STEPPING ALONG WITH TELEVISION

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] stepping along with television we certainly stepped in a hurry just now all the way from Waukesha Wisconsin to a television studio in New York [Music] here are the lights the cameras the sound equipment all typical of what you'd see at any of the several television broadcasting companies even so it's a long long way to walk the shop often these dancers leap like a sunbeam across 800 miles of hills and lakes and prairies well let's see for ourselves starting in a New York studio let's follow their performance along a pathway that turns a large chunk of our country into one tremendous stage the cameras of course catch the action in terms of light and shade they then translated into electrical impulses which pass through small cables on the floor [Music] these cables in turn lead to the control room overlooking the studio [Music] here we seek technical manage us ting the television image from this point on the program is channeled in the bell system wires which now take over to carry the program on its journey riding on local telephone company facilities the program speeds underground to a broadcasting tower and thence to the thousands of television sets throughout the metropolitan area all at the same time however it is speeding underground to a telephone communications building many blocks away ah here are the dances again we'll be seeing them quite often in other Bell system control rooms as we follow the program all the way to that living room in Waukesha Wisconsin a careful check on the image and the music and we're really on our way underground the program travels on a coaxial cable Highway then all in the twinkling of an eye it drops off in Philadelphia here in the telephone building we hurry along to another control room where we again check in on the dancers incidentally a line takes the program to the top of a television tower whence it is broadcast locally but in the meantime and far quicker than it takes to tell it it speeds on its way to Pittsburgh here let's pause for a woman just to watch the dances and listen to the music [Music] but now let's resume our journey westward on to Cleveland and Toledo and Chicago here in Chicago our coaxial cable highway takes us once more to the control room of a telephone building and sure enough the dances are right here with us hmm this lady might almost have stepped right out of a famous poem a dancing shape an image gave to haunt to startle and wail a after now the program has traveled on coaxial cable new york to chicago all in the flesh now in chicago we make an instant shift to another bail system means of communication known as radio relay let's interrupt our journey here on the top of a telephone building in Chicago while we see what this radio relay is all about this square faced giant horn is an antenna for sending a special kind of radio wave the antenna concentrates the radio waves into a very narrow beam aimed straight as a rifle shot to a receiving tower on top of this tower a similar horn captures the signals and channels them through a hollow metal pipe to a series of amplifiers which build up their power restored to normal strength the signals are now passed on through a sending antenna to a second radio relay tower here then in essence is what is known as radio relay with the signals passed from one tower to another over any distance that may be required [Music] but let's return now to our television program as it's beamed from the top of a telephone building in Chicago thanks to radio relay it's an easy trip northward to Milwaukee and to a receiving antenna on top of the local telephone building now down through the building to the control room and what do you know the dancers again and not the least bit tired from their long journey but naturally they came here almost on the wings of life and now they simply ride up to a sending antenna zip over to a television broadcasting station and jump out in all directions among the many places they'll and guess where Waukesha of course now it's easy they're picked up on a television antenna on a certain house and the trip from the New York studio is finished the time just about the 200th part of a second [Music] I'll answer it mother I think it's Jack oh is that you Jack Jack who's Jack this is your grandad calling from Boston wonderful mother it's crabs Oh grandpa you'll never guess what we're doing we're watching a television program coming all the way from New York oh I don't know about me talking to you all the way from Boston listen honey after what I've seen in the last 50 years nothing surprises me anymore 50 years yes a lot has happened since granddad as a little boy first jangled an old-fashioned telephone in those days it was a great event to talk in the telephone at all let alone from Boston to Waukesha Wisconsin then from his window in Boston he saw the sky full of wires later on the wires began to disappear into cables not much bigger than a man's wrist carrying more conversations to more and more places until finally the long-distance telephone network of today came into being [Music] in the same way grandpa saw wires for carrying radio programs blow for nothing only 25 years ago to the present nationwide special network over which the bell system regularly carries programs to more than a thousand local stations owned by broadcasting companies recently grandpa has been hearing a lot about coaxial cable and radio relay how they're good for carrying both telephone conversations and television programs you may think that's remarkable but not grandpa say I've been expecting things like this for more than 20 years you see nothing surprises granddad anymore so if he should look at a map of Bell System television networks as they are today he'd probably tell you it's just history repeating itself even now six terminal cities and eight others in between are connected on a network extending from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River making it possible for millions of people to be eyewitnesses of scenes as far as 1500 miles away what's more the Bell System will keep on stepping along with television as fast as the requirements of the television industry are clearly demonstrated considering those system history this is no pipe dream pipe dream of course not why have you asked me it's just plain logical