of television manufacturers in a position to know, not more than 10,000 American homes were equipped with television receivers.

I have just returned from a 2,000-mile trip, visiting all the principal television laboratories and factories in the east, to find out, in the interest of Modern Mechanics and Inventions readers, what they have to offer.

I saw several demonstrations of radio transmitted pictures better than anything that had been dreamed of a year ago. I saw a simple radiovisor kit which solves the old problem of keeping the receiver synchronized and in step with the transmitter, .and makes possible well nigh perfect reception of pictures from a station at any reasonable distance. And, over a land wire circuit, I talked with a man several miles away and saw him face to face as we chatted—a marvelous demonstration of two-way television, for he saw me as clearly at the same time.

I saw compact, well developed apparatus, not much larger than a movie camera, with which out-of-door scenes can be picked up and transmitted, using only natural sunlight to “see” the image. I saw a new system of television reception which has no scanning disc or motor, and no mechanical moving parts. And I was shown letters from nearly every section of the country reporting good reception of broadcast pictures on receivers built from kits ranging in price from $7.50 up to $42.50, and on manufactured sets selling at around $100 to $150 or $175.

That’s the picture of what is actually being done.

On the other hand the “big three” of the electrical world—General Electric, Westing-house and A.T.&T.—as represented by their radio entertainment division, R. C. A.Victor, say that television is not yet ready to be placed in the public’s hands, and that view apparently is also held by the Radio Commission at Washington.

And there lies the real reason why the country is not studded with television transmitting stations, and why television receivers are not found, perhaps, in millions of homes. For the government continues to class it as an experiment and will not permit the broadcasters to sell time for advertising purposes, as they do on their speech broadcasting stations. And without some form of revenue only a few stations have been willing to invest in short wave transmitters and all the other apparatus needed for television, and undertake to develop suitable programs for visual entertainment.

Some of the independents in the field claim the “big three” group not only is withholding its own television developments from the market, but is exerting various forms of pressure on broadcasters to keep them from installing systems which are being marketed.

Regardless of whether such pressure exists, there is no doubt that capital to extend television transmission will not become available in any large sums until the government radio commission removes the ban on commercial television programs and allows the new art to be put on a money making basis. The present ban not only affects the extension of television facilities, but handicaps the broadcast of programs over such facilities as are available.

The 1,000 watt experimental television transmitter operated by the Chicago Daily News station, WMAQ, in connection with its speech broadcast on the higher wave band, is a case in point. President Hedges, of WMAQ, would like to develop programs employing dramatic talent, with paid actors in suitable costume plays, and other new types of visual entertainment. But until the time on the air can be sold to advertisers the money is not available to pay entertainers, buy costumes, and stage spectacles which might rival moving picture entertainment.

The Daily News broadcasting officials are enthusiastic over the results already attained with the 1,000 watt station, which operates on a 45 line scanning system, using three spiral rows on the scanning disc. They believe it is far superior to the more common forty-eight, single row system, for it eliminates flicker. Letters have been received from points as distant as Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, St. Louis, and Albuquerque, N. M., reporting excellent reception of the short wave pictures with the accompaning voice on the normal broadcast band.

So much for the situation of television today. If you want to get into this most fascinating form of home entertainment, here is what you will find: You can buy a manufactured picture receiver and a manufactured short wave receiver, specially designed for its purpose, or buy any of several different kits, for either picture receiver or short wave radio set.

To pick up the existing nineteen transmitting stations you need a short wave radio set covering the wave band from 2,000 kilocycles up to 2,950 kilocycles, or from about 100 meters to 150 meters. In the 2,000-2,100 band (television so far is operating on hundred cycle bands instead of the ten cycle range between the longer wave speech broadcasting stations) you will find six stations, three of 5,000 watts power, and one each of 500, 250 and 100 watts. The three 5,000 watt stations are located at Wheaton, Md., New York City and Passaic, N. J., the first being operated by C. Francis Jenkins Laboratories and the other two by the Jenkins Television Corporation and DeForest Radio Company, which are closely related and are using many of the Jenkins patents.

In the next band, 2,100-2,200 kilocycles, there are seven stations, including the 20,000 watt transmitters of the Westinghouse and General Electric companies, two 5,000 watt stations of the National Broadcasting company, the 1,000 watt Chicago Daily News Station and the 500 watt transmitters of the RCA-Victor group and Radio Pictures, Inc.

The two shorter wave channels available for television by Federal order lie between 2,750 and 2,850 kilocycles, and 2,850-2,950. In the former there are three experimental stations operating at no stated intervals, and in the latter band three, of which two, with 500 watt power, operate on set schedules; and the third, a 5,000 watt plant near Chicago, has no regular hours.

That covers the radio broadcast end of television. To transmute images into electrical energy which can be transmitted through the air or over wires engineers use an instrument variously described as a televisor or a radio-visor. The former term really should only apply to pictures sent by wire, but television has be- come so generally used that it is applied to radio pictures also. The picture reproducers so far on the market vary in type but are the same in principle. Pictures are being broadcast with 24, 45, 48 or 60 lines to the inch, while the Bell Telephone laboratories, in their demonstrations of two-way television by wire, use 78 lines. Various broadcasters also trans-] mit varying numbers of pictures per second, the more common numbers being fifteen and eighteen.

The receivers all use a neon glow I lamp to take the output of the short wave receiver, a scanning arrangement consisting either of a disc or a I drum with holes through which the i light beams pass, and an enlarging lens to increase the apparent size of the image and make it possible for several people to see it at one time. The biggest problem is turning the disc at the exact speed of the scanning disc at the transmitting end, and keeping the two in perfect synchronism. If your receiver is located in the same town as the transmitter, and both receive their motor power from the same electric light company the problem is not serious, for the two 60 cycle motors will operate at the same speed. But to get signals from a distant station and transform them into images it is necessary either to provide some means of manually correcting the speed from time to time, or else some electrical agency to do the same thing.

In one of the simplest kits, produced by the Jenkins Laboratories, the disc is driven by a rubber tip on the end of the motor shaft, and the motor itself can be moved back and forth by turning a screw feed. As the motor is moved outward from the disc center the disc naturally revolves at a slower rate, and as the motor moves inward it speeds up.

In another type of set, manufactured by the Jenkins Television Corporation—which has no connection with Mr. Jenkins’ own laboratories beyond the fact that it uses his patents—synchronization is attained by filtering out a portion of the incoming signal, amplifying it, and using the product to operate a phonic motor, which keeps the receiver in exact step with the transmitter. If the system used at the broadcast end produces 15 pictures per second of 48 lines each, there will be a strong 720 cycle frequency present in the incoming signal—48 times 15 being 720. A special tube in the short wave receiver picks out this frequency and amplifies it.

For the receiving end, engineers of the Westinghouse Laboratories at East Pittsburgh have developed, after considerable experimental work, a television system which has no mechanical moving parts. The incoming signal is delivered to a cathode ray tube, releasing a stream of electrons which, due to a fluorescent material within the tube, appear as an image on the end of the tube. So far tubes with an end diameter of about nine inches are the largest that have been made. The electronic bombardment can be diverted from its path by a magnet. The sine wave sweeps the image across the tube horizontally, and a magnetic field is used to paint the picture in successive parallel lines. In television with a scanning disc or drum, the lines sweep always in one direction, but with the cathode tube the picture is painted both ways, as though you drew a pencil back and forth across a sheet of paper without lifting the point. With this system television has been produced with as many as 120 lines to the picture.

The fluorescent material used in the tube gives a bright green image, in marked contrast to the familiar pink or red glow of the neon tube used in other systems.

When the “big three” divided up their spheres of activity and assigned all entertainment features of radio and television to the RCA-Victor organization, the A. T. & T. retained the commercial development of wired pictures in connection with telephones, and the Bell Laboratories has recently demonstrated successful two-way television over the telephone wires.

While the apparatus is still in the laboratory stage, it is possible that it may be offered the public within another year or two as a special form of telephone communication. If that time comes, people wishing to both see and talk at long distances will make appointments in advance and appear at the set time at the nearest television stations, where the connection will be established, and they will then be seated in the booths. Telephone apparatus of the usual type is eliminated. A microphone concealed in the cabinet takes the place of the telephone transmitter, while the receiver is replaced by a loud speaker so situated that the voice seems to come from the lips of the image. The image size gives the appearance of a person about fifteen feet away, and the amplification in the loud speaker is regulated to that of a normal voice speaking at the same distance.

That is the status of television today. If you live most any place east of the Rockies you can pick up the signals of one of the nineteen existing stations located in Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania or Maryland. You can get interesting pictures and “grow up” with the new art, just as the original radio fans helped develop radio to what it is today. You can have your choice of home-built short wave receivers and televisors, or buy ready manufactured sets. If you want more information about specific sets, prices, etc., Modern Mechanics will be glad to tell you where to get it.

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TV – A PROSPECTUS

by Louis Kronenberger

Two phenomena a half century apart have exercised the greatest influence on 20th-century Americans as social animals. The first was the arrival of the automobile which, aside from its more practical aspects, stimulated all America to move about, whether five miles to a picture show, 25 to a bathing beach, 50 for the sake of driving or 200 to call on Grandma. With the coming of the automobile there took place in the strictest sense a social revolution.

