45 Years Ago Today…Apollo 11 Heads For The Moon: Day 3

Here is the third of eight daily articles written for Eyes Of A Generation by Jodie Peeler on this historic event. Enjoy and share!
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For most of the United States, live coverage of Apollo 11’s journey was easily accomplished through the same network relays that brought regular programming. Viewers in Alaska, however, got to watch Apollo 11 through an unusual military-civilian partnership.

In 1969, the network programming that came to Alaska was via film and videotape that was flown up and bicycled among stations. Alaska did not yet have a civilian ground station; although what became the Bartlett Earth Station was under construction near Talkeetna, it wouldn’t be ready until 1970.

Knowing the historical significance of Apollo 11, Alaska’s broadcasters and its Congressional delegation, Senators Ted Stevens and Mike Gravel and Rep. Howard Pollock, sought help for bringing live coverage of Apollo 11 to Alaska. Out of all this came a plan to use Army satellite assets to beam pictures from Fort Monmouth, New Jersey to a military ground station flown to Anchorage. A military satellite over the Pacific would relay the coverage from Fort Monmouth to the Anchorage ground station.

This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, though. For one, the satellite would have to transmit at an awkward angle to reach Alaska. The television signal would need to be converted for transmission via the military satellite link, and then converted back for civilian use. Audio for the broadcasts would be transmitted separately and had to be synchronized with the video.

On top of that came the challenge of choosing which coverage would be transmitted. By lottery, CBS was chosen, and the broadcasts sent to Alaska would come from the live feed of WCBS-TV in New York. However, the Army refused to transmit the commercials, and technicians at Fort Monmouth cut them out of the feed to Alaska.

In spite of all the technical issues, and even though the final plans weren’t in place until 72 hours before the mission began, the unusual arrangement came through and the people of the 49th State got to watch history as it happened. The CBS feed was shared by all three Anchorage television stations, coordinated through CBS affiliate KTVA-TV.

Since the coverage was viewable only in Anchorage, many Alaskans made arrangements to spend the historic days there so they could witness history being made, and travel companies pitched in to help. For instance, Alaska Airlines offered $39.90 flights from Fairbanks to Anchorage for the week of Apollo 11.

As pioneer Alaska broadcaster (and KTVA-TV founder) Augie Hiebert, who played a crucial role in making it all happen, stated in a press release: “I had no idea that we were going to get this kind of quality on a circuit like this that was put together at the last minute and not designed for civilian television in the first place. I think the military did a fantastic job.”

By the way, the CBS color signal was transmitted, in color, on an old Dumont black and white transmitter that had been modified by the KTVA engineers the year before.

Tomorrow: A word about the sponsors that made the networks’ $11 million spectacular possible (but whose messages didn’t reach Alaska).

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