The Heider balance is investigated in a chain of actors, with periodic boundary conditions and the neighborhood of range $r$, with $r$ as a parameter. Two model dynamics are applied: a deterministic cellular automaton (Malarz et al, Physica D 411 (2020) 132556) and the heat-bath algorithm, with the density of unbalanced-balanced triads in the role of energy. The outcome is a spectrum of energy in stationary and blinking states and a balanced-unbalanced network transition driven by thermal noise. The critical point $T_c$ increases with the range $r$ and it does not depend on the system size.