But now, a few decades after the automobile sent all America forth upon the highroad, television has appeared to keep all America at home. More and more the typical American, known to all the world as an irresistible force, is becoming an immovable object. More and more whatever siren voices beckon from afar, the TV set, like a good wife, holds one at its side. And more and more TV has more and more to offer. Everyone by now has seen Shelley or Eisenhower or Churchill perhaps even in color.

Every type of news event—coronations and inaugurations, war and UN, strikes and Un-American committees; every style of entertainment—plays and movies, operas and ball games, prize fights and tennis tournaments; every quiz rich in largess, every comedian rife with gags—but this inventory of TV is beginning to sound like a testimonial. All I meant was that the highroad from henceforth must fight a losing battle against the home.

Unhappily however television cannot be said to have re-established home life. Far more indeed than the automobile it is tending to destroy it. Where Mother and Father, Jane and John on their treks and travels exchanged pleasantries and ideas, they sit now for hours side by side, often shoulder to shoulder, scarcely exchanging a glance. Or if they do address one another they do so crossly, campaigning for this program or that.

Where friends and families once gathered with high-minded aims—to overeat and then settle back and snooze; to gossip briskly, to the ruin of a few good reputations; to glare at one another across the bridge table or hear an eight-year-old recite-now, having driven some 20 miles, one is admitted without greeting and squeezed and shushed into place. There may, though again there may not, be an interval for dining. But had there never been a fourth Earl of Sandwich television would have found it necessary to invent him.

The sad part of all this is not how much one exaggerates but how little. It would be inaccurate to contend that television has ousted all other pleasures. Gambling still flourishes, and the theater goes grumbling on; baseball and football remain though watching them on the spot is largely passe. Where a book for millions of Americans served as a last resort, a magazine as the merest time killer and the radio as something to turn on but not necessarily to listen to, television now solaces almost any social disappointment, now supersedes almost any social activity.

Never in history has there existed such an all-purpose toy for people of all ages; it has already virtually destroyed the need for newspapers, picture papers, magazines, books, plays, movies, newsreels, sports, gossip columns, speech-making; already it takes us into courtrooms and operating rooms, churches and senates; it has begun to replace the schoolroom and in time will compete with the seminar (so that a man who is wholly illiterate can be genuinely learned). Soon enough we shall be a race of shut-ins, and the poor miserable “thrust-out”—the pauper or crank who for lack of a TV set must venture forth after man or woman or God—will be a most anomalous object.

When the joking has been put aside and the prejudices allowed for, the whole problem of TV needs very sober analysis. One can hedge by repeating the obvious—that soundly produced and discreetly consumed television can have immense value, can with equal vividness inform, instruct and amuse. One can repeat the no less obvious—that at small cost in millions of homes it can brighten, broaden, freshen existence.

But in all it is and seemingly ever hopes to be, television is simply a menace to America’s cultural and social life. It is a menace just because there it sits, a constant temptation, gratification, time killer, solace. You have it, why not use it? Your book’s a wee bit boring; why not shut it and turn on TV?

It is an additional menace of course for being commercially sponsored and so not only riddled with the imbecilities of announcers but splotched with the timidities of sponsors. But it is perhaps most a menace in the sense that the better it is the worse it must be; that the more skill it exhibits, the more big news it conveys, the more big names it can boast, the more druglike must be its hold on vast numbers of people.

Thus far it has liberated a lot of potential victims simply from proving too dull, clumsy or trite to hold them. But once it has at every level something surefire to purvey, once the gags have lost their brashness and the commercials cease to jar, what competing inducement will have a chance of winning out?

As for the cultural problem TV promises to offer everything known in plays, operas, concerts and ballets, and to dramatize the contents of all sorts of books. With “$64,000 Question” carrying on like a well-heeled fairy godmother TV has a quiz show to satisfy its audiences’ gambling instincts far beyond the poor power of Las Vegas to add or detract. I don’t know that TV can lick the problem of sex, though with time it may simply extinguish the desire for any.

There is of course the question of a saturation point. Doubtless even the worst addicts will want a night off. But popular tastes being what they are, it is hard to see how an instrument with such varied charms, that keeps so abreast of the times, can possibly lose out. TV may, like telephones or cars, come to be taken for granted, but it is hard to conceive of anything that will put it on the shelf.

Doubtless it merely replaces in concentrated form a whole cluster of previous interests. But actually it doesn’t just replace them. It increases the amount and guarantees the continuity of entertainment—and without making you open your pocketbook, put on your shoes or crane your neck. And it quite does away with the tiresome “human” element, the need at times for forced conversation. On the whole, it is true, conversation in middle-class America is not only a lost art but a discarded habit. Except highball or soup spoon in hand, relatively few Americans like to have extended conversation at all; they much prefer cards, parlor games, movies, sports.

Nevertheless till the advent of TV there was a good deal of enforced or makeshift or at least intermittent conversation. People at times were foiled of a “fourth” or waiting for one to arrive; tennis courts were sometimes wet, or afternoons rainy. But now with their hand on the highball they can turn their eyes on the screen. And there is not only far less conversation when people come together; there is far less coming together. TV is a blow to social life, however inadequate social life may generally have been. And TV is equally a blow to the life of the self. It is now the camera eye and not the inward one that is the bliss of solitude.

Far more significant, far more sinister than the specific dreariness of the programs or objectionableness of the commercials are, as I have hinted, the consequences of TV’s merely existing. A new race seems destined to arise with a wholly new feeling about social relations, about the need for companions or the nature of friendship. Courtship, for a new reason, will consist almost entirely of handholding.

And people as time goes on will communicate less and less with themselves. There is thus the real problem among millions of Americans of ossified inner resources, of atrophied social responses.

The whole tenor of the machine age has been toward just this drying up within, this deadening, flattening, standardizing without. In an automobile civilization, which was one of constant motion and activity, there was almost no time to think; in a television one there is small desire. (TV, it must be very seriously said, is no mere gadget; it is one of the great milestones and possibly gravestones in the whole history of culture.) One further question does crop up: Won’t the triumph of TV, the shift from being not enough at home to being too much, sharply reduce the pace of American living? Finding escape in their own back yard, amusement in their own front room, may not men develop a Ruhfleisch they had altogether lost? May not their lives shed the old frantic hurry, the old feverish rush? Most particularly may not those who had farthest to go for their pleasures, people in the suburbs and the country, now feel small impulse to move at all?

I suspect there may be a real change in pace, a real difference in living. Not only will people remain home of nights; they will also genuinely relax. Above all, TV—while allowing actual rest— will alleviate an existing restlessness, will keep people perfectly content who after dinner hanker for a bridge game or a movie, a drive somewhere or a drink. Whatever the fate of the mind the body should be saved a great deal of wear and tear.

There may thus come about a real shift in social existence from an all-too-active state to an all-too-passive one, from the benzedrine of being on the go to the bromide of sticking to the chair. From being mindlessly in motion, huge numbers of Americans may sit mindlessly motionless. I am speaking of course of leisure hours, of after-business habits. Whether such after-business habits will have any effect on business itself is exceedingly doubtful. It may well be that with the greater assurance of folding one’s legs for the evening after reaching home the average American will only move faster than ever and farther than ever by day, that daytime activity will madly accelerate.

The very basis of television’s triumph may even eventually bring about its defeat. From having stayed home of nights to enjoy television men grown more active by day may come home of nights completely exhausted, and all over the land the ablest of newscasters, the lithest of athletes, the gayest of entertainers may perform for people sprawled out snoring in their chairs.

There has never been a television series that actually helped preschool children get ready for school.

Now there is.

On SESAME STREET, he’ll learn the alphabet, for instance. How to count—and how many is 2 or 3 or 4. What words like up & down, over & around mean. How to begin to reason. And how he is different from a lizard or bear or the child next door—and how like them too.

SESAME STREET is designed to give your youngster confidence and a surer success in school. More than a hundred leading educators, psychologists, communications professionals and entertainment celebrities have helped in developing the lessons—and its fun and excitement. Produced by the Children’s Television Workshop, SESAME STREET is funded by grants from Carnegie Corporation, The Ford Foundation, The U.S. Office of Education and other Federal Agencies.

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Now, more channels, plummeting prices for new backyard satellite-TV antennas

Better quality, easier-to-use features, and affordable do-it-yourself kits make home Earth stations practical

By SUSAN RENNER-SMITH

The view from my hotel room was so incongruous that I burst out laughing. A score of gleaming dish antennas squatted in the parking lot below me, facing the southern sky. It looked as if a giant mushroom crop had sprouted in the starlight. Then I saw the glowing TV set near one dish. People crouched around it watching, I knew, a program broadcast by some far-off satellite.

I’d come to Washington expecting to see some antennas-after all, I was attending a Satellite TV Technology conference (STT, Box G, Arcadia, Okla. 73007). But the antenna farm showed me how fast the field has grown since Popular Science first reported on backyard satellite-TV receivers [PS, March ’801. Once a toy of the super-rich—or the electronically gifted—satellite-TV terminals are becoming a middle-class luxury.

“No fewer than 1,500 terminals are installed each month,” STT’s Bob Cooper told me at the conference. Cooper started it all by installing—and publicizing—one of the first private satellite-TV receivers back in 1978.

What does this growth mean?

“Prices have come way down,” said Cooper. “The equipment is easier to use. It’s tremendously more reliable. And you have a wide variety of choices. The manufacturers are not just imitating each other—they’re innovating.”

