<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>David, </div><div><br></div><div>Thanks for the personal recollections and corrections. More below:</div><div><br></div><div><div>On Jun 4, 2010, at 9:27 AM, David C. Crosthwait wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Jack was well known when I was there. I don't recall If I met him or not. Perhaps on some of the early Ku sports uplinks when NBC contracted with Comstat<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>The article on Sports Video Group's website reports:<br><blockquote type="cite"><div>?Sometime in the mid ?50s, Jack and colleagues had an idea, or more like a vision,? Vacca says. ?He, Don Kivell, and Frank Badami sold NBC technical management on the concept of a central department where instant on-air management decisions would be made. From that idea evolved the BOC [Broadcast Operations Center], the go-to place for all operational decisions on breaking news, sports, and programs.?<br><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>David recalls:<br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Yes, BOC was the "go to place". They ran the operation. Most everyone I worked with in BOC was very professional and courteous. Burbank videotape was across the hall from BOC, so we conversed frequently, especially in hectic, last minute events."<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The article also asserts:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div>"Weir also executed the first live satellite uplink for network news out of Selma, AL, during the days of civil disturbance.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div>David notes:<br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Perhaps John Turner would know, but if I recall correctly, in 1963 or 1965 Selma events, there was no commercial C band uplinks, and I doubt there was for news for at least 10 more years. Perhaps the writer means that Jack broke into the network round-robin at Selma to feed New York. But even that was a routine event for networks. So, I don't know which Selma disturbance she is talking about.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I suspect it's the Sunday, March 7. 1965 march where Alabama state troopers beat the marchers after they crossed over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma</div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches</a></div><div><br></div><div>The only reference I could find involving NBC, Satellites and 1965 is that the Today Show did the first live television broadcast using the (then) new "Early Bird" sat, which was also known as INTELSAT-1. I've not been able to find what frequencies it used for the 200+telephone or one television transmission.</div><div><br></div><div><div>This NASA article, last updated in 2007 has a good chronology of communications satellites:</div><div><a href="http://history.nasa.gov/satcomhistory.html">http://history.nasa.gov/satcomhistory.html</a></div></div><div><br></div><div>Regarding TV in Selma:</div><div>A quick google brings up the Selma/Montgomery market's NBC affiliate's Wikipedia page</div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSFA">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WSFA</a> with this notation:</div><div><br></div><div>"During that period, WSFA gained a national reputation for its coverage (fed periodically to the NBC network) of local events in the Civil Rights Movement such as the Bus Boycott of 1955 involving Rosa Parks and the varied activities of Martin Luther King, Jr. during his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The station's News Director for much of the Civil Rights era was Frank McGee who eventually joined NBC News and hosted Today until his death in 1974."</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McGee_(journalism)">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_McGee_(journalism)</a></div><div><br></div><div>There's this about ABC's coverage:</div><div><a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100408/remnick_excerpt_100408/20100408/">http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100408/remnick_excerpt_100408/20100408/</a></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><br></span></font></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; ">"That night, at around 9 p.m. on the East Coast, ABC television broke into its broadcast of the film "Judgment at Nuremberg," for what the announcer called "a long film report of the assault on Highway 80." The ABC audience that night was huge -- around forty- eight million --and the newscast lasted fifteen minutes before the film resumed."</span></div><div><br></div><div>The SportsVideoGroup article reports:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div>"Weir also worked on the 1972 Moscow games that weren?t.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>David correctly notes:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Munich was '72. Moscow was '80.<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#0000DD"><br></font></font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>NBC had the rights to the 1980 games... and when the US didn't go, NBC didn't go, which cost the network (and RCA) a lot of anticipated income.</div><div><br></div><div>A round of budget cuts closed the NBC News/KNBC-TV Sacramento bureau, where I'd been a Group 3 daily hire. I had the dubious distinction of loading up the van with all the gear (TK-76, BVU-100, etc.) turning out the light, closing the door on that minor chapter of NBC and taking the van to Correspondent Doug Kriegel's house for him to drive to Burbank. So much for that.<br></div><div><br></div><div>Ted</div><div><br></div><div apple-content-edited="true"><div><div><div>Ted Langdell</div><div>Secretary</div></div></div></div></body></html>