NEW DISHES FOR YOUR KITCHEN TABLE 

Many words in the English language have changed their meaning during the past decade? Gay, obscene and environment today mean something quite different than a few years ago. Now dishes for the kitchen table takes on another meaning.

One of the latest developments in technology is the Super High Frequency (SHF) flat satellite dishes in use in Japan. They are but 24" high, 17 inches wide and just 3/4 of an inch thick. They weigh about eight pounds. If, from your kitchen table you have an unobstructed view of the southern horizon you just plug the SHF satellite in and see the world. The required satellite and receiver is under C$1,000.

If your home doesn't have such a view: sell! In the communications age you must be able to communicate. In Canada we have a problem. Remember how long it took to go FM? That was because our Canadian Radio and Television Communications Commission (CRTC) was set up in an age when there was a scarcity of broadcast spectrum. Such shortages no longer exist. Yet, that restrictive thinking from the past is still in power. Those large 10 foot, still very effective dishes, (up to 200 TV channels, 1,000 radio channels) operate in the 4-6 GHz (VHF) frequencies. The smaller metre-and-a-half dish size used to pick up around 20 channels that carry such stations as The Knowledge Network and Much Music use the 12-14 GHz (UHF) range. Look at the analagy with radio. Large dishes can cover the continent like AM. The smaller round ones, that pick up only provincial areas, like FM. The new flat dishes which are in a totally new class, operate in the 20-30 Ghz. (UHF) frequencies. They allow radio/TV designers to do more with less. This is just the beginning. In Asia I have witnessed what they are working on in the 60 and 90 GHz. range. If they can crack the ultra-violet frequency, we will have sufficient spectrum to have 22 million TV stations. Why are we still restricting licenses for broadcasting while not for newspapers and magazines, in a supposedly open Communications age?

Superior technology is available, but the Canadian bureaucratic procedural maze to implement such advanced developments is incapable of swiftly handling change and, in many cases, is unaware that it exists! What does this portend? Italy really has a bureaucracy. There it was taking up to 20 years to obtain a radio license from the government. Today, they have 2,000 illegal radio stations. Red tape in Britain too fell behind. Now they have 60 illegal radio stations. One such station, KISS, has a london audience that sometimes exceeds that of the BBC! The same thing can happen here. Within five years you will see satellite dishes you can't tell from a dipole (straight stick) antenna! They will have almost unlimited reception. Including phone calls. Eventually, every phone call regardless of distance from origination to destination -- will be a "local call". Why are you allowing your future to be restricted like this while the rest of the world surges ahead? More information on the (National/Panosonic) flat satellite dish featured here:

Kyusho Matsushita Electric Co. Ltd., 1-62, 4 chome, Minoshima, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka 812, Japan.

Phone: 092/431-2111. Fax: 092/472-5956.

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