Today nine domestic-communications satellites hover 22,300 miles over the equator, within “sight” of the U.S. Some have 24-channel capacity. And the FCC recently approved applications for 20 more satellites. By 1984, predicts Cooper, there will be about 500 channels available.

What’s on the satellites? Cable channels like the all-sports ESPN and Spanish-language (SIN) networks; super-stations like New York’s Channel 9; religious networks; and, of course, the paid-subscription, all-movie channels. High-powered transmitters on Earth beam this cornucopia of programs to the satellites, which re-transmit them to cable stations across the country. But anyone can pick up the broadcasts, as long as nothing blocks the view and there’s no ground-based microwave interference.

What do you need? First, an antenna—10 or 15 feet in diameter—to gather and concentrate the microwave signals. Weakened by their long journey, the signals must be amplified, then converted from the very high frequencies the satellites use down to standard UHF frequencies. This job is done by electronic equipment—a low-noise amplifier and what the industry calls a down converter. Coaxial cable carries the signals inside to a receiver. It has no screen or speaker, but it may have a demodulator to convert the signals to frequencies your TV set can pick up.

The cost of all this has come down drastically. Commercial versions once cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Two years ago you’d pay at least $10,000 for a “turnkey” system, installed by the dealer, to pick up just one channel on one satellite. More versatile systems cost up to $36,000.

At the STT show, I saw good basic systems that cost about $5,000, installed. High-end systems with superior reception and convenience features go to $16,000.

There’s an even cheaper route. You can assemble your own antenna from a kit, pour the concrete footing, raise the antenna, and cable the electronics together. Many companies, such as Downlink (Putnam, Conn. 06260) and Global TV (Box 219, Maitland, Fla. 32751), sell all the components.

“If you know how to plug stereo components together, you can assemble a satellite-TV system,” Downlink’s Wes Thomas told me. “The only complexity is building the antenna. You have to follow a manual carefully.”

Downlink charges $2,650 for a kit that includes the manual. With a preassembled 12-ft. antenna the price goes to $3,595. Global offers a complete system for $2,700.

For $6,995, you can buy a bolt-together antenna and a semi-assembled receiver from the Heath Company. This kit rivals the $16,000 systems in sophistication.

Two years ago you couldn’t buy such systems. If you scrambled around, you could buy the components from several different manufacturers: Price? About $7,000. “Today a smart shopper can do it for $2,500,” Cooper said.

Best of all, even the least expensive components have features you couldn’t buy two years ago. You once had to tune in different channels with a screwdriver. Now you just flip a dial. To switch between satellites you had to go out and shove the antenna around to a new position. Now you sit inside and punch a few buttons.

New antenna technology also makes for cheaper systems. Using wire mesh instead of aluminum or fiberglass cuts costs. “The wind goes right through it,” said Peter Dalton, president of KLM Electronics (Morgan Hill, Calif. 95037), maker of the Sky Eye shown at left. “You don’t need the expensive braces used with solid aluminum.”

You have to pay the piper But is it legal to watch satellite TV at all? It’s definitely legal to own a dish—the FCC lifted all licensing requirements back in 1979. But as the Heath Company notes, it’s up to the customer to comply with all laws and pay fees if programmers charge them.

Some do. The all-sports ESPN network charges a $100 lifetime fee. Some don’t. Religious-program networks are delighted to have more viewers; they ask only a letter requesting permission. And some won’t. HBO, Showtime, and some other all-movie channels won’t even consider individual applications, citing copyright laws.

The satellite-TV industry is working, through an industry organization, to come to some agreement with the major program suppliers. Meanwhile, most satellite-TV viewers figure that they have a right to pull in signals raining down on their roofs.

Soon a different type of signal will be raining down on our roofs. RCA, CBS, Comsat, Western Union, and nine other firms recently applied to the FCC for permission to launch high-frequency direct-broadcast satellites. These will be more powerful than current satellites, so a smaller antenna could pick up their signals. Comsat, the first to apply, says its two-foot-diameter antenna will cost about $100. The company plans to rent the electronics—including a descrambler—for about $25 a month. For that fee the viewer will get three channels of entertainment.

Will today’s backyard antennas be able to receive direct-broadcast programs? Bob Cooper says no.

“It’s a totally different frequency band. All this equipment is frequency-conscious, except the antenna. If the surface is accurate enough it might be able to focus this higher frequency effectively,” Cooper said. “Maybe two antennas in that parking lot can do it,” he added.

So today’s systems will be obsolete by 1983? “Not at all,” said Cooper. “The choice will be to pay a one-time price of about $2,500 for access to 500 different channels or pay monthly fees for three channels.”

Cooper is betting that most people will choose big backyard dishes. By 1984 we should know if he’s right. OH

The Little Network That Might

Fox is still around after a year, stumbling but scrappy

Well, no one ever said starting a fourth network would be easy. The Fox Broadcasting Co., Rupert Murdoch’s ambitious effort to compete with abc, cbs and nbc, has weathered enough tin-pot tragedies in its brief life to fill a month on Another World. Joan Rivers’ much publicized attempt to challenge Johnny Carson with her own talk show ended in ignominious cancellation after seven months on the air. Her eventual replacement, The Wilton North Report, failed even more abruptly and abysmally. Fox executives once hoped to have three nights of prime-time programming on the air by now; only two are up and running, and just one is doing passably in the ratings. Fox’s losses thus far are close to $80 million, and the flow of red ink does not seem likely to be stanched anytime soon.

So much for the bad news. The good news for Fox is that, a year after the launch of its first prime-time shows, it is still around. Ratings for its Sunday-night schedule have risen in recent weeks, and the network is attracting a high proportion of young-adult viewers, those most desirable to advertisers. The future is still cloudy, but Fox executives are looking ahead with dogged, if chastened, determination. “We’ve had to learn the hard way and the expensive way,” says Programming Chief Garth Ancier. “But no one has ever got this far before.”

Fox has, moreover, got where it is with some distinction. Its scrappy, try-anything-and-see-what-works program philosophy has yielded no TV breakthroughs but a few notable experiments. Sunday night’s grab bag ranges from Werewolf, an oddly morose horror series, to The Tracey Ullman Show, a quirky half-hour of comedy sketches that qualifies as TV’s, most interesting near-miss. Fox has also scored a coup by acquiring It’s Garry Shandling’s Show, the shrewdly self-parodying cable sitcom, which is running on Fox after its initial airings on Showtime. The network’s highest-rated show, 21 Jump Street, happens to be its best. A well-crafted, surprisingly intelligent police drama about a band of youthful cops who work undercover in high schools, the series has come up with an appealing teen heartthrob in Johnny Depp and some strikingly adult episodes on such subjects as aids and the teaching of creationism.

Ratings for Fox’s Sunday shows have been averaging between 3% and 6% of the national audience, well below most network fare but still respectable. Fox’s two-hour block on Saturday night, however, has languished in the dismal 2% range. Three of the four current Saturday shows will be scrapped next month to make room for two newcomers: Family Double Dare, a nighttime version of the hit children’s game show, and The Dirty Dozen, a wartime series based on the movie. Also in the works is a new version of Charlie’s Angels, for which Producer Aaron Spelling has launched a nationwide talent hunt to select four jiggly new stars.

Fox’s biggest embarrassment has been its bumbling attempts to field a viable late-night talk show. After Rivers’ demise. the network resorted to a succession of guest hosts. One of them, Arsenio Hall, began to catch on in the ratings—but only after Fox had committed to The Wilton North Report, a new show produced by Barry Sand, formerly of Late Night with David Letterman. The show, a mystifying mix of interviews, tongue-in-cheek features and Letterman-like smugness, was a bust with critics and audiences. It was canceled after four weeks.

Fox has now revamped its Late Show with two new, rotating hosts: Comedians Jeff Joseph and John Mulrooney. The duo will split the weekly duties until one, presumably, emerges as a hit. So far, these hapless winners of the Anyone Can Host contest look painfully unsure of what they are supposed to be doing; the abrasive Mulrooney’s strategy is to assault guests and audience members as if they were hecklers at a midnight show at the Improv. The program’s sole advantage is a virtual absence of promotional fanfare. “It didn’t seem to make sense to herald it until we were sure we had something worth heralding,” says Ancier, who argues that the neophytes need time to get used to the format.

