Author
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Topic: Telstar
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Paul Adsett
Film God
Posts: 5003
From: USA
Registered: Jun 2003
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posted December 12, 2016 06:50 PM
One night in 1962, when I was working in Chelmsford Essex, I stayed up all night glued to BBC Television. The occasion was the first ever transatlantic live TV broadcast from America, courtesy of the just launched Telstar satellite launched from Cape Canaveral. The Telstar satellite was not launched into a synchronous earth orbit as the technology was not yet in place to do that, so it was launched into a low orbit which permitted microwave transmissions from a great big horn antenna in Andover Maine to be bounced off it to a receiving antenna in Cornwall UK--for a period of only 15 minutes every 90 minute orbit. So here I was glued to the TV at 3am, half asleep, waiting for that first glorious live picture from New York. And all we got was a flickering Indian's head test signal from NBC! Apparently the engineers in Cornwall had hooked up the antenna with incorrect polarization, and that test signal was the best they could do. The next day the situation was corrected, and we finally got live TV from the USA, which was perceived as a miracle at that time. Something you never forget, and Telstar changed the World forever. Soon after this a wonderful record called Telstar was produced by The Tornado's. It still puts shivers down my back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPDvsLSnUGc
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