[BC] Other things done at those transmitter sites

[Dave Hultsman]

In a message dated 4/9/2010 10:38:50 AM Central Daylight Time, dpuopolo at usa.net writes:
>What a signal channel 8 had from atop Mt. Washington!
>I used to easily pick up channel 8 in Somerville, MA (1 mile North of Boston),
>simply by turning my TV antenna to the North-with channel 7 (Boston) on air no
>less. IIRC, they also had a one hop microwave from the Pru in downtown Boston
>straight to Mount Washington.
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I believe in the early days of channel 8, their network feed was direct from Boston via microwave and switched on the mountain top, later relay via the mountain to studios and then they got a feed to the studios.
 
Also they used to run a church service in Boston via the mircowave every Sunday in the early days.
 
Lots of interesting history.  Likewisd for the Mt. Wilson, Los Angeles,  Mt. Sandia, New Mexico, Lookout west of Denver.  All those Mountain top sites Salt Lake City.   Stir up some of your memories you guys.
 
I recall George McClanathan talk about relaying remotes from Flagstaff to Phoenix using their own Microwaves relays.  He claimed to have set a record in the 1950's for the longest TV Microwave remote video shot.  Small compared to our satellite shots traveling up and down 46,000 miles to go the 15 miles between the remote site and the studios today.
 
Also there were some very interesting articles on the problems of relaying the "Live"  "A" bomb test from the test site near Las Vegas in the mid 1950's.  Microwave from the test site to TV Transmitters to studios to AT&T and then to LA to get fed back to New York to hit the networks.  Video was pooled as they barely had enough facilities for one video all the way back to NY to feed the Today and CBS Morning Show. I don't believe ABC  even was on the air in the mornings back then.  I recall getting up only to have the blasts cancelled several mornings and then see the actual blast and the old black and white cameras and system blooming from the difference of night to atomic blast daylight.
 
 Of course I am certain that many guys from LA can give us many of the details of quickie news remotes of the early days of KHJ-TV, KTLA  and other independents with no networks who used stations wagons with large RCA  B&W video cameras mounted thru holes cut in the roof and steerable microwave transmitters to allow coverage of many local news events.  Same with the  first telecopters in Los Angeles and the development of the tracking video micrwaves we all take for granted today.
 
Dave