A distressed look. That’s probably what a teenager of the 21st century will throw at you if you tell him, just to make him look up for a second from his screen, that exactly 60 years ago, the man succeeded in the first world transmission in direct television images between France and the United States. However, 60 years old is barely less than the age of his grandparents. But hey, TV is something for grandpa and grandma. And how to make him understand the importance of this anniversary at a time when the Tour de France is broadcast by 100 channels (including 60 live) in 190 countries?
It was not recorded images of Yves Montand singing “La Bicyclette” but “La Chansonnette”, another of his hits, that the Pleumeur-Bodou antenna broadcast on July 11, 1962 to the United States. Earlier in the night, at 12:47 a.m. local time (23:47 GMT), the image of Eugene O’Neill, the director of American Telegraph Telephone (ATT), had appeared on the screen of the Pleumeur-Bodou relay station, to cheers and applause: the intercontinental link had worked in both directions and the event was such that General de Gaulle was immediately informed at the Elysée.
A construction site under the deluge
This technological advance had been made possible thanks to the putting into orbit on July 10, 1962 of the telecommunications satellite Telstar 1, from Cape Canaveral, in Florida. On this date, it was the 163rd device of this type to circulate in this space where, in September 2021, the United Nations identified 7,500 active satellites around the Earth. In Pleumeur-Bodou, it had also been a feat to build from October 1961, this relay station quickly baptized the radome. The site was gigantic (8,000 m³ of earthworks, 4,000 m³ of poured concrete) and it took place in deplorable weather conditions, leading to the site being renamed Pleumeur-Gadoue!
But of all that, Jacques Marette, the Minister of the PTT, and the hundred journalists present on the scene from July 10, 1962, did not care. What mattered was capturing this signal and these black and white images transmitted over the Atlantic. And between forgetting to turn on a beacon on the American side and a burnt-out receiver lamp on the French side, this miracle almost didn’t happen. But mondiovision was indeed born on July 11. “The what? your teen will ask without looking up from their screen.
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