Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1954)

2 Signal Officer Mai. Gen. George I. Back pronounced it a huge success, but cautioned that it won't replace other modes of communication and needs more experimentation. The black-&-white pictures, while suffering occasionally from vibration, were generally sharp and clear, even those from the L— 20 plane aloft. The color pictures were fantastically real — whether of terrain, equipment, shell bursts, flames, blueprints, personnel — even on little 15-in. screens. RCA and the Army brass were so proud of job that they made a color kine recording to show to President Eisenhower. Smooth running of the show was a tribute to Barry Wood, NBC color production chief, ^0 coordinated it. Narration on closed circuit was a highly professional TV as well as military job by Capt. Robert Berry, a onetime Baltimore announcer. Colorcast's narration was by the always competent Ben Grauer. * * * * Culmination of proposal he first made 20 years ago to employ TV in military tactics as it actually was by the Navy, which flew robot TV planes over Jap-held Pacific islands during the latter stages of the war — the event was a prideful one for RCA's Brig. Gen. David Sarnoff. Basking in the kudos heaped upon him and his company by Gen. Ridgway and the others, he took occasion to engage in his favorite pastime of philosophizing and predicting. Gen. Sarnoff recalled how sound was added to sight by a reluctant motion picture industry, then sight to sound by radio ("TV is now the dog, radio the tail"). Now TV is added to radio and all the other signal apparatus of the military "to provide increased combat efficiency and make possible a substantial saving of lives." "I foresee," he went on, "the extensive use of military TV not only as a tactical system for use in combat, but also for communication between the center of command in Washington or elsewhere and theatres of operation across the seas." In other words, not just the field command, but maybe the high command many hundreds or thousands of miles distant, might actually watch a real battle in progress! NILLION-WATT UHF STATIONS THIS YEAR? General Electric this week announced ingenious method of delivering FCC-authorized maximum power of one megawatt (1,000,000 watts) from a uhf station — and promises to have it ready for use late this year. The trick: Take three 12-kw amplifiers, modify them so there are 4 visual amplifiers, 2 aural, and hook them up in parallel, using 1-kw transmitter as driver. This gives 45-kw transmitter power, which will yield 1000-kw ERP when used with a 25-gain antenna, based on 90% waveguide efficiency. The beauty of this equipment, say GE engineers, is that it's completely tried and tested proven in the field in GE's 12-kw and 1-kw transmitters — and won't have to go through the "de-bugging" period usually associated with radically new products. It uses six 12-kw klystrons. 2 f ilterplexers of same type used in 12-kw transmitters. Electrical power consumption is about 3 times that of GE 12-kw. Price of complete 45-kw transmitter has been set at S225,000 plus klystron rental, as compared with |153,000 for single GE 12-kw transmitter. To convert GE 12-kw transmitter to 45-kw will cost 5165,000. Changing 1-kw transmitter to 45-kw will cost station $175,000, GE says. New transmitter doesn't alter GE’s plans to produce 60-kw transmitter powered by Eimac klystron and due late in 1955 (Vol. 10:18). New 45-kw will be made for those uhf telecasters who want high power in a hurry. RCA has announced 60-kw uhf unit, to sell at about $329,000, available in third quarter 1955 (Vol. 10:28). NOTRE DAME'S COMMERCIAL 2 MORE STARTERS: FCC finalized Ch. 46 grant to Notre Dame U at South Bend, where it recently purchased an AM local (WHOT) and plans to operate both TV-radio on commercial basis under supervision of Father Edmund P. Joyce, exec, v.p. of the university. He's now planning TV equipment, mustering staff. Area has sizeable "uhf population" already, due to Tribune's pioneer WSBT-TV (Ch. 34), which started in Dec. 1952. It's around 90 mi. from nearest vhf's in Chicago & Kalamazoo. That was FCC's only new station action of week in which 2 new vhf stations began testing — to bring on-air total to 393 (122 of them uhf). Week's starters :