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Show ! TELEVISION DISCOVERS MAIN STREET Technical Limitations Restrict TV Range v T ". ; . . " : xt ;. m ' ivr .. 1;- : I . " r..:. ! ". li:- V ' -"Si- ' ; ' II - rff.iS-ilj - I :; '-:- i: IV-V ! ' F !' I . i-;-i,4:-. t i ""' -J II 'J ! I1 : : e s, s-l - - - " 1 ' ."'iijfi. Lt 9-mm ,)sj(Mfc f "Wsa- m--. irf, ! (This is the second of a series of three I articles on the coming of a nationwide 1 television service.) The expansion of video into non- j TV areas is based on the Federal Communications Commission's plan to open up a new section of the radio spectrum, known as the Ultra High Frequency Range, for commercial com-mercial and educational television. This will permit 70 new channels ! for TV broadcasts, as compared to the 12 channels now in use in the j t limited Very High Frequency i Range. By opening UHF and ex- panding VHF, the FCC will offer licenses for nearly 2,000 new stations, sta-tions, divided among every state in the union. The FCC has indicated that it j will put it up to private enterprise 1 in the towns and cities concerned, j If they want television they can ap- i ply for it, and, following final allo- ' cations expected soon, licenses j will be granted to applicants found j acceptable. On the basis of tenta- ' tive allocations and provided each state fulfills its license quota under the expansion program, the nation will have this number of TV stations: sta-tions: ' Alabama, 45; Arizona, 30; Arkan sas, 38; California, 80; Colorado, 36; Connecticut, 14; Deleware, 4; nictiVt r-f Pnlnmhia fi: Florida. SKYLINE OF THE FUTURE Here are the various types of antenna an-tenna developed by RCA technicians to receive UHF television broadcasts. Some of them might soon become familiar landmarks on the rooftops of farms, ranches and city homes in every section of the United States. They bear such colorful names as "Bow Tie" and "YAgi" and "Double V" and "Corner Reflector." With the coming of a countrywide television service, the names of the new video antennas an-tennas promise to become a part of the national lexicon. j 56; Georgia, 53; Idaho, 28; Illinois, i 56; Indiana, 45; Iowa, 58; Kansas, 49; Kentucky, 32; Louisiana, 42; Maine, 29; Maryland, 12; Massa- chusetts, 23; Michigan, 65; Minne sota, 48; Mississippi, 39; Missouri, ; 53; Montana, 39; Nebraska, 34; Ne- I vada, 22; and New Hampshire, 12. i Also, New Jersey, 9; New Mexi co, 35; New York, 55; North Caro-. V lina, 51; North Dakota, 33; Ohio,. 57; Oklahoma, 54; Oregon, 32; Pennsylvania, 52; Rhode Island, 4; i South Carolina, 27; South Dakota, 30; Tennessee, 61; Texas, 176; 1 Utah, 19; Vermont, 10; Virginia, 37; Washington, 41; West Virginia, 23; Wisconsin, 44; and Wyoming, 27. This expanded service contrasts dramatically with the present regional re-gional allocations. In many one-station cities like Albuquerque and Seattle, network programs have been unobtainable because relay facilities, either microwave or coaxial cable, do not reach them. I But the cables and the radio re- . lay towers are today pushing stead ily into new areas. In 1951, a chain of lofty microwave towers which j! relay video signals with split- j second precision was completed ; from coast-to-coast. Coaxial cables are spreading through the south from Kansas City to Wichita, to Dallas, San Antonio and Houston. ; Jackson, Miss., a southern termi nal, is being tied to New Orleans, a northern branch is headed for ;; Montreal; and cables are being ; laid from Los Angeles through Ari- ' j zona, Texas and New Mexico to cover the southwest. This vast expansion of video re-i re-i lay facilities means that scores of ! new television towns, with either ! UHF or VHF stations, will be able j to tap into the terminals along the ! route and relay the major network I programs through remote rural areas. Main Street's Role It is difficult to forecast accurately accurate-ly today how quickly Main Street, U.S.A., will erect the nearly 2,000 j new stations for which licenses ! ' might be available and how quick- t ly extensive home coverage will be i obtained. There is the question of j material shortages in a defense economy, of local financing of new stations and of the speed with which the FCC processes license applications. Yet, there is a regional pattern established since 1946 when the National Na-tional Broadcasting Company introduced in-troduced regular commercial television tel-evision in the United States. This was the first era of expansion; in many ways the second era might rival it. For example, set sales in the present television regions have maintained a fairly uniform pace. In 1951, there were 27,412,700 families fam-ilies residing in TV areas that is, areas where some type of video signal, however faint, could be picked up on home receivers. Of this total, 15,166,000 had purchased television receivers. Since 62.914,200 people reside in these areas, the ratio of TV set sales to individuals