The history of the Conestoga Television Association is being written by George Gadbois P.E., W3FEY. I would like to hear from former members of CTA or from anyone with information on the activities of the association. Stories about personal experiences during the operations would be especially interesting.
Old FCC records are stored in the National Archives in College Park, MD. The CTA filings should be available in their files. I do not have the experimental license grants or the required reports to the FCC. There are references to the FCC reports made in the extant CTA records. Any volunteers to research the Archives?
Thanks to Lloyd Jury who provided most of the documents related to the operations of the Conestoga Television Association. Also thanks to Alexander B. Magoun, Ph.D, Executive Director of the David Sarnoff Library, for supplying background data and research hints.
A group of RCA Lancaster employees and friends formed the Conestoga Television Association in 1945 to bring television to Lancaster County, PA. It was not possible to receive Philadelphia television stations directly in most of Lancaster County at that time. The group put experimental station W3XDA, later W3XBR, on the air 23 Mar 1946 from a site on the Welch Mountains east of Lancaster. The objective was to relay television broadcasts from WPTZ in Philadelphia to Lancaster.
The Welsh Mountains east of Lancaster were surveyed in early Spring 1945 and a suitable site was located with an available building and available power. A site search report was not written until September 1947.
Several trips were made to the site between 22 Jun 1945 and 13 July 1945 to make received signal strength measurements from WPTZ. Measurements were made with a dipole antenna at about 25 feet above ground. The signal to noise ratio varied from 19/1 to 31/1 during the various tests. Some noise in the picture was noted.
On August 15, 1945 Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, signing the surrender on September 2, 1945 on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo bay which officially ended World War II. The preceding preparations for a television repeater by CTA were all made before the war ended.
Shortages of materials impeded CTA progress during and for some time after the war. The club was also impeded by very limited information being available on UHF techniques. The MIT radiation lab series book, Principles of Microwave Circuits, was not published until 1948. The whole UHF and microwave spectrum was unallocated and thus available for Amateur use before WWII with very little in equipment or techniques to support use. The MIT Radiation Lab series of books was the major source of information for experimenters during that period.
The W3XBR experimental license authorized transmission on 590 to 610 mHz with a peak power of 200w. The first video transmitter operated on 600 mHz with a pair of 2C43 lighthouse tubes in the final amplifier. Average power output was about 4 watts. Video modulation was double sideband AM. Initial testing was video relay only. Sound was added later.
The early efforts of the group were reported in Radio-Electronics magazine with a front page article in May 1949. This was the first all amateur television repeater. The repeater was not a Radio Amateur repeater because it was operating under experimental licenses granted by the FCC.
In 1952, CTA received experimental license KG2XDI granting permission to increase power to 5000 watts. Surviving CTA records do not indicate that any kilowatt plus transmitter was ever built.
The freeze on UHF licenses was lifted in 1952 and Channel 21, 512 mHz was assigned to Lancaster. Channel 36, 600 mHz was assigned to Williamsport, PA
In 1998, a group of RCA/Thomson employees formed an Amateur Radio club with a station in the former Conestoga Television Association terminal in the Lancaster RCA plant. The club obtained the call W3RCA and operated from the penthouse station until Thomson closed the Lancaster facility in 2006.
Additional information will be posted as time permits and/or it becomes available. A Conestoga Television Association library report by Helen K. Glick 25 January 1949 shows many documents not in the extant files.
Copyright 2007 Conestoga Television Association