For all the programming missteps. Fox’s 123 affiliates appear reasonably content. Earlier this year three stations dropped the network’s low-rated Saturday-night schedule. But at least one, WOFL in Orlando, plans to come back on board when the lineup is revamped next month. Still, the affiliate roster remains Fox’s biggest handicap. Many Fox stations are weak uhf outlets that are at a severe disadvantage vis-a-vis their network rivals. “Like any distributor, we have to rely on our retailers,” says Fox | Broadcasting President Jamie 3 Kellner. “In many cases we’re I starting with the newest retailer 1 in town.”

i Most industry observers seem satisfied with Fox’s bumpy progress. “I think they’re just about where they and we expected them to be at this time,” says Jack Otter, a senior vice president of McCann-Erickson advertising. Admits Kellner: “When you’re going against companies that have the power of abc, cbs and NBC, you’re taking on a pretty heavy job. It’s like climbing Mount Everest.” The first small steps up have been encouraging enough for the viewer to hope that the ascent continues. —By Richard Zoglin

TELEVISION TODAY

A—Two-unit experimental portable television receiver gets a tryout on the beach at Steeplechase Park, Coney Island. Intended for use at picnics, beaches or on boats where power lines are not available, this set is operated with a separate portable power unit which may be seen behind the receiver. The 3-in. screen is located at upper right in the TV set. All controls are simplified and mounted on the front panel within .easy reach of the operator. Both units are housed in neat sheet-metal carrying cases

B—Interference filter for television sets consists of a “Teletrap” designed to eliminate spurious signals that result in lines, bars or other patterns that interfere with the clarity of TV images. It is claimed to eliminate signals coming from old-band FM and 6-meter “hams”

C—”All-Vue” lens made of Lucite, liquid filled and permanently sealed. Spherically designed for optical vision at any angle up to 180 deg., it employs a black collar to connect the picture tube with the lens which is prefocused. It enlarges the TV picture 2-1/2 times

D—Television filter designed to end eye fatigue and improve viewing conditions. It consists of a neat, clear plastic frame fitted with a highly polished sheet of amber Lumarith cellulose transparent material. A cord holds the frame over the TV receiver screen

E—TV receiver installed on rear of driver’s seat in taxicab provides entertainment for riders in a satisfactory Chicago test. The Motorola TV table-model set employs 6-volt tubes and a Mallory “vibrapack” for power supply. A special antenna was used to cover all TV channels

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Optical vs mechanical: the coming battle of the video-disc players

Several incompatible disc machines will tease the eager buyer next year

By JOHN FREE

If you’re confused by ads citing advantages of one videotape machine over an incompatible competitor, brace yourself. More befuddlement is brewing. Early next year, makers of two— and perhaps three—mutually incompatible video-disc players will each be shouting the virtues of their products while cleverly knocking the others.

Battle lines between two differing disc technologies took shape in the early 1970′s with demonstrations of early lab prototypes. Despite attempts at standardization, the lines hardened for two types of disc players: Optical, involving touchless disc playback with a laser beam, and mechanical systems, requiring contact between the disc and pickup stylus.

Proponents of the mechanical systems point out the basic simplicity of their approach and its low costs for mass marketing. Those favoring optical systems stress the no-wear advantages of laser-beam playback. (Lasers last over 10,000 hours.) Proponents of the optical route also say that mass production of optics and a switch to solid-state lasers will cut prices.

Pictures I’ve seen from the newest Pioneer, Magnavox, and RCA players are all amazingly detailed and noise-free. What follows should help delineate the differences between these players.

Optical machines: laser playback Two optical video-disc players, made by Japan’s Universal Pioneer Corp. and by Magnavox here, are being test-marketed in a limited number of cities. Magnavox plans nationwide sales this year, Pioneer next year. The machines play compatible 12-inch discs by bouncing a focused laser beam from a spiral track of microscopic pits etched on the disc’s reflective surface. A clear plastic coating makes the disc immune to dust and smudges from handling. Two types of discs are sold: Those with a half hour per side of programming play at 1800 rpm. Player controls enable you to freeze a TV picture, quickly scan a disc, play forward and reverse slow motion, or pick a specific TV frame by displaying its number on the screen. Pioneer’s VP-1000 player and remote control have a numbered key pad for direct frame-number selection; Magnavox’s Magnavision requires scanning to the desired frame. Hour-per-side discs have more than one TV frame on each circular track, so freeze-frame and related features will not work. (Playback rpm gradually changes from inner to outer tracks.) Both players have output jacks for optional stereo hi-fi (or dual-language tracks). Pioneer Artists Inc. and other new software firms will provide a stream of stereo/video music performances. Also, movie makers plan to release films to theaters and for discs almost simultaneously. Discs cost from $6 to $25. Both players, with minor variations, have laser-based optics (left) to play discs standardized by Philips and MCA. A beam from a laser (1) is deflected by a prism (2) and mirrors (3, 4) through a lens (5) onto the disc (6). Metal between pits flashes light back to a photodetector (7) for conversion to an electronic TV signal. The entire mechanism moves radially on a slide (8) linked to the electronic servo circuits that control its movement.

RCA: grooved capacitance disc RCA’s SelectaVision video-disc player has been completely overhauled since it was introduced and field-tested several years ago [PS, Feb. '77]. The basic playback principle is unchanged: A stylus electrode, replaced every two or three years, senses the TV signal as electrical capacitance variations in disc grooves spinning at 450 rpm. Playing time was boosted to one hour per 12-inch disc side by doubling disc grooves to just under 10,000 per inch. Home tests showed that dust and other groove contaminants from handling messed up pictures. So RCA’s improved SelectaVision has sealed disc “caddies.” Slip the caddy into a player slot (photo) and the disc is loaded automatically. This contact-free, sealed-player approach sharply reduces groove contamination. Spiral grooves, with four TV frames per revolution, do not permit freeze-frame and similar features now. These operating features may go into future step-up models using electronic memories to store images. Two fast-search buttons, though, let you jump the stylus forward or back to quickly locate a scene visually. Also, two other search buttons move the tone arm and display its position as time on digital readouts. RCA does not plan to include stereo hi-fi capability on its initial model, slated for nationwide marketing early next year. The player’s simple construction, plus many microcircuits, should keep RCA’s price under $500. Discs will be $15 to $20, depending on content. RCA’s low-cost approach has gained powerful allies: Zenith and undoubtedly other TV firms will market or make SelectaVisions. CBS Inc. will help expand disc titles from 150 to 300 in the first year. Programs from several film companies range from classics, musicals, current films, and how-to, to TV series such as Star Trek (10 episodes) and Victory at Sea (a 90-minute version), and Heidi and Hans Brinker for children.

JVC: grooveless capacitance disc Victor Company of Japan (or JVC here) rolled out a disc system in 1978 that combines the low-cost aspects of SelectaVision (above) with the operating options—freeze-frame, slow-motion, etc.—of optical machines. Not only that, JVC included options for a super-hi-fi audio disc. It calls the whole package its VHD/AHD system (video and audio high density). Matsushita, Victor’s parent firm in Japan, could offer VHD/AHD through its Panasonic and Quasar subsidiaries. An announcement about marketing is expected this summer. VHD/AHD hour-per-side discs are just over 10 inches in diameter and rotate at 900 rpm. Signals are stored as capacitance variations, produced by minute pits in the conductive plastic. The stylus rests over several spiral tracks, distributing pressure and minimizing wear. (Stylus life is 2000 hours, roughly 10 times RCA’s.) But the metal stylus electrode “reads” just one information track and the tracking signals on either side of it. These tracking signals keep the stylus on the right path by feeding current to a coil/magnet combination on the arm, which can move sideways. The cantilever arm can also be stretched or shortened instantly to correct for speed variations (time-base errors). Signals sent to coils can be used to make the stylus replay one frame continuously, move ahead or back at slow speed, etc. JVC has also demonstrated an optional random-access unit with a wireless remote control for the main VHD/AHD player. It has memories and numbered key pads for preprogrammed display of selected TV frames. Another plug-in option unscrambles digitally coded audio discs that have a dynamic range over 90 dB and other super-fidelity specifications. At this writing, JVC has not revealed video software sources needed to sell its system successfully. Europe’s Thorn-EMI Ltd., though, has agreed to produce both players and software.

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TELEVISION MOUNTAIN

THE DEER and bushy-tailed squirrels that live on Mount Wilson have been watching a strange new forest of “bat-wing” radiators and pylon antennas replace the trees that formerly grew on the mountain top.

Seven new television stations and five new FM stations are grouped together on top of a small ridge not far from the famed Mount Wilson Observatory where the 100-inch Hooker telescope is located. Except for one transmitter that is a short distance from the others, all the stations are within an area about half a mile long and a couple of hundred yards wide.

This unique crowding together of transmitters has occurred because, from the 6000-foot peak of Mount Wilson, there is a wide horizon for TV and FM, providing a service area that extends from Mexico and San Diego on the south to Bakersfield and Santa Barbara on the north. The sta- tions directly overlook the entire Los Angeles metropolitan area in which are located most of the 60,000 television receivers of the region. The mountain top is no more than an hour and a half by road from the Hollywood television studios.

Seven of the stations are operating now and the others are almost ready to transmit their first test patterns and sound programs. As many as 19 different picture, sound and separate FM frequencies will be in use at the same time when all the stations are on the air. This is bound to lead to some confusion at first, but engineers are confident that within a few weeks after each new station comes on the air it will be possible to correct any interference. The differences between frequencies in the short waves, they explain, are about the same as standard broadcast stations operating on their regular frequencies while spaced 10 miles apart.

An advantage of concentrating all the stations is that a television-receiving antenna down in the lowlands will pick up all of the stations equally well and may be pointed permanently toward the mountain. It won’t be necessary to rotate the antenna for best reception when switching from .one station to another.

Each station is simply a big transmitter.

All the programs originate in Hollywood or Los Angeles or at other points and are relayed to the mountain for broadcasting. FM goes up the hill by telephone cable, as do some of the TV sound programs. All video and, in some cases, the accompanying sound as well is transmitted to the mountain by microwave radio beam. KTLA, for instance, has big parabolic reflectors on top of its Hollywood studio and other reflectors at its Mount Wilson station 18 miles away, in line of sight. Pictures and sound are beamed from the studio to the transmitter and are radiated back over Hollywood and the surrounding country. When KTLA is televising a remote program, such as a baseball game, it sends a mobile beam transmitter out to the location and either beams the program direct to Mount Wilson or else back to Hollywood, from which point it is relayed by radio to the mountain.

