According to participant GlobeCast (a subsidiary of France
Telecom), the Smithsonian and French Embassy on Thursday, July 12, will mark the
50th anniversary of the first live satellite-delivered transatlantic TV
transmission,
which it says was sent from the town of Pleumeur-Bodou, France, to Andover, Maine,
via the Telstar satellite.
The event will be marked by a live link between Pleumeur-Bodou
and the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., for presentations and
roundtable discussions featuring government officials and satellite and telecom
companies. According to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
(IEEE), the transmission was actually sent July 11, 1962,
at 7:17 and received at 7:47. But the time difference would have made it July
12 in France when the signal came through.
According to IEEE, that first image was of an American flag
-- an upgrade from the Felix the Cat statue that was one of the first TV
pictures transmitted during early field testing of TV transmissions back in the
1930s.
GlobeCast will provide the technical services to ensure the
July 12, 2012, linkup is also successful.