is about one to six. In terms of families it is a little better than one set for each two families. And the pattern is fairly consistent con-sistent between different size cities. New York, for example, has 4,152,-100 4,152,-100 families and they own 2,720,000 home receivers. Omaha, Neb., has 210,500 families and they own 104,-000 104,-000 TV sets. Using the same yardstick, the scores of towns which look forward to their own. transmitting stations can expect an audience of one out of every two families in their municipal mu-nicipal and suburban regions. They can anticipate this audience within with-in perhaps three or four years after their first video signal is broadcast. The number of listeners, of course, is dependent on the number of stations erected. Recent history indicates that they will go up fast. In 1948, when the freeze on station sta-tion construction was imposed by the FCC for fear of over-extending the VHF channels and thus creating creat-ing interference between stations, scores of small-town business men, industrialists, radio station owners and newspaper publishers had applications ap-plications for station licenses on file. A new technical phrase is being projected into the national vocabulary. vocabu-lary. It is "Ultra-High Frequency" and it is the operative phrase in a government plan to extend tele- ' vision beyond major population centers cen-ters into the farms, ranches and small towns of America. To the scientist, Ultra-High Frequency Fre-quency (UHF) means a section of the radio spectrum. Another name for the spectrum is radio air waves. The air waves, of course, belong to the people, and it is the job of a government agency to divide among various private and government govern-ment services wireless channels in which to transmit information electronically. elec-tronically. The services to which the government gov-ernment entrusts the public's air waves include police radio, tele-' vision (in the Very High Frequencies), Frequen-cies), FM broadcasts, civil radio, amateur radio, government wireless, wire-less, maritime wireless, ship stations, sta-tions, coastal statioins, maritime navigation, general navigation, radar, air navigation, airport control, con-trol, industrial, scientific and medical medi-cal wireless devices. Fixed Channels Each of the services has fixed "channels" in the air waves and cannot intrude upon its sister services. serv-ices. With television, the number of channels used today is not sufficient suffi-cient to carry video signals to every part of the nation. Since the inception of commercial commer-cial TV, telecasts have been beamed over 12 channels in the relatively rel-atively limited Very High Frequency Fre-quency section of the air waves, but with new stations mushrooming around the country, the Federal Communications Commission decided de-cided it had better call a halt before be-fore TV signals began bumping into each other.. Its decision was prompted prompt-ed by the realization that two television tele-vision signals transmitted over the same channel within range of one another will collide and thus "hash up" the home viewing- screen. The one untapped section of the spectrum which promised plenty of room was UHF. This was the area in which scientists and engineers of the Radio Corporation of America began looking for new television channels. "Up until RCA engineers began looking into it", according to O.B. Hanson, Vice President and Chief engineer of the National Broadcasting Broadcast-ing Company, "the UHF was the Antarctic of the air waves. Every- body knew where it was on the map of the radio spectrum, but nobody had much practical knowledge about it." ( This plunge into the upper frequencies fre-quencies was doubly necessary because be-cause television is a great space grabber. A television picture requires re-quires much more "information" to be transmitted electronically than a radio broadcast. As a matter of fact, a TV station requires 600 times as much room in ether as a radio broadcast station; it uses a band width of 6,000,000 cycles (6 megacycles) compared to 10,000 cycles for standard radio broadcast. broad-cast. Equipment Developed Out of years of expensive research re-search and field tests, equipment was developed which made UHF practical.. It was found that UHF station, properly situated and properly operated op-erated could furnish home viewers a picture that equalled in clarity and definition the standard VHF picture. It was found that present home television sets could receive UHF telecasts through the addition of a simple "tuner" and that receivers could be built to receive both UHF and VHF telecasts. It was found that the enlistment of 70 new UHF channels for television tele-vision would permit an orderly expansion ex-pansion of VHF service without fear of station conflict. These findings provided the basis of the FCC's plans to license nearly near-ly 2,000 new stations throughout America. |