Scrapbook 3: High Quality Telstar Test

HIGH QUALITY TELSTAR TEST

Colour pictures success

BY OUR SCIENCE CORRESPONDENT

THE Goonhilly team visited London yesterday and reported that, after three weeks of experiment with the satellite Telstar, the results had exceeded all their expectations.

High quality circuits were proved both for normal, and colour television, and blocks of telegraph communication where up to 80 telephone conversations are made at the same time. Colour pictures received back from the satellite appeared indistinguishable from pictures about to be transmitted.

Telstar also exceeded expectations in the time it is usable on any one transit. Before launching, scientists felt the satellite would have to be 5-7 deg. above the horizon before signals could be satisfactory.

In fact, reception and transmission are both good when the satellite is half a degree above the horizon. The satellite is then actually about one degree under the horizon, but due to refraction of radio waves it appears to be just above.

COSTS CUT LIKELY

This means that in future one satellite would provide a longer service between two countries than had been imagined. Some of the foreseen expense would thus be reduced.

Capt. C. F. Booth, in charge of the communication satellite project for the Post Office, admitted that poor reception from the satellite on its first possible transit over Britain was due to human error. It seems someone misread international agreements about polarisation of waves.

This polarisation error meant that the aerial was not organised to receive radio waves in the same way that they were transmitted. One small part was set at 90 deg to the position it should have been in.

When this part was turned through 90 deg the Goonhilly aerial worked perfectly.