Some of the television stations have installed their own beams, while others are using a radio link provided by Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company. The phone company has erected its own building on the mountain for receiving the beamed programs that it handles, and for relaying them to the adjacent transmitters by coaxial cables. The microwave receiving antennas are mounted side by side in a large room inside the building instead of on the roof, where they would be exposed to the weather. The exterior wall of the room, in front of the antennas, consists of one large window of transparent plastic sheeting that offers no resistance to the incoming high-frequency energy.

The building also serves as one of the radio receiving and transmitting points for the phone company’s mobile urban and mobile highway ra dio services which together have about 150 subscribers, mostly public utilities, doctors and trucking concerns. Also in the building is a small switchboard that handles the phone calls of the new radio community.

Typical of the television stations on Mount Wilson is the new NBC transmitter, KNBH, built at a cost of half a million dollars. It is equipped with a standard RCA TT-5A transmitter that puts an effective radiated power of 27.5 kilowatts (for picture) on its five-element superturnstile antenna. Three picture chains and two sound chains are available in the transmitting room. If any one circuit develops trouble, the operator can switch to another chain at once. Nine hundred different tubes are in use when the station is on the air. The main picture and sound-transmitting tubes are air-cooled by means of blowers and are water-cooled by means of internal piping. The station has its own distilling plant for creating pure water for cooling tubes.

The station building also contains a three-room apartment for its caretaker; for emergencies it has a bunkroom in which four operators may sleep, and an electric kitchen equipped with a freezing unit and stocked with enough food, frozen and canned, for three months.

This is because the radio operators and engineers on Mount Wilson expect to be snowed in for days or weeks at a time in spite of their proximity to the semi-tropical country a mile below them. Snowplows may be able to clear the roads immediately after a heavy storm but a combination of a heavy snow plus landslides may block the road for longer periods. All the stations are stocked with food against this contingency.

All of them, too, have been elaborately protected against heavy winds, lightning and icing of their antennas. Winds as strong as 85 miles an hour have been recorded, with gusts estimated at 100 miles per hour. All antenna towers have been designed with this condition in mind.

Icing conditions occur during the winter months and rime ice may build up to 10 times the diameter of the member on which it collects. To avoid any possible detuning of an antenna because of the ice load, most of them have been provided with internal electrical strip heaters to keep them warm. One 500-watt heater is placed inlside each lobe of each batwing, a total of 20 heaters for a five-element superturnstile.

All the TV, FM and combination antennas are grounded direct to the earth, this being permissible because short-wave radiation is a matter of resonance tuning rather than insulation. Normally, a grounded antenna would dissipate the energy of any lightning bolts, but on Mount Wilson the thin layer of topsoil overlies a rock formation that is not an ideal conductor. At the Don Lee TV and FM stations more than half a mile of copper strip has been buried underground to connect the two towers with a water tank, various water pipes and other objects in an effort to help dissipate the discharges of lightning. Similar precautions have been taken by the other stations. Some of them have connected their ground systems together to obtain additional coverage. Most of the transmitting equipment is further protected by automatic relays that open instantaneously when overloaded, and by lightning gaps in the circuits.

The stations are served by a commercial power cable. In anticipation of power failures each station has installed stand-by motor generators, gasoline or diesel-driven, that start automatically and take over the load any time the commercial power supply fails. The little community of technicians is prepared to dig in no matter how they are cut off from the rest of the world and to keep their transmitters operating just as long as the beamed programs come up to them from Hollywood.

Here is the status of the Mount Wilson stations: KECA-TV (ABC) To begin operation in 1949.

KECA-FM (ABC) Operating now from Culver City, moving to Mount Wilson this year. KFI-TV Now in operation. KFI-FM Now in operation. KFMV FM only, now operating. KHJ-FM (Don Lee-Mutual) FM station under construction. KLAC-TV Now in operation. KNBH (NBC) Television only, programs began early in 1949. KNX-FM 10-watt transmitter to be increased to 50 watts. KTLA Television station only, now in operation.

KTSL (Don Lee-Mutual) Television station under construction, now operating from Mount Lee, Hollywood. KTTV (CBS-L.A. Times) Television programs began early in 1949.

That’s the list of stations on the mountain at present. Half a dozen other FM stations have applied for construction permits and expect to obtain locations on Mount Wilson or close by. There are no additional open television channels allocated to the Los Angeles area, but if additional channels are opened for picture radio, still more TV transmitters probably will join the tight cluster of stations and tall towers on Mount Wilson.

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Life Size Radio Movies Are Coming

C. Francis Jenkins is inventor of the original movie camera and holder of more than 400 patents, many of them in the field of radiovision. He predicts for the near future life size radio movies and radiovision of news events which may be projected on theater screens at the actual instant they happen. Jenkins describes the present status of television and the lines along which he is working.

by C. FRANCIS JENKINS Famous Inventor

WITHIN a short time, possibly within a year, I expect to see movie screens showing life size pictures of news events as they are happening. We are working now on that problem. We may not be first to solve it, but it is only a question of time until some one does, and it is quite possible that we may be first.

When the sun gets far enough north this summer to provide the necessary actinic lays I expect to broadcast, from an airplane, a radiovision view of the ground and cities beneath me. The apparatus is already built, but was completed too late last fall to permit trying.

First, though, I should explain the terms radiovision, radiomovies and television. I demonstrated both of the first two in June, 1925, in Washington, but it was not until April, 1927, when the American Telephone and Telegraph company transmitted visual images by wire that the public became interested. In prepared press matter the A. T. & T. called this “television,” meaning vision by wire, just as telephone means voice by wire and telegraph means graphic symbols by wire. The public has since used “television” to mean any picture, whether still or moving, transmitted either by radio or wire, and received at the other end in a form in which it could be instantly seen.

That’s a rather loose definition, because it covers many things. I prefer to call movies transmitted by radio waves radiomovies, and actual vision of a thing or person, when sent by radio broadcast, radio-vision. That makes for clearness and intelligible discussion of the various processes used.

To produce pictures which can be projected on a large screen, we will have to abandon entirely the principles which have been used so far.

There isn’t, at this date, a single system of picture transmission, whether by wire or radio, whether movies, vision or even transmission, whether by wire or radio, whether movies, vision or even still photographs, which actually reproduces a picture at the receiving end.

A lady visiting my laboratory and watching the radiomovie receiver in operation said: ‘-But Mr. Jenkins, where is the picture formed? Is it on the enlarging lens, on the mirror which changes the angle of projection, or is it farther back in the machine?”

I tapped the back of my head and said: “It’s here. There is no picture except what your eyes and brain form. You think you see a picture in the machine, but all you really see is a rapidly fluctuating point of light.” That’s hard for lots of people to understand. When we broadcast one of our silhouettes you see little figures going through their pantomine, and when we broadcast an ordinary film you see half tones like pictures on the movie screen. But actually neither picture exists outside your brain.

To explain why that is let me first recall a childhood amusement. Did you ever lay a coin under a sheet of paper, and with a pencil cause the image to appear on the paper? That’s what all present systems of picture transmission do. Instead of a pencil the lines are drawn by a point of light sweeping across the picture screen. They move so rapidly (forty-eight lines to the picture and fifteen pictures per second) that the eye continues to see them after they have actually disappeared, and, seeing 48 lines at one time, sees an entire picture.

A motor driven shutter, usually a revolving disc with 48 tiny holes, located in a spiral, sweeps past in front of a neon lamp, which is constantly fluctuating as the incoming signal strength varies. The fluctuations paint bright, shadowy and dark spaces, and when the eye assembles them as a whole you see a picture.

All picture receivers operate in the same general way, but there are two types of scanners, as they are called. One is the disc, and the other is the drum type. With either the possible size of the picture is the square formed by the distance between the inner and outer, or first and last holes in the spiral, and the first and second hole, at the inner end, where the holes are closest together. On a twelve-inch disc, for example, you can construct a scanner that will produce pictures about three-quarters of an inch square. The size of the disc increases so rapidly, as you increase the size of the picture, that it soon becomes too big to be used in a machine of any reasonable size, and likewise takes too much power to turn it at a constant, and relatively high, speed.

So I invented a drum scanner—a hollow drum, with the holes arranged in helical rows around its circumference, and the neon lamp inside. Then I went a step farther, and, instead of having a drum big enough for 48 holes in one helical row, I added more targets to my lamp, and arranged several rows of holes. Thus with a six-target lamp—the same as six ordinary lamps built in one, it only takes six helical rows of eight holes each. To get the maximum amount of light from each target to the hole in the drum I fitted little eighth-inch thick rods of quartz or glass rod, leading from the hollow hub, in which the light was located, to the holes in the drum. It is a curious fact that a rod of just ordinary glass will transmit more light than the same amount of air, while a quartz rod is so peculiar that it will even transmit light around bends without losing any of the rays.

Because of the multi-target lamps and drum scanner I can produce a much larger picture in only a fraction of the space taken by a disc machine. An eight-inch drum with a four-inch face will produce a two-inch square picture, which would require a disc at least thirty-six inches in diameter.

