History Is Made

Long before H-hour, millions of expectant televiewers across the U.S. were gathered around their sets. As the minutes ticked by, the announcer on News Nob, ten miles from Yucca Flat, Nev., described the scene tensely. Only 15 minutes before H-hour, the picture grew shaky, wobbled, then disappeared. When it came back, there was a new camera angle, this time from Charleston Peak, 57 miles away. Then, at 9:30 a.m. P.S.T., viewers got what they were waiting for: a live telecast of an atomic explosion, the first ever covered on a television network.*

But instead of a blinding blast of whiteness, viewers saw a pinpoint of white, surrounded by an oval of blackness. Three minutes later, the nearer cameras on News Nob were back in operation, televising the mushrooming of smoke as it climbed into the sky. The TV spectacle itself was anticlimactic, partly because the white glare produced blackness on the electronic tube. But the man responsible for the coverage had made television history.

The main problem for Klaus Landsberg, 35, general manager of Los Angeles' KTLA, was circuits. Even A.T. & T., which supplies cross-country TV lines, said last month that there was not enough time to set up relays for the big show. Landsberg, who has been working with electronics for more than half his life, decided to try the 264-mile relay to Mt. Wilson anyway. Landsberg's daring plan:

P: From cameras on News Nob, the signal was beamed to the Atomic Energy Commission's control point a quarter of a mile away, then to a second relay near the top of snow-covered Charleston Peak, about 46 miles farther on.

P: From Charleston Peak, 140 miles--the longest jump ever attempted--to a relay on unnamed Mt. X. To get 12,000 Ibs. of equipment to the peak, Landsberg borrowed a Marine Corps helicopter, which did the job in just 48 hours.

P: From Mt. X, about 53 miles to Mt. San Antonio, Calif., where equipment had been sledded up in snow weasels.

P: From Mt. San Antonio, about 23 miles to KTLA's transmitter atop Mt. Wilson, and from there across the U.S. via coaxial cable.

Landsberg's circuit was ready days before the blast, but his big trouble began just before H-hour. The AEC's power supply at the test site failed, so the telecast switched to a camera on Charleston Peak. When the power on News Nob came on again, the cameras did not have enough warmup time to catch the explosion. Result: TV Announcer Fred Henry described the first three minutes from ten miles away, while cameras recorded it from a distance of 57 miles.

In all, Landsberg used six cameras and 39 engineers, cameramen, assistants and announcers. Total cost of the relay setup, which was built in six days: about $50,000--or $40,000 (and 23 weeks) less than A.T. & T. had estimated.

* In February 1951, Los Angeles' KTLA set up a camera on Mt. Wilson, 300 miles from Frenchman's Flats, Nev., and televised a blast for local audiences.

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