8mm Forum: Telstar

This is topic Telstar in forum General Yak at 8mm Forum.

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Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on 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

Posted by Bryan Chernick (Member # 1998) on December 13, 2016, 12:00 AM:

The Ventures also released an album called Telstar in 1963, not sure if it had anything to do with the satellite.

How did you watch an entire show if it cut out every 15 minutes?

I was working on American Samoa in the South Pavific back in 1994 and they still didn't get television by satellite. They flew VHS tapes in once or twice a week from Hawaii. There were only one or two flights per week back then. Everything on TV was at least a week behind, even the news. When I was back there a few years ago they were finally getting television by satellite.

Posted by Paul Adsett (Member # 25) on December 13, 2016, 12:22 PM:

Because of its 15 minute limitation Telstar was used mainly for transmission of news related material. Before that, all video had to be flown across the Atlantic in the form of 16mm film reels or magnetic tape.

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