Prepping Lake Placid for the 1980 Olympics - AT&T Archives

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The first Olympics to be transmitted via television globally were the 1964 Innsbruck Games, carried via the Telstar satellite, which was engineered by the Bell System. AT&T's involvement with bringing the Olympics to the world continued in 1980 with new transmission facilities and one of the very first lightwave systems in the United States.
Lightwave, more commonly known as fiber optic transmission, had only been tested in Connecticut and Chicago when it was installed in Lake Placid for the 1980 Winter Olympics. The fiber optic system proved remarkably adaptable to extremes in temperature - when other types of cabling required recalibration of equipment, the lightguide system did not. The system was able to handle multiple camera feeds via microwave transmission to the Comstar satellite.
AT&T's assistance to Olympics broadcasts didn't end in 1980. AT&T managed the video and audio transmission facilities for NBC for the Seoul and Calgary Olympics in 1988. At the Nagano Games in 1998, the first application of digital broadcast technology was provided by the company to CBS, for television. At the Sydney Games in 2000, the winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002, and the Athens Games in 2004, AT&T arranged the satellite transmissions for NBC. And for Salt Lake City, AT&T built a new network of 8,000 trunk lines, dozens of new base stations, and the internal Olympics broadband network that linked 36 locations during the Games.
Footage Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

[@balicaalesiateodora]

it’s such an honor because my uncle won the olympics in 1980 at bobsleigh, he is romanian! such an honor !!!

[@tiredofTicks]

Wow what a winter Olympian legend thanks for your uncle

[@jeffreyadams8345]

What they did to achieve all that technology was a huge task especially in 1980

[@kenmunro8317]

Thanks for posting this AT&T - sadly there's not a lot of captured coverage from those 1980 Winter Olympic Games online. And for those interested, these were AT&T's "Early" Days of what would create Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies,... in the span of 2 decades,...

[@dr.bunterhidenbrobruh5502]

This video reminded me of grammar school in the 1980s and the videos shown in class.

[@cowboysfan1964]

Eric Heiden. There's greatness!

[@NMeyer0]

How far we've come in such a short time

[@Billsoundmaster]

The "Good Old Days" of television production..

[@voices_vary]

That jump shot is fantastic!!!

[@tiredofTicks]

Kellogg’s X lake placid mascot Roni the raccon

[@voices_vary]

Super!!!

[@michaela.2261]

Best place to have period.

[@olympiclinic]

More snow then, than there is now!

[@dr.bunterhidenbrobruh5502]

The music/sound effects in the background at 12:20 sounds like On The Run by Pink Floyd. 😁

[@cowboysfan1964]

Herb brooks formed that team in one day! Most thought he was crazy! But it turned up gold for him!

[@frances7871]

jeffrey adams He actually didn't form the team in one day, they had a week's worth of tryouts where the players were divided into teams based on where they were from and they played scrimmages against eachother. That was just for the movie ;)

[@jimegan6848]

Herb Brooks used several years of coaching U of Minn players, coaching against others, and thoroughly analyzing how he could carve from NCAA talent the right combination and cohesiveness to beat the Red Army team at its own game. He wasn't looking for "the best players." Previous US teams had been collections of all-stars which hadn't remotely had time to gel. Brooks was looking for the best team: no prima donnas, crisp passing, skating in sync, top conditioning. There would be no wheezing in the 3rd period. The players who tried out were there by invitation. He knew it was just a matter of paring down that short list. After that he threw them into a long series of games during which none of them was still guaranteed a spot.

[@cardbored_]

Lake Placid is awesome. If you ever get the chance to go, do it!

[@cowboysfan1964]

Ha ha the tv!

[@partizanovacpartizanovcic2018]

yugoslavie the best cantry