Historic satellite transmissions

Thought that this might be of interest to a certain mod, especially the BBC/ITV/Eurovision bit.

"BBC4 TV recently broadcast, as part of its look at Sixties TV, a fascinating programme about TV sports coverage. It included some captions I've never seen before. The programme will no doubt be repeated in the not too distant future: it's well worth watching.
Photo 10 shows the NBC caption transmitted via the non-geostationary satellite Telstar 2 prior to the Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston boxing match in New York in 1964. The match was shown on BBC TV and was the first ever to be transmitted via satellite. No doubt the reason for the second part being in French was for the earth station at Brittany. This was used to receive and transmit via Telstar, along with Goonhilly in Cornwall and the US station at Andover, Maine.
Photo 11 shows the NHK, Tokyo caption used for the EBU satellite feed during the 1964 Olympics. The satellite was an experimental US one called Syncom. It was the first geosynchronous satellite, i.e. it provided uninterrupted transmissions. In comparison the earlier Telstar satellites, which were in low Earth orbit, required several ground stations to track them because of constant movement relative to Earth - the signal was lost when a Telstar satellite moved below the receiving station's horizon. Geosynchronous satellites still required some ground-station tracking they were not absolutely still, as geostationary ones are, but nevertheless Syncom was a major advance in satellite technology. The first true geostationary satellite, Early Bird, was a year or so away. It was also known as Intelsat 1, and was located above the Atlantic Ocean.
According to the programme the Syncom feed was received in Germany and passed to the UK via the then terrestrial Eurovision network. The German ARD/NDR EBU caption transmitted prior to link up with the satellite is shown in Photo 12. There was no sound with the vision signal, presumably because of the number of language feeds required by EBU broadcasters and the limited bandwidth provided by Syncom. Digital transmission would have solved that problem, but was several decades in the future! The audio feed to the BBC came via a new undersea cable, which unfortunately failed during the games. As a result the studio commentary in London relied on SW radio links to Japan. How things have changed in forty years!
Moving on to 1966 Photo 13, though not actually via satellite, shows the combined BBC and ITV caption used that year prior to the World Cup coverage from England to the Eurovision network. The World Cup was seen around the world however, so no doubt it was transmitted via Early Bird or elsewhere."




Television Magazine, Oct 2004