Several persons have asked how many radio fans are receiving broadcast movies and pictures today. Our fan mail indicates about 20,000 receive the broadcast from our two stations, one here in Washington and the other at the factory in Newark. There are many more receivers than that in use, however, for not everyone is so situated he can pick up our broadcast. The manufacturer of one type of neon glow lamp used in an inexpensive amateur machine I designed told me not long ago that they had sold 50,000 of the lamps.

How are we going to project the picture on a movie screen? Certainly not with any existing equipment, for the neon lamp has a dull, pinkish red glow, and even with a ten or twelve-inch magnifying lens in front of the screen the best we are able to get is a picture that appears to be about eight inches square.

To produce projected pictures we must substitute a powerful arc or incandescent for the relatively weak neon lamp, and, since we can’t vary the light to paint the picture, we must make the broadcast signal operate some sort of shutter mechanism, in other words just reverse the present process.

Next, instead of just transmitting one line at a time, we should have an entire picture, on a flat surface, just as a magic lantern projects a scene on the screen.

Way back in 1894, the year before I built the original motion picture projector and demonstrated it before the Franklin Institute, I suggested, in an article in The Electrical Engineer, that pictures might be transmitted by electricity and reproduced on a flat surface by assembling huge squares of thousands of selinium cells at the sending end, and a corresponding square of small electric globes at the receiving end, each cell being connected by wire to the corresponding light. The light sensitive cells would receive an image of anything placed before them, just as a photographic plate “takes” a picture, and, by transmitting varying amounts of current, light the lamps to varying degrees, so that a picture would be painted on the receiving board.

Nothing ever came of that suggestion, but in searching for a new method of receiving radiomovies, we tried a variation of it. On a large square board we assembled 48 rows of flashlight lamps, with 48 in each row, a total of 2,304 three-volt lights. The lamps were wired to a commutator, which distributed current to them in proportion to the strength of the incoming radio signals.

It was an interesting experiment, but it failed, for a curious reason. Remember, the flashlight lamps were all the standard three-volt type. The first problem was how much input voltage do we need to light three-volt lamps, with one-fourth ampere input, when the commutator speed makes contact of 1/35,000 of a second for each lamp. And we found the answer was 95 volts.

So we bought 2,500 lamps, screwed 2,304 of them into our sockets, and started to work. But it wasn’t long until we had run out of spares, as lamp after lamp burned out. The trouble was that it took 95 volts to light the lamps, but with that much pressure instead of the current flowing 1/35,000 of a second, the contact points arced, and the arc didn’t break until the contact had traveled some distance, so, instead of a 1/35,000 of a second flash, we were actually getting a contact lasting 1/15,000 of a second, and hence the lamps burned out. If we reduced the voltage to shorten the arc the lamps would not get enough current, and if we furnished enough current the lamps would burn out.

We were still convinced that the flat picture theory was good, but the method was wrong.

We are now experimenting with something quite different. Instead of lamps we have built up a square of glass cells, something like a honeycomb, with square instead of hexagonal cells. Each cell is half an inch square, from center of one thin glass wall to center of the other, and they are four inches deep. When a powerful lamp is placed behind the cells, the rays pass through them, and, if we can open and close the cells fast enough, using radio signals to do the work, we can create a picture by blocking them out, either completely or partially.

It is too early to say whether that experiment will succeed. If it doesn’t, we will keep on trying. At present we are using the attraction and repulsion of changing current to lift and lower little sheets of foil in each cell. As they flap up and down they act as valves, alternately admitting and barring the light rays.

If our present line of research succeeds we will have a square of light cells 24 by 24 inches. Behind that will be a powerful light, and in front the necessary lenses to gather the light rays forming the picture, and project them on a screen. With refinements in construction the size of the cells could be reduced, and a home receiver, with a large incandescent light instead of an arc, built on the same principles.

Whether we will succeed remains to be seen, as I have said. But if we don’t some one is bound, sooner or later, to solve the problem. It may take a new idea, but given time the human brain is going to solve the problem.

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“Human-Eye” Camera OPENS NEW WAY TO Television

Views in Your Home of News Events and Historical Gatherings May Be Possible with New Broadcast System

By Alden E Armagnac

ENGINEERS in a Camden, N. J., laboratory, the other day, examined a mysterious little black box on a tripod. A lens protruding from the turretlike top gave it the appearance of a camera, but such a camera as never before had been built. Ten years of intensive research had achieved, in this instrument, man’s nearest mechanical approach to the human eye.

Called the “iconoscope,” meaning “image observer,” by its inventor, Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin, the new instrument is said to remove the last serious obstacles to practical television. Batteries of the television eyes are likely to take their places alongside the microphones of radio announcers at sports events and at the scenes of important public ceremonies. The actual scene, as well as the sounds, will be put on the air. Sitting in his home before a television receiver of simple, inexpensive design, the broadcast fan will see a news event that is taking place miles away.

Predictions like this have been made before; now, at last, they seem about to be realized. The scientific part of the work is done and only the commercial and financial problems of television remain to be worked out, Dr. Zworykin declares. His mechanical eye solves the problems that have kept television in the experimental stage. Any one of the iconoscope’s three most noteworthy features would, alone, be reckoned an outstanding advance in television.

Most obvious, from a glance at the new instrument, is its portability. Compact and light enough to be slung over the shoulder like a movie camera, it is easily carried to the scene of action.

Second, because of the iconoscope’s sensitivity to light, television will 110 longer be restricted to the studio, under glaring lights; outdoor scenes also can be put on the air.

Lastly, the iconoscope is a television eye without a single mechanical moving part. There are no whirling disks or humming motors, and therefore there is virtually no limit to the speed at which the robot eye can take in a scene.

Strangely enough, all these gains have been secured by a return to first ideas of television, which are worth recalling in order to understand the latest invention.

The one problem in television is to put a picture into a transmitter, and get it out again at a distant receiver virtually instantaneously. Invention of the selenium cell and later of the more sensitive photoelectric cell provided the tools to make this possible. These cells have the power of turning light into electrical impulses for transmission by wire or radio.

Using these cells, each part of a picture could be transformed into a strong or weak electrical impulse, depending on whether it was light or dark; the impulses could be transmitted instantly to the receiving end; and there transformed back into light and used to build up the picture again.

The simplest way to do this would be to project the picture on a checkerboard of photo-electric cells grouped closely together, and transmit all their impulses at once to corresponding electric lamps or shutters in a similar checkerboard arrangement behind a receiving screen. In this way two Frenchmen, as long ago as 1906, succeeded in transmitting simple patterns with a bank of sixty-four photo-electric cells, each one connected by a pair of wires to a shutter in the receiver.

To obtain a clear picture with sharp detail, it is necessary to reproduce, individually, the lightness or darkness of at least 70,000 different parts or picture elements of the original image. Obviously, it would be impossible to transmit so many impulses simultaneously, since it would require 140,000 wires from the transmitter to every receiver. Hence arose the alternative scheme: to explore or “scan” the picture and transmit its parts one by one instead of all at once.

This would require only one wire or radio channel.

Virtually all recent television experiments have been based on this principle. By any one of a variety of means, such as whirling disks studded with lenses or pierced with holes, each part of a scene in turn is momentarily allowed to register its lightness or darkness upon a single photo-electric cell, and the resulting series of electrical impulses is put on the air. At the receiving end, the impulses control the brightness of a spot of light that travels over a corresponding path on a receiving screen to rebuild the picture. So rapidly is this done that the track of the light beam in the receiver fuses into a single complete image; and the process is repeated enough times a second to give moving pictures.

Recently television engineers struck a snag. Apparently no further improvement in picture quality, which would require them to run a transmitter faster in order to cover more individual points of a picture, was possible. They were already running their machines so fast that the photoelectric cells of their transmitters barely had time to respond as each part of the image whirled before them. As a result only studio television under glaring light was considered practical.

Where others had failed in this seemingly insuperable task, Dr. Zworykin, by throwing away current ideas and going back to first principles, succeeded. Working in the laboratories of the RCA Victor Company in Camden, N. J., he produced a mechanical eye that is a triumph of inventive genius.

Like the human eye, the iconoscope uses a lens to project an image of a scene upon an artificial retina, and this amazing retina is the key to the whole invention. Just as the human eye’s retina is composed of innumerable rods and cones that respond to light, so Dr. Zworykin’s artificial retina is a mosaic of millions of microscopic photoelectric cells. These cells are of light-sensitive metal, formed upon the front of a thin sheet of mica by evaporation of the metal in a vacuum. A metallic coating on the back of the insulating mica sheet, and a silverized portion of the eighteen-inch tube in which the retina is housed, serve as terminals for the electric circuit, which may be regarded as the optic nerve, since it transmits what the retina sees.

But how could the mechanical eye unscramble the impulses from these millions of cells? Some sort of scanning was necessary, and Dr. Zworykin found an entirely new way to do this. He housed his retina in a cathode ray tube, which hurls a narrow beam of electrons at the mosaic of photo cells. Taking advantage of the fact that a cathode beam can be deflected by magnets, Dr. Zworykin enclosed the tube in a yoke of four electromagnets that swing the beam back and forth across the retina at twenty miles a minute!

