Paris Exhibit: 80 Years of French TV

[Steve D.]

Originally Posted by vts1134

I believe the Germans transmitted television signals via the Eiffel Tower to boost the morale of injured German troops recovering in hospitals.

Here's some further info on German TV in occupied France: The German 441-line system, introduced in 1937, remained in effect in Berlin until 1943 when the television tower was destroyed in an air raid. Even more surprising is the fact that the Germans took their television system to occupied France. From 1942 until their retreat in 1944, the Germans broadcast live cabarets as well as newsreels and short films from their captured transmitter on the Eiffel Tower. Both the Berlin and Paris transmitters were almost exclusively used to televise programs for wounded soldiers, with around 500 French-made television sets and about a 100 German sets in Parisian hospitals.
Received image from Paris [8K]
Paris interval signal received at Beachy
Head during the German occupation.
For two years these broadcasts were monitored by the R.A.F. intelligence service. A television receiving station was set up at Beachy Head to intercept transmissions from Paris, for which Wing Cdr. G.T.Kelsey secured two televisions from E.M.I. (a company for which he would later become an employee). The aerial consisted of a curtain array of 32 dipoles slung between two 150ft masts ; this was found necessary to eliminate strong signals from nearby radar stations. The transmisisons often contained news reels of bomb damage to France which provided useful information for the R.A.F.

Attachment: Off screen image of German TV broadcast from occupied France as received by RAF.
-Steve D.