CablenTV is one of those things that was invented by a lot of differentnpeople, working separately but far apart.
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nIfnyou Google “Who invented cable TV?” you will get severalndifferent answers. No matter who is claimed as the inventor, though,nthe timing is roughly the same: cable TV became a thing in 1948.
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nNow,nwhy would anyone pay for cable TV when they could just “pluck”nbroadcasts out of the air for free? The answer is that many peoplencouldn’t get broadcast TV because they lived in a remote areanor a valley—places where the television signals weren’t floatingnaround, accessible to the ordinary antenna on a TV set. So brightnpeople here and there erected large antennas on a hilltop or tallnbuilding and then ran a cable from that antenna to the televisions.
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Onenof the guys who did this was Ed Parsons from Astoria, Oregon.
Onenof the guys who did this was Ed Parsons from Astoria, Oregon.n
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nParsonsnowned a radio station, and so he was in the “broadcast business.”nHis wife had seen a TV at a broadcasters’ convention, and she wantednone. Parsons heard that a radio station in Seattle was going to beginnto broadcast TV signals, so he put a large antenna on the roof of thenAstoria Hotel. He then ran a coaxial cable from the antenna, acrossnthe street to his apartment, to a television set that he bought.
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nAndnon this date in 1948, Ed Parsons and his wife became the only peoplenin Astoria that could watch television in their home!
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Ofncourse, other people heard about it and wanted to be able to watchnTV, too, so soon Parsons was installing cable TV in other peoples’nhomes, as well. (He didn’t charge a monthly cable TV charge, but hendid of course have people pay for the materials and his work innrunning cable from his antenna to their brand-new television sets.)
Ofncourse, other people heard about it and wanted to be able to watchnTV, too, so soon Parsons was installing cable TV in other peoples’nhomes, as well. (He didn’t charge a monthly cable TV charge, but hendid of course have people pay for the materials and his work innrunning cable from his antenna to their brand-new television sets.)n
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nBynthe way, one of the other names for early cable TV was CATV, ornCommunity Antenna Television.
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nAlsonon this date: n
nAlsonon this date: n
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nIndependence Day in Suriname
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nEvacuation Day
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