The Billings Gazette from Billings, Montana • 1

Phillies win Knitting the newest Maddox's homer breaks up Series opener pitching duel SPORTSPAGE 1C Top-notch knitter's winter sprees net 1 8 stylish sweaters a year LIVINGPAGE 1E WljWfe Wednesday 4 MUEfiim Oct. 12. 1983 0) (0 Billings, Montana CI" r) 99th Year, no. 163 Vry Single Copy 25' Copyright 1983, The Billings Gazette 'Burned out' owner sells TV stations v. i -ir; jl, part in exercises and a practice amphibious landing on the coast of Somalia.

Navy officials said that Marine-Navy force is overdue to return to the United States. Officials were unable to say how long the Marine amphibious unit will remain in the Indian Ocean. It was told to go there and await further orders, sources said. The United States now has an aircraft-carrier battle group headed by the Ranger in the Arabian Sea on the approaches to the Persian Gulf. The Ranger is escorted by six other U.S.

naval vessels. The United States has kept at least one aircraft-carrier batUe group in those waters since-1979, following the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. In late August, because of the intensified crisis in Lebanon and the show-the-flag exercises in Central American waters, the U.S. Navy was forced to leave the Arabian Sea area without a carrier group for a time.

This was remedied when the Ranger was detached from a position off the Pacific coast of Nicaragua and sent into the Indian Ocean. WASHINGTON (AP) A Navy amphibious group carrying about 2,000 Marines is en route to the Indian Ocean amid Iranian threats to close the Persian Gulf and cut off the movement of oil tankers, it was learned Tuesday. Pentagon sources said the amphibious group, headed by the amphibious assault ship Tarawa, passed through the Suez Canal on Tuesday under orders to sail into the Indian Ocean. It was not immediately clear whether the move was linked to the new Iranian threats. The Pentagon sources, who asked not to be identified, suggested the amphibious force and its Marine complement have been detached from the Beirut region because the cease-fire in the Lebanese civil war appeared to be holding, and, as a result, danger to the 1,600 Marines ashore in the Beirut area seems to have diminished.

The amphibious group arrived off Beirut on Sept. 12 after the Marine forces deployed near the Beirut airport had suffered casualties in mortar attacks. The Marine unit afloat previously had taken By MARK RAGAN Of The Gazette Staff Montana Television Network, the state's largest broadcaster, has been sold to a former vice president of a southern television group, ending the 28-year reign of founder and president Joe Sample. Sample, announcing the sale Tuesday, said he was "burned out" on the television business and wanted to sell the four stations to someone who could bring a fresh approach to the network. He said the decision did not reflect any money problems at MTN.

"Right now, I'm like a ballplayer who is over the hill, still trying to hit that home run at 45," Sample said. MTN's new owner faces pile of red tape (IB) Sample would not disclose the purchase price for the four television stations. They are KTVQ, Billings; KXLF-TV, Butte; KRTV, Great Falls; and KPAX-TV, Missoula. Sample said the new owner George Lilly of Ithaca, N.Y. is heavily financed through TA Associates, a venture capital firm which Sample said backs people "with good track records." Sample also said Tuesday that MTN's Billings station may soon switch over to a news format originating in Billings.

He said the station is now searching for an anchor person and producer for the newscast MTN's news format in Billings is now aired after an opening broadcast from the anchor desk in Great Falls, which serves as the hub for all of the four stations. Sample said he had "stubbornly" adhered to this approach because he thought Montanans would benefit from a wide variety of statewide news. (More on MTN, Page 12A) 1 Remote-control planes spark warriors' interest 'They can be made cheaply enough to be considered expendable," Wilson wrote in the introduction to the 1983-1984 Jane's. Wilson said there was a "surprising number" of RPVs in Europe, but noted an "absence of specific U.S. commitment" to the unmanned planes.

However, he said the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee was eager to speed up of the Lockheed Aquila RPV. The U.S. Army began developing the Aquila in 1979, but does not expect to have it operational until 1987. The unmanned planes, smaller than ordinary jets, were developed from the drone used by air forces in the 1950s for gunnery practice.

RPVs were first used by the U.S. Air Force in Vietnam as the bombing campaign against North Vietnam intensified with mounting losses of manned aircraft and a political outcry over the fate of their captured crews. The U.S. Air Force disbanded its last RPV unit in 1978 as interest waned. LONDON (AP) Unmanned remote-control planes could add a new dimension to future wars by performing missions too risky for manned flights, the new Jane's Avionics yearbook reported Tuesday.

Michael Wilson, editor of Jane's Avionics, the authoritative annual on electronic equipment used in aviation, said the aircraft now have "capabilities undreamed of when they first appeared 20 years ago- He said military interest in remote-piloted vehicles, called RPVs, was revived after Israel used them with devastating effect in Lebanon last year. Advances in airborne high-technology and microchip miniaturization of controls, have helped, he said. Jane's said the unmanned planes can "think" for themselves and perform suicide missions like suppressing deadly ground fire around key targets, saving both pilots' lives and costly fighter-bombers packed with secret equipment. Irate viewers of cable TV pull the plug Gazette photo by William Tutokey By CHRISTENE MEYERS Fictitious ad touts oil sale on reservation Hospital expands Work on a $20 million expansion of St. Vincent Hospital has started with workers preparing groundwork for the four-sided addition.

