Quote:
Originally Posted by N8AUM
Is this for the controller or the rotor ?
The controller I have has a date stamp 12 - 52 .
I am assuming that it means December 1952
Have not seen any date stamp on rotor.
This old timer thing still works to !
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In reference to this post.
If you go through this link -
http://www.wjactv.com/station/9198153/detail.html
A little bit of history is that when they went on the air in 1949 the very first commercial - which ran while they were setting up their transmitter and studios on the first day - other then the test pattern was a commercial / picture advertisement for the Tenna Rotor Corporation.
The people who ran the television station at that time realized that in order for the people in the different markets such as Pittsburgh was going to have to move their antenna physically to receive the Johnstown market.
The very first television viewers were mostly ham radio operators who strategically placed their antenna's and receivers on the highest hills around Pittsburgh for this momentous event.
You need to realize that at that time, WDTV in Pittsburgh had a 100% market share.
When you turned on your television - it was on channel 3 WDTV and when you were done watching television - you shut it off!
At the same time - if you lived too far away from the transmitter or did not have a antenna of sufficient size - you got nothing - because there was no other stations in that area of the country.
WDTV was the golden spike of communications because DuMont was able to get the phone company to string Coax cable through the coal patch region of Pennsylvania which was able to link up the New York stations to the Chicago stations which in turn a couple of years later was connected the whole way to the west coast.
IN theory there was only one signal, so television stations and networks shared air time with each other and network affiliates would pick and choose which stations they wished to broadcast.
If you look at the JAC - Johnstown Automotive Corporation - they had many out of network shows such as Jackie Gleason which was originally a DuMont program and also Howdie Doodie.
The significance of DuMont is that he is the person who created the structure that we recognize in television today. Things like multiple commercials per a program and not just one sponsor per a program.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network
Sometimes in order to understand the future - you first have to understand the past!