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Michael Merschel: Michael Merschel is The Dallas Morning News books editor. September 2009
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Details are coming soon. He was 90. Here is his biography from the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation. Salon.com ran this profile in 2000. We reviewed his recent work with Stephen Baxter, "Firstborn," earlier this year. (Updated, 4:59 p.m) Finally, here is Sir Clarke himself, reflecting on his 90th birthday. E-mail entry: |
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For those of us who qualify as serious junkies of satellite television, long before anyone had ever heard of DirecTV or The Dish Network, the passing of Arthur C. Clarke is one worth noting. And why? Because he was the father of “the Clarke belt,” that band of communications satellites in geostationary orbit 22,300 miles above the Equator. I became hooked on satellite TV way back in 1991, and the Dallas Cowboys were the reason why. Having grown up in Dallas, I was frustrated while living in San Diego that I could almost never see the Cowboys on television. This was in the early years of Jimmy Johnson’s coaching tenure and one year away from Jimmy taking the Cowboys to their first Super Bowl title. The ‘Boys had a big game in Houston during one fall weekend in 1991, but the game was blacked out in San Diego. I approached the elderly guy who lived across the street from me. At one time, he had sold dishes on the side, so I asked him if he still had that cheap, portable dish he used to locate Clarke’s satellites in the sky. He did! So, I bought it for $200. He taught me how to locate the satellites in the Clarke belt. Problem was, you had to move this dish by hand. So, I stayed up all night locating Clarke’s satellites. When I finally found one, I would write its location in chalk on my patio, where I had placed the dish. I pulled an all-nighter and by morning had every single C-band satellite marked in chalk on my patio. Bleary-eyed, I finally managed to find the satellite that would carry the game. Scratchy though the reception was, I got to see the Cowboys lose to the Oilers, but I had become hooked on Clarke’s band and satellite TV in the process. Problem was, first time it rained, it washed away my chalk and I had to re-do the entire band. At that point, I forked over cash for a real dish, driven by a motor and a remote-control receiver.