The construction project includes a second, six-story nursing tower; an addition of two stories to the hospital's general surgery build- ing, which will be used for a new cafeteria and a new obstetrical unit; the addition of a second floor to the emergency room, to be used for the hospital's radiology department; and an emergency room entrance on 12th Avenue North at 29th Street. (Five sections) Action Line 4E Movies 7C Ann Landers 3E Opinion 4A Classified 9C Region 1B Comics 3E, 4E Sports 1C Deaths 12A Television 7C Living 1E Weather 13A Markets 4C World 2A State kills deer, saves crops Of The Gazette Staff -Changes in cable television in the Billings area have a lot of residents turned off. And Montana Video is losing about as many old "pay service" customers as it is gaining this week. "We expected that, though, in this transition period," according to Les Harris, systems manager for Montana Video. "It's about a 50-50 proposition now, a trade-off.

We're losing some, gaining others." Much of the complaining centers around a new "box" being installed this month for cable holders to use as their new converter. The new "addressable" converter box is controlled by computer with satellite signals sent from Denver. It is a S1.5 million investment for Montana Video and its parent company, Tele-Communications. They say it could revolutionize TV viewing in the area. The new system replaces the metal boxes that people now have.

The new converter box is authorized by satellite to accept certain channels and allows access to only one channel at a time. Unfortunately, for those whose TVs (More on Cable, Page 12A) By LORNA THACKERAY Of The Gazette Staff CROW AGENCY The Bureau of Indian Affairs is drafting a letter to the Oil and Gas Journal disclaiming an advertisement that mysteriously appeared in the Sept. 26 edition. The ad announced an oil and gas lease sale on the Crow Reservation April 1. "No such sale is being planned," BIA Superintendent Wyman Baaby said last week.

"It appears somebody jumped the gun." Any sale of tribally owned minerals would have to be approved by the BIA, he added, and the tribe had not even presented him with a proposal for a sale. Baaby said he did not place the ad in the Tul-sa-based national trade journal and is sure tribal officials didn't either. A spokesman for a Houston, Texas, company, whose name appeared in the announcement, also denied anything to do with the ad. (More on Ad, Page 12A) went to welfare recipients and Indian reservations, officials said. The department has killed big game in previous years, in response to landowner complaints.

But the program was greatly expanded this summer and fall, due to unprecedented high populations of deer and antelope following three mild winters, spokesmen said. The department decided to shoot the animals in areas where the threat to alfalfa crops was too immediate to go through (More on Deer, Page 12A) HELENA (AP) The state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has been shooting deer and antelope in eastern Montana to keep them from eating crops. Department personnel in Glasgow, Miles City and Billings said Tuesday that game biologists and wardens have shot at least 180 animals mostly doe mule deer and more are likely to be killed before the general deer hunting season opens Oct 25. Most of the animals were shot two weeks to a month ago, when they were feeding on alfalfa seed crops. The meat Sunny and warmer today.

Mostly sunny Thursday with increasing high clouds in the west later in the day. Continued mild. Highs today 60s, lows tonight 30 to 45. Highs Thursday in the mid-60s to low-70s. Call 652-2000 annually.

Roughly 50,000 of those cases are never solved, estimates Child Find. The movie dramatized the lives of John and Reve Walsh, whose attempts to find their son led them to persuade Congress to change laws to ease the search by other parents of missing children. Less than a minute after the faces appeared on the screem, calls lit up all 10 of Child Find's incoming telephone lines. broadcast of the story of a 6-year-old who disappeared on July 27, 1981, from a store in Hollywood, Fla. Adam Walsh's severed head was found two weeks later, but the rest of his body was never found.

The film was supposed to "speak for the children," said the show's producer, Linda Otto. Since its founding in 1981, Child Find has helped locate 595 missing children. Nationwide, about 150,000 children are reported missing descriptions ot missing children had been reported in several cities by more than one caller. Janette Demenkoff, head of registration, location and recovery for the agency, said a call came Tuesday morning from a teacher in "a Southern city," who had recognized one of the pictures. Police agencies were checking the lead, Ms.

Demenkoff said. Child Find joined forces with NBC-TV on Monday night for the At the end of the two-hour film "Adam," the photographs of 55 missing children were shown. They are among the 2,000 registered with Child Find. Kristin Brown, information director for the agency, said Tuesday that more than 2,000 calls had been received and that they were continuing at the rate of 150 an hour. "The calls are piggy-backed.

As soon as we hang up, another is waiting," she said. Ms. Brown said as many as five NEW PALTZ, N.Y. (AP) An agency looking for lost children got more than 2,000 calls after a nationally televised movie about a boy who was kidnapped and slain, and at least one teenage girl returned to her family, a spokeswoman said Tuesday. Child Find Inc.

on Monday night combined its efforts with the mass appeal of network television in hopes of reuniting with their families some of the thousands of children reported missing each year. Show spurs thousands of calls on lost kids.