Asked by
Naveen Misra
in
Electronics & Gadgets
at
8:28 AM on February 03, 2009
Santosh Kuma's Answer
Invention of Cable TV
The first cable TV system was most likely created in the late 50's to early sixties. At that time, they were called CATV systems, or community antenna systems, where a town was sandwiched in a valley or where the closest TV stations were so far away that the normal rooftop antenna couldn't receive a clear picture.
So, what they usually did was erect a large tower and put the antennas up high. Then they would amplify the signal and send it to their cable feeds to the homes. It was a bit more complicated than that, but this is basically what they did.
Then someone got the idea to set up some weather gauges and put a video camera on it, feeding an RF modulator on some open channel and that was the birth of the local cable company.
After that, satellite communications became possible and then program providers could send their shows all over the country. The cable providers would set up their `head end`, which was a collection of satellite dishes and other equipment to be able to send the signal down their cable, for a fee, of course.
That's a brief explanation and it would take some research to identify the first `official` cable company, but by and large, that's how many got their starts.
Answered at
8:29 AM on February 03, 2009
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