Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1953)

4 nounced date by 6 months — is owned by South Bend Tribune, radio pioneer whose AM station WSBT began operation in 1921. Some 100,000 families live within 25-mi. radius, which includes such cities as Elkhart, Goshen & LaPorte, Ind. , and Niles, Mich. South Bend is allocated two commercial uhf channels, one educational, no vhf. Second commercial channel is contested by 3 groups, including U of Notre Dame. There are no applications for uhf channel allocated to Elkhart, 15 mi. east of South Bend. But TV isn't new to area. Chicago * s 3 stations (73 mi.) and Kalamazoo ' s one (55 mi.) offer viewable signal to anyone willing to meet it half way with high-gain antennas, tall masts, rotors, boosters, etc. And about 35,000 in the area have been willing, according to vhf antenna count made by Indiana & Michigan Electric Co. TV & AM operations are completely integrated in offices and studios occupying top floor of recently modernised Tribune Building. Still active in management of all Tribune operations is publisher Frederick A. Miller, who at 85 is legendary figure in South Bend. And from station mgr. Neal B. Welch down, all personnel have both TV & AM duties. No new key people have been added for the TV operation. Mr. Welch himself was with WSBT for 11 years, worked for Tribune before that. Station now has 41 hours of programming weekly — 5-10:15 p.m. weekdays, and noon-10 p.m. Sundays, test pattern beginning 10 a.m. daily. Though AM station is CBS affiliate, WSBT-TV takes about equal amount of time from CBS & NBC — totaling about 15 hours of commercial network shows weekly. Station's policy is to expand broadcast day slowly, as sponsors are added. Says manager Welch: "We intend to back into afternoon programming as it becomes commercially sound." Storm center of local controversy is station's policy of barring beer advertising, as does newspaper. To many TV fans, this means losing some fights and other sporting events — and Tribune's letter column is forum for lively debate on subject. * * * * Station's first remote this week is something of a coup in basketball-crazy Indiana. WSBT-TV plans to televise sectional and regional state high school tournaments on afternoon & evening of Feb. 28 & March 6, under sponsorship of local gas company. "We hadn't intended to do any remotes so soon," said Mr. Welch, "but this was a great opportunity." To get TV rights, station had to guarantee gate receipts — no difficult task since tournament traditionally is sellout. Station owns no mobile equipment, will use studio cameras. Bell System relay equipment. WSBT-TV' s studio facilities consist of converted 40x60-ft. radio studio and control room with 4 cameras and film chain. Programs are piped from the studio to transmitter south of city by Bell System cable and microwave. Network programs ;re taken from Chicago-Toledo microwave which passes near South Bend. Transmitter is located at AM antenna site, uses old FM tower built up to height of 479 ft., TV antenna being some 540 ft. above average terrain. Using 1-kw RCA transmitter, current ERP is 17.7 kw, with boost to 170 kw planned as soon as the equipment is available. Horizon is 31 mi. from antenna, but signal actually can be picked up considerably farther away if proper receiving antenna is used. Coverage actually surprised everyone, including chief engineer Art O'Neil, sparkplug of efficient TV-AM engineering staff. Tests by RCA showed "excellent" 5600 uv/m picture 30 mi. east, "very good" (2400 uv/m) 25 mi. south and 25 mi. west. In north, signal tapers off rapidly at about 25 mi. Everyone we talked to in area agreed picture generally is excellent and easy to pick up. There are very few "shadows" because of flatness of terrain. Mr. O'Neil, who describes himself as "really sold on uhf," says the "fill-in" and "spill-over" behind obstructions "are greater than we anticipated, but not as great as in vhf." * * * * Good relationship with trade has been one of outstanding achievements of WSBT-TV. From time CP was granted, station has kept dealers and distributors informed of progress and problems through meetings and bulletins. For instance, a recent bulletin reported that 71 modifications of station equipment have been received from RCA since December; most are yet to be made. Another describes in detail how to