Newsday (Nassau Edition) from Hempstead, New York • 95

They're Turned On For LI To Tune In WSNL-TV (Ch. 67), Long Island's first commercial TV station, was scheduled to go on the air at 8:30 AM today. It's a UHF (ultra high frequency) station and you probably will not be able to receive it unless you have cable television or live near the station's antenna in Hauppauge. In the coming months, Ch. 67 will embark on a campaign to persuade Long Islanders to install roof antennas SO' that they can pick up its programming, mostly geared to the Long Island audience.

(The station's range covers all of Nassau and Suffolk Counties.) Here is a look at Ch. 67 from the inside as seen by its president, a technician and one of its producer-on-the-air personalities: By Leo Seligsohn 660 his test is a for crucible," future said commercial Bill Chu, UHF "a stations." A man with a quiet sense of humor, Chu is Ch. 67's on-camera reporter and producer of special projects. He feels strongly that what he and others do at the new station will strongly influence how future UHF stations establish themselves and build audiences. Chu was born in Chungking and came to the U.S.

with his family as a child. A 34-year-old psychology major who turned to broadcasting, he worked for ABC and was involved in TV production, advertising and newspaper promotional work before coming to Ch. 67. His resonant voice reflects years spent projecting his words near microphones. WSNL-TV PATCHOCUE HEMPSTEAD NEW TORR avid Polinger is a doer.

At 46, the president, director and general manager of Ch. 67 is a Johnny Appleseed of broadcasting- planting and cultivating radio and TV stations as though leading a crusade. The call letters that bear his mark read like a page from a Federal Communications Commission file: He built WTFM in Lake Success and WGLI-AM and FM in Babylon. He was vice president and general manager of WNTA AM-FM and WNTA-TV in Manhattan. He held the same positions with WAPA-TV and WKAQ-TV in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

In addition, he has served as director of the Latin American division of the Voice of America and currently is a trustee of the Performing Arts David py and sounded positive as he sat late last week Polinger in his new office, decorated by his wife, Roberta, an art teacher at Huntington High School. Obstacles confronting Ch. 67 (educating people to tune in a UHF channel and persuading thousands to install roof antennas) don't faze him. Neither do Manhattan's seven VHF (very high frequency) stations. "We are aiming at a special, select audiencethe Long Islander.

People here have never seen what a commercial UHF station can do. "A very big factor, too, is that we are starting with 100,000 cable-TV homes that can receive Ch. 67 immediately." Foundation of Long Island. When he's not busy he plays golf and tennis and flies a plane. Understandably, the latter activities have been dropped during Polinger's gargantuan efforts at Ch.

67. "When you're putting a new station on the air," he said, "you have to marry it for the first six months. It needs a lot of tender loving care." Bill Chu Polinger looked hap- In recent months, nouncements are edited the microphone has been with split-second timing. secondary to Chu's ability to adapt to new and sometimes strange environments as he builds a backlog of TV specials. Among other things, he has taken a two-hour ride over Long Island in a air balloon, visited a haunted house, consorted with Long Island witches and stood by while members of the Nassau CounWayne Wicks ty Marine Bureau swam around in New York Wicks ayne Wioks has been living the life of a man in a science-fiction story.

Since August, Ch. 67's senior video and videotape engineer has been spending most of his waking hours in a brightly lit room housing reels, tapes, switches and myriad other components of a monster videotape installation. "The crew and I have had to assemble this equipment from the ground up in a very short time," he said. "It's exciting but sometimes we think we may keel over in the process." Actually, the atmosphere of concentrated energy in Wicks' room radiates a feeling of life at its most intense. It is a place where the station's taped shows, commercials and public-service an "We've had our title snafus," Wicks said.

"Short circuits. Things like that. But nothing major." With a wave of his hand, he dismisses the everyday headaches and points to the electronic marvel that makes SO much of the hard work worthwhile. "It's the very best. Very few stations have equipment this sophisticated.

We can enlarge small tapes to two-inch 1 1 Bill Chu Aquarium with white whales. "Right now, this is my whole existence," he said. "It's a challenge for me to get out and do my own thing." When Chu talks about doing his own thing, it encompasses a great deal. "Mine is a one-man operation right now. I write, produce and direct as well as do the interviews and commentary." He works from a desk in the station's news department but his world really extends from the Queens line to Montauk Point.

His life is a complex of countless reels of 16-mm. film, sound equipment, cameras, a typewriter and people. "I'm totally absorbed," he said. widths. That enables us to time our editing fraction of a second.

There'll be none of that ting somebody off in the middle of a word." Like much of Ch. 67's talent, Wicks is a Long Islander. A graduate of Patchogue School, the 28-year-old engineer came to the pauge-based station by way of a New Mexico station and WSUF-AM, a Patchogue radio where he was chief engineer. The current challenge fascinates him more anything he has done before. "We're 60 miles side the major broadcasting capital of the he said.

"My crew and I know that making 67 a success will prove we're as good as anywhere." to a cut- native High HaupTV station than outworld," anyone Ch. Part 3.