When TV announcer made one blush
Indians had a glimpse of television for the first time in 1955, when a demo TV studio was set up in the first Indian Industrial Fair at the exhibition grounds (Pragati Maidan of today). Its programmes could be viewed on TV sets installed at many points at the exhibition grounds. A few years later, Doordarshan, Delhi, began.
During the early ’70s, someone in Shimla discovered that TV signals from Lahore and Delhi could be received at some locations. It was probably a chance discovery. But it generated excitement among Shimla residents. Everyone wanted to own a television set and antennas started emerging on rooftops.
Television became a new thing, at and around Shimla. People at Solan also started exploring it, when the presence of a signal from the Delhi station was detected in some parts of the town. However, one had to use a big antenna to receive the signal. Some parts of Solan could receive the signal from the Amritsar transmitter, too, but for this, the antenna had to be at a height of 40 ft. The picture was, however, still not very clear and consistent, but people did not mind. At times, TV owners had to climb the roof and move the antenna left or right to get a clearer picture. Many a time, monkeys would reach the antenna, change its direction and the picture would disappear. Then the antenna had to be brought again to its original position by moving it. This was not a simple task. One person would move the antenna and another would sit beside the TV. The person at the antenna would keep enquiring in a loud voice about the clarity of the picture, and the person at the TV set would answer in the same pitch (there were no cell phones then). If the picture was still not clear, then one would be advised to buy a signal booster that was priced between Rs 150 and Rs 500.
The TV transmitter at Kasauli had not been installed at that time. The residents of Solan were tuning in to Delhi or Amritsar stations. Then the transmitter at Mussoorie was installed. Nahan was in range of this transmitter. Here the signal strength was quite strong and the picture was clearer, just like local stations. So in Himachal Pradesh, Nahan was the first town to receive proper signal, and therefore, the TV sets there had the best picture quality.
Our neighbour in Solan, an executive engineer with the HP Electricity Board, happened to visit Nahan during those days. The rest house where he stayed had a TV and he watched programmes telecast from the Mussoorie transmitter. The sharpness and clarity of the picture was beyond his imagination. He was very impressed and felt excited. On his return from Nahan, he told us about his TV experience. ‘O yaar, the picture was so clear that when the woman announcer greeted viewers with a namaskar, it looked so live that I could not see eye to eye with her, and blushed!’
The young TV viewers of today will hardly believe it.