While this is happening, photo cells are electrically charged wherever they are exposed to light. The moment the moving cathode beam shines upon a light-struck cell, it discharges it of electricity as a trigger fires a gun. The result is a sudden fluctuation in the voltage of the electric circuit common to all the cells. In this way each of the millions of cells waits its turn to go on the air and report on the lightness or darkness of its sector of the picture. As a result the image is transformed into a stream of electrical impulses that can be put on the air by a radio transmitter.

So rapidly does this take place that the entire picture is scanned twenty times a second. In the waiting period before it goes on the air, each cell has time to acquire thousands of times as great a charge as in other systems; it is constantly watching the picture, instead of blinking at it. Hence the new iconoscope is able to work outdoors and indoors in light that would have been considered impossible for television a few days ago; in fact, in any light where an ordinary camera could take pictures. If you were first to hear the explanation of this involved principle and then to see the instrument, you would be amazed at its compactness and the simplicity of its operation.

What type of television receiver will be designed for the home? Particularly adapted for use with the iconoscope is a receiver developed by Dr. Zworykin several years ago, and called the ”kinescope.” It employs a cathode-ray tube like that of the transmitter, except that the retina is replaced by a window of fluorescent material that glows wherever the cathode beam strikes it. Electromagnets swing this beam exactly in step with that of the transmitter. The intensity of the beam itself, meanwhile, is made to fluctuate by the radio impulses coming over the air. Thus the speeding beam retraces the image in highlights and shadows on the glowing window of the tube. Sitting before the instrument, the owner will see a moving picture about four by five inches in size, which may be magnified if desired, and he will watch faraway events as if he were there in person.

From start to finish, in this system, there is no mechanical moving part. Even the pulsating currents that operate the electromagnets in transmitter and receiver are generated by vacuum tubes of special design. There is no reason why any television receiver of conventional design cannot also be adapted for use with the iconoscope, including the existing types that will project a picture large enough for a theater screen. It is even possible to imagine a new kind of theater, entertaining its patrons with news flashes of world events happening at that very moment, instead of exhibiting newsreels made hours or days before.

Thus at one stroke the new invention brings television to the point where it may be ready, at last, for home and public entertainment. With that achieved, there will be time enough to develop other possibilities of the new mechanical eye in war and peace, industry and science—such possibilities as to set it at the eyepiece of a microscope more powerful than man has ever looked through, illuminated by invisible ultraviolet light, to reveal wonders hitherto seen only by photography. As with any other great invention, no one can foresee all the avenues to new marvels that it may open.

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…”It’s Been Fun”

By Bob Barker

If you have been watching Truth Or Consequences since I started doing the show daytime on NBC, you are nine years older than you were when you and I first became friends. It has been almost a decade. I have done about 2,300 shows and interviewed more than 12,000 contestants.

Now, after all these years, NBC has cancelled Truth Or Consequences. Frankly, I am disgusted. I think the network should have given the show a chance to get off the ground.

Of course, if it had to be, our cancellation came at a most opportune time.

I have already written Sargent Shriver. Under President Johnson’s Anti-Poverty Program I should qualify as a “television dropout.” Perhaps the government will send me to camp. It would serve NBC right.

It has been almost ten years since I have been faced with the dismal chore of seeking employment. In my distress, my first thought was of my agent. After taking ten percent of my hard earned money for lo these many years, at long last there is something for him to do. He can get me a job. I decided to call him immediately. It was then that I discovered I do not have his telephone number.

I will say the cancellation of Truth Or Consequences has changed my thinking. I had reached the stage where I was interested in the true meaning of life. I was concerned about my soul. Now I am worried about my stomach, and the filling of same.

Only a week after receiving notification of our cancellation by NBC, I was invited to come back and deliver the main homecoming address at my alma mater, Drury College in Springfield, Missouri. So far as I know, I am the only unemployed alumnus to be so honored. I think I will go, too. I might be able to talk the powers that be at Drury into granting me a fellowship so that I can stay there for a couple of years and work on my doctorate.

I think the attraction scholarly pursuits hold for me can be traced to a profound statement made by a dear friend of mine when we were in college. He said, “Barker, we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to get our degrees, because as long as we are in school people think we are successful.”

Alack and alas, my dear friend was only too right. After graduation he went on to become a complete failure.

I could go on and on about this great American tragedy, the cancellation of Truth Or Consequences. But, the editors of Lady’s Circle have asked me to recount a couple of my more memorable moments during the nine years I emceed the show.

Their request is a little like asking Napoleon what he liked most about the Battle of Waterloo.

But, I am determined to be brave. I shall fulfill the editors’ request for “memorable moments.”

Let me assure you that when you work with unrehearsed contestants thirty minutes every day, Monday through Friday, you can count on plenty of surprises. But, my biggest surprise involved a contestant who wasn’t there.

I went up into the audience before this particular show and selected a lady for a stunt. We went on the air, and when it came time for the stunt in question I asked for a curtain to be opened, expecting to find the lady I had selected from the audience. But, my colleagues on the show had made other arrangements. When the curtain was opened there stood my own mother whom I thought was back in Missouri. The guys on the show had decided that it would be a nice surprise to have her flown out to California.

I was surprised all right. At first I didn’t realize she was my mother. I thought she was my father.

One day we had arranged a very elaborate reunion of a wife with a soldier husband who had been overseas for many months.

As I explained our plans to the viewers and the studio audience the lights in our studio were to be extinguished one by one in a very dramatic buildup to the moment when the wife would arrive.

Ah, the best laid plans of NBC lighting directors sometimes go awry. When he hit the first switch not one light went out, not two, not three, but every light we had was doused in one fell swoop. Not only that, the technicians could not get the lights back on, not even one little light.

There I was in total darkness, and there I stayed in total darkness for about two and a half minutes. I kept talking, and, perhaps in sympathy, the audience kept laughing.

Later I got a letter from a lady who said, “Bob, I think you do your best work in the dark.”

After every Truth Or Consequences telecast I found myself wondering what would happen tomorrow. Perhaps that is why I liked emceeing the show so much.

Actually, there is only one thing that really concerns me about having the show go off the air. I am worried about Ralph Edwards’ reaction. You see, Ralph who is the owner of Truth Or Consequences auditioned countless masters of ceremonies for the show before he decided to give me the job. Now, after only nine years, we are cancelled. Do you suppose Ralph will think he picked the wrong man?

LOOK AND LISTEN

By JOHN FREE

Voice-controlled hi-fi

At a recent Toshiba press conference I noticed a stack of mini-hi-fi components [PS, Jan.] with a microphone attached. But the mike, I learned, wasn’t plugged in to record music. Instead, it lets you store 15 verbal commands in a microcomputer memory. After that, the hi-fi system responds only to your voice, enabling you to perform 19 functions—operating a cassette deck orally, controlling volume, or selecting tuner channels, for example.

Voice-actuated electronics, familiar to computer hobbyists, is expected to become commonplace in the 1980′s. Toshiba and other firms have also shown voice-actuated TV prototypes. Toshiba’s system may put a question mark on an LED display if it doesn’t understand you. Or a voice generated by the system may answer with “repeat” and then “okay” when your diction is recognizable. Toshiba has no definite marketing plans.

High-definition TV

While voice-operated TV’s may be avail- able in a few years, high-definition TV. under study by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, is further off. TV expert Donald Fink recently outlined the conclusions of an SMPTE panel studying how color-TV fidelity should be improved. Detailed recommendations are slated for the society journal. Highlights:
• Data on how viewers react to superior high-definition (HD) TV is very meager. Public exposure in theaters may be needed prior to home introductions.

• A standard of comparison, for HD TV standards, should be the superior quality of original 35-mm movie releases. A wide-screen aspect ratio, such as 2:1, is preferable to today’s 4:3 ratio.

• Some 1100-1500 scanning lines, compared to 525 in U.S. broadcasts, should be established. A signal bandwidth of about 25 MHz (enough for four TV channels today) is needed.

• Color and brightness (luminance) signals should not be combined as they are now for compatibility.

• A “junior” version of an HD TV system, with excellent pictures, can be achieved today on sets that use all of the station’s signal. Color sets now reject about half the available signal. New techniques such as comb filters ["Hi-fi Color-TV Pictures," PS, Aug. 78], Fink noted, are starting to improve picture fidelity.

• Getting HD TV into homes is feasible with direct satellite-to-home signals [see story on satellite TV in this issue]. In Tokyo, a satellite-to-Earth 1100-line HD TV system has been demonstrated with a five-foot receiving dish. Fiber-optic cable-TV setups might also be used.

As long as experts are revamping color-TV standards, University of Illinois psychology professor Jozef Cohen and colleague Thomas Friden of the University of New Mexico believe the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) technique of encoding color pictures should be changed. “Somewhere, somehow, the NTSC has confused brightness (or luminance) with achrominance (or whiteness). These are very different things,” Cohen writes. His and Friden’s papers on the subject are based on a computer study and historical review of color-perception theory. Cohen believes some of the subtle technical problems with color-TV pictures stem from erroneous signal encoding that starts at studio TV cameras.

Sonic holography

Bob Carver, demonstrating his new C4000 preamp for me, cleaned a disc and put it on a turntable. He began playing a musical in stereo. “Now listen for the off-stage voice,” he said, pushing a C4000 button labeled sonic hologram generator. As he did so, the space between the stereo speakers in the hotel suite seemed to expand dramatically. The 3D expansion of audio space almost seemed to wrap around the room—a far greater change in listening realism than suddenly switching from monophonic to stereo. It was easy, I found, to pinpoint the apparent source of “Fiddler on the Roof” offstage lines.

