On Sun, 9 Jan 2011 11:14:03 +0000 (UTC), "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:

The reason that everyone did not have a universal TV set was because the price
was kept lower with single system sets and countries like the UK, which made
a substansial income from the TV license did not want you watching tv from
France or the Republic of Ireland for free.

I ran into something like that when I "visited" Israel in the early
1970's. There were literally dozens of TV antennas on every apartment
rooftop. Few wanted to watch the official Israeli TV channels. What
they wanted was TV from Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, which required much
larger yagi antennas. Incidentally, much of the Arab broadcasting was
with either in English, or with Hebrew subtitles or Hebrew
overdubbing.

In my innocence, I went to the Ministry of the Post to inquire about
setting up a cable TV system that would hopefully get rid of the
antenna clutter. I was detained for questioning as some manner of
spy, saboteur, or total idiot. I should have guessed that there was a
reason that Israel didn't have a cable TV system. The government
certainly wasn't interested in an improved method of watching Arab
broadcasting.

A short while later, I repeated the mistake by attempting to establish
a land mobile radio business. At the time, private radio
communications was not exactly appreciated in an essentially war time
economy just after the 1972 Yom Kippur War.

Politics always trumps technology.

--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558