Downwinders

I'm the type of person that doesn't take "I don't know" as an answer very well. Things get under my skin that nobody has a good answer for. Like:

1. Why is there a sign above Winnie the Pooh's door that says "Mr. Sanders"?
2. Four states call themselves commonwealths, but how are they any different from the other 46 states?
3. Why do old UHF/VHF televisions have no channel one?

One question that I came up with I discuss in my blog entry Parowan Cemetary. For those who don't want to read it, I mused about why there were so many young people buried in the cemetary in Parowan, Utah.

I just came back from three days of camping in Zion National Park. While there I got to chatting with a shop owner in Springdale. She was a cheerful and attractive woman who I spoke with for quite a while. Eventually I asked her about the Parowan Cemetary mystery. I think asked the right person.

She said that during the days of atomic testing at Nellis AFB the winds usually blew the radioactive fallout over southern Utah. The Parowan/Ceder City area was especially hard hit. The scientists tended to wait for days when the wind blew north-east, away from Las Vegas, and populated California. The lady said her sister died young of cancer as a result, as well as numerous other people she knew. I asked her pull up my blog entry and she recognized most of the family names on the tombstones.

When I got home I looked it up and found this page about it. I'm not saying this explains every death there, but I do think this probably had something to do with it. Just thought some of you might like to know.

Mr Sanders used to own the house Winnie the Pooh lived in. Not much of an explanation is given in the books except he lived under the Name of Mr Sanders, because his door had the name Mr Sanders above it.

As for no channel 1, I believe it came about when dividing up the spectrum, the gave so much over to TV, but then they took an extra channel for another use, I think FM, which happened to be the lower end.

Of course, this is only relevant in North America, as you can tell by BBC 1 in the UK :)

Quote: thecesspit

Mr Sanders used to own the house Winnie the Pooh lived in.

How do you know?

This is lifted from here

Quote:

One answer comes from author Ann Thwaite in her biography, A.A. Milne: The Man Behind Winnie-the-Pooh (Random House, 1990). In her Notes (page 522, referring to page 262) we read: "under the name of Sanders The Sanders referred to was Frank Sanders, who had a printing works in the Snow Hill area of London." This firm apparently printed some of A.A. Milne's work, although all four children's books are printed by Jarrold of Norwich. Information comes from Douglas Sanders, Frank's nephew, 1989. Frank Sanders was certainly a friend of illustrator E.H. Shepard, but there is no reference to him by A.A. Milne that would confirm this private joke.
(Courtesy of John Wheeler).

Quote: Wizard

She said that during the days of atomic testing at Nellis AFB the winds usually blew the radioactive fallout over southern Utah.

Didn't Vegas locals have picnics and drive their cars as close to the testing
area as they could get, just to watch the bomb go off? Those were the days.

Quote:

Why do old UHF/VHF televisions have no channel one?

I wasn't sure you wanted to do each one, but it doesnt look like we ever talked about this one.

Without looking it up, I always understood that the FCC had determined that no station should be channel one, since there would be an uncompetitive advantage with having that channel. Thus the tuner should only click on possible stations. There still is no company that can call themselves Channel One.

The FCC created clear channel stations but didn't ban the commercial use of the name clear channel.

Quote: Wizard

Four states call themselves commonwealths, but how are they any different from the other 46 states?

Why do old UHF/VHF televisions have no channel one?

Not trying to turn this into a bunch of replies that might be urban legends. My apologies if this means you need to split the threa.

As to "Commonwealths" there is no difference in how the state relates to Washington, D.C. As you know, I read deeds and other doccuments from as far back as the 1700s. I can say I have *never* seen a deed say "Commonwealth of PA." They alwasy say, "county of x, state of Pennsylvania." So even then the term was interchangable is some legal sense. All I remember being told in school was that it related to the state charter and how they wrote it.

On the TV thing I remember hearing that very, very, very old sets did have a "Channel 1." But early on the FCC noticed that part of the band causes interference in some other communication so they tool the freequency away. Since there were some TVs in use already it was easier to just drop the "1" than have what would have been every channel in existance drop down one and have to change everything from corporate charter names to letterhead.

There is a flaw or backup to this idea in that in the late 1940s or early 1950s the FCC "re-alligned" many signals for better use and less overlap. Here in Pittsburgh KDKA-TV was on channel 3 when it first went on the air. The FCC made them move to Channel 2 at that time, where they have remained ever since. My dad told me the way it was done was for 30 minutes, during the 12:00 news, they broadcast on both 2 and 3 then stopped transmitting on 3. Some people had 2 TVs and watched it happen on both channels at once.

Quote: Wizard

I'm the type of person that doesn't take "I don't know" as an answer very well.

"I can answer any question provided 'I don't know' is considered a valid answer." Isaac Asimov

:P

Thanks for the explanations on the channel one mystery. I think the explanation that the FCC took it back for other uses, or to avoid overlap, sounds reasonable. Also, I recall that the lower channels generally got worse reception at long distances. For example, when I lived in Santa Barbara I could barely pick up LA stations, and generally got the ones closer to 13 better. Maybe a channel one would have been especially bad.

Quote: EvenBob

Didn't Vegas locals have picnics and drive their cars as close to the testing area as they could get, just to watch the bomb go off? Those were the days.

Yes! They were careful that the wind blew the fallout away from the observers. In pictures you see the observers wearing protective glasses. As far as I know observing the tests in those conditions was fairly safe. I wouldn't do it every day, but I think to watch once would be an experience. They do a pretty good mock viewing at the Atomic Testing Museum, I might add, even including the wind.