A few weeks back, I stumbled upon this story published in Vice, written by Ernie Smith, about why Channel 37 doesn’t exist. On its face, it doesn’t appear to look like a story that is centered for the most part around a radio telescope located in Danville. The story discusses this radio telescope located at the Vermilion River Observatory, which at the time was built out by the Unviersity of Illinois for scientific purposes. No surprises there as the U of I has always been on the forefront of discovering things by way of science. Turns out, as the expansion of televsion began, the frequency the radio telescope was utilizing became of high demand.
The story dives into the convergence between scientific and commercial needs for radio and television frequencies, and is a pretty interesting read that won’t take up much of your time. It just so happens that a 600-mile radius of a 610 MHz freqency that centered in Danville played a significant role in the expansion of television in the 1950s and 1960s. Science is neat!
Top image from University of Illinois.