But while the 4000′s circuits do a remarkable job of adding realism to sound from stereo discs, there’s only a very narrow location in front of the speakers (one person wide) where the sonic “holography” effect is clearly audible. The $867 preamp, with enough push buttons for an F-111B electronic-countermeasures panel, has special noise-reduction circuits, and time-delay circuits that further alter the apparent size of your listening room. Record companies may market discs encoded by Carver’s sonic-holography technique that could be played back without the special preamp circuit.

Quick looks

• IBM has joined forces with MCA and Japan’s Pioneer to produce and market optical video-disc players. GM now has two-thirds of 10,000 players it ordered.

• Latest entry to the video tape and disc software field is Warner Communications’ WCI Home Video Inc. For 1980, it’s planning 55 releases.

• Home-computer firms must redesign their products to meet new FCC standards. Many machines radiate interference on lower TV channels and FM.

• BASF will call its new VCR a Linear Video Recorder (LVR). Planned for marketing soon, this deck moves tape at high speed over a stationary head.

• Two-way cable-TV operations are growing as Warner Cable Corp. and American Express expand the Columbus, Ohio, Qube system into Houston, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and elsewhere. Shop-at-home systems based on credit cards may be set up.

Curve plotter

Tired of regular TV fare? Apple II computer owners, used to creating their own computerized TV images, can now tackle simple or complex statistics problems with the Stat Pac. This new computer-disk program from Creative Discount Software (256 S. Robertson, Suite 2156, Beverly Hills, Calif. 90211) fits curves to data (above), stores data, and includes key statistics functions.

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Television in the Theatre At Last!

By H. WINFIELD SECOR

October 24, 1931, will undoubtedly go down in history as the epoch-marking day when the world first saw Television billed as a feature in a regular theatre program. On that day Mr. B. S. Moss, in association with William Morris and the Sanabria television experts, demonstrated giant television images to the audience witnessing the usual vaudeville and motion-picture entertainment at the Broadway Theatre in New York City, where a large 10×10-foot ground glass screen had the actors’ faces projected upon it.

The accompanying picture’ shows how the images of the actors were picked up from either of two studios; one in the Broadway Theatre itself, and the other in the Theatre Guild Building, located one block away. The voices of the actors were carried from the microphone, placed in front of the photo-cell television pickup, to a special voice amplifier, and finally to the large loud-speaker horns arranged at either side of the stage in the Broadway Theatre. A glass-paneled, movable television studio (mounted on wheels), could be brought upon the stage on the Broadway Theatre; so that, in some of the demonstrations, the audience could be shown just how the images were picked up by the magic photo-cells and, after passing through the elaborate Sanabria amplifier, flashed on the large screen above, as the illustration clearly shows.

For picking up the images of the subjects standing before the television transmitter, a powerful, yet non-glaring scanning-beam of light, projected from a 1,500 candle-power incandescent lamp through a 45-hole scanning disc (holes only—no lenses) was employed. The light rays, reflected from the actors’ faces, which were made up in the special (and quite startling) colors, found best for television transmission, impinged on the bank of eight light-sensitive photo-cells; the fluctuations in the photo-cell currents, corresponding to the lights and shadows in the various facial images, in turn caused corresponding variations in the highly-amplified image currents transmitted to the high-power “neon arc” tube, placed behind the receiver’s scanning disc.

From the Theatre Guild pickup apparatus a block away, the television-image currents were received over special wire cables, and caused to modulate a powerful “neon-arc” tube; this tube being a recent development which gives sufficient modulated light to illuminate a screen as large as 10 feet square. Some idea of the power handled by the neon-arc tube, at the receiver, may be obtained from the fact that, instead of the usual 35 to 50 milliamperes used for exciting the neon “crater” tubes used in the new “home type” television receivers, this tube has a current of over 1,000 milliamperes passing through it.

At the receiver, a powerful synchronous A. C. motor drives a scanning disc, specially designed and built by Mr. Sanabria. This disc contains 45 lenses, each about three inches in diameter, arranged in three spirals of 15 each.

It is contemplated to build four of these auditorium-type television demonstration outfits with which experts will tour the country and appear in a chain of theatres. This initial presentation undoubtedly marks the beginning of everyday application of this newest of the electric arts.

Theatre audiences, not to mention those in private homes, will consider television an everyday necessity, and expect to “see” as well as hear the latest news, and such exciting events as foot-ball games, on the television screen, at the moment they are occurring.

The question may be asked: “But how will a football game occurring in the afternoon be shown to an evening audience?” The answer is quite simple: the television images of the actual game as played in the afternoon for example, will be flashed to the matinee audience, play by play. A branch circuit from the television transmitter will record the television signals on a film, just as sounds are recorded on a “talkie” film; and, as many times thereafter as desired the film containing the “image record” can be run through a suitable amplifier and the image reconstructed on the receiver screen or screens.

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England Will Broadcast First Chain Television Programs

VAUDEVILLE, opera and outdoor sports events are predicted to be among some of the feature programs which will be broadcast to British firesides this fall when the first national television network in the world swings into action in Great Britain.

At least ten stations, catering to approximately one-half of the British population, will enable “lookers”—as the new spectator-listener audience is called—to enjoy this novel entertainment. Owing to the distortion of the short waves, reception will be limited to a radius of 25 miles. British engineers, however, still consider their equipment superior to television apparatus used in the United States or Germany.

Receiving sets with 6 by 8-inch screens will sell to the public at $250, but this price is expected to be halved within a year when mass production starts.

Under the new plan, high-definition television broadcasts will replace the present “coarse-grain” offerings. Experimenters claim that projected pictures will be as clear as home movies. A patent pool has been urged to further television.

AIR-TO-GROUND TV SYSTEM Transmits Combat Pictures on FM

Airborne military television crams a self-contained transmitting station into a small reconnaissance plane, then flies this ever-moving station over unpredictable terrain. Taking these adverse conditions into account, Admiral developed an extremely compact television system which uses FM transmission for the picture. It is now in production for the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Even under difficult conditions, this equipment provides excellent definition.

The transmitting plane, flying at approximately 1,000 feet, would have a line-of-sight range of 25 or 30 miles. This would enable a battle commander aided by a panel of TV screens, each screen showing a different sector, to coordinate military operations over a wide area.

In addition, a mobile ground-to-ground TV system is under development. Inquire about Admiral’s exceptional capabilities in the field of military electronics. Address inquiries to:

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CORPORATION
Government Laboratories Division, Chicago 47.

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Engineers: The wide scope of work in progress at Admiral creates challenging opportunities in the field of your choice. Write Director of Engineering and Research, Admiral Corporation, Chicago 47, Illinois.

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GOOD EVENING, I AM VAMPIRA

A scary femme fatale peddles old horror films on TV At an hour before midnight each Saturday on many Los Angeles TV screens, a gaunt, black-wigged mistress of ceremonies steps out of ominous, drifting mists, screams hysterically into a shuddering camera, intones the greeting in the headline above and then sighs morbidly, “I hope you have been lucky enough to have had a horrible week.”

With this beginning the macabre lady, who calls herself Vampira, invites her audience to watch a program of choice horror films, including such scary relics as White Zombie and Fog Island. Between movie reels Vampira provides eerie interludes of her own—a ghoulish hospital plan for would-be suicides called The Yellow Cross, a foaming cocktail “that will absolutely kill you.” Vampira was born Maila Syrjaniemi in Finland 31 years ago and her real hair is blond, but she has thrown herself wholeheartedly into her role, going abroad dead-panned and beshrouded even in daytime to enlarge her horror-loving public.

DEATH’S-HEAD SOFA is used as a perch when Vampira addresses TV audience. She boasts her fingernails are hemorrhage red.

SPIDER SEARCH with flickering candle is favorite Vampira interruption. Her fictitious pet spider, called Rollo, can never be found.

ON TOUR of city Vampira sits regally in back of old Packard with chauffeur provided by TV station. She screams at stop lights.

HAUGHTY Vampira ignores people on the street. “I like them to stare if they know who I am” she admits, “but not if they don’t.”

HOPING FOR GLOOM, Vampira puts up umbrella on sunny day. She tells signature seekers, “I give, epitaphs not autographs.”

Tape for Pictures

ONE of the most ticklish aspects of the whole video tape operation is the manufacture of the tape itself. In these photos taken at the new ORRadio plant in Opelika, Ala., we can see some of the inspection steps used to insure perfect tape—which will “play back” a signal just about indistinguishable from a live telecast.

At the top, a technician checks a sample roll used to record the opening-day ceremonies at’ ORRadio on a new Ampex VR-1000 Videotape Recorder. Each inch of tape must carry about 20,000 bits of information.

Above, right, a machinist gauges the adjustment between the cutter blades used to shear a master roll of 1′-wide tape into smaller widths. To insure accuracy, the tape is not sliced. Rather, the blades scissor it into strips.

At right, the tape is being inspected for imperfections which might cause “drop out.” This phenomenon, which shows up as pips on a TV screen, may be caused by some flaw in the deposit of iron oxide on the magnetic tape.