science · 15 August 1960 · 64 years ago
In 1960, a phone link was tested via the newly launched Echo 1 ballooon satellite on its 31st circuit of the earth. The experiment was conducted by Bell Telephone Laboratories. A call originating via a normal telephone land line to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Goldstone, California, was patched into a radio beam bounced off the ten-story satellite balloon in orbit 1,000 miles above the earth. The radio signal was picked up on the other coast at the Bell Laboratory at Holmdel, New Jersey, where it was connected through a conventional telephone exchange to be connected to a receiving telephone. Reception of both a two-way voice conversation and music was satisfactory, and without distortion. The satellite was passive, just a reflector of the radio signal. The New York Times reported the test.
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