November 1937

There was one television test in November 1937 that was, perhaps, more significant than the rest.

Scientists at the Bell Telephone Company managed to send a television picture and sound on a coaxial cable linking New York and Philadelphia.

The experiment proved that it was possible to create a television network. This was still a few years away, but once NBC put W2XBS on the air regularly in 1939, it worked out a deal to use the cable to hook up with Philadelphia to create the first, albeit temporary, TV network.

Newspapers on the East and West Coasts didn’t publish television schedules, so we have to rely on articles to learn what exactly was being broadcast. Unfortunately, they didn’t do it very often, especially in the case of W2XBS as it did air some live programming in addition to newsreels and other short films. Then again, none of the NBC programming was for public consumption.

Still, the company wanted to broaden viewership beyond the 100-or-so RCA engineers with a “receiving apparatus.” It began to make it possible for amateur radio buffs—like the ones who sparked the radio craze after World War One—to view programmes and offer opinions about reception and so on.

In the Los Angeles area, there were TV sets in a few homes. One newspaper story that month reported on one W6XAO broadcast. The Don Lee station was still confined to film.

Stations at the University of Iowa and Purdue University carried on with broadcasts as well. And Kansas City’s W9XAL resumed daily programming tests as well.

Du Mont was not on the air yet, but waiting for FCC approval. A hearing was scheduled for this month.

We have avoided posts about TV in Britain, but we will mention the broadcast in Blighty that got world-wide attention. On Remembrance Day, the Armistice Day ceremony witness by the King and Queen was interrupted by someone who got out of a mental institution and yelled “Hypocrisy!” during the moment of silence honouring the war dead, and screamed the British government was preparing for another war. Considering the actions of the leader of Germany at the time, preparation would have been a wise thing.

Below, we have highlights for the month from news sources, including one of the world’s worst predictions by a broadcaster.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1937
TELEVISION STUDIED
General Electric Asks Permit to Build Four New Stations.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (AP).—The General Electric company of Schenectady, N. Y., asked the Communications commission today for authority to build four new television broadcast stations for experimental radio television development.
The company told the commission it also intended to carry on a television receiver development program in conjunction with the transmission of aerial moving pictures to determine the type of apparatus that must be supplied for public needs.
The commission said today's application was the first filed for the 44,000 to 50,000 kilocycle band designated as a television channel under the recent allocation of frequencies which open up what has hitherto been regarded as the "no man's land” of the ether.
[Two stations would be in Schenectady, one in Albany, one in Easton].

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1937
EXPERIMENTS HINT DAY OF TELEVISION SPANNING OCEAN
London Picture Signals Already Picked Up in N. Y.—Clear Reception Is Still in the Future
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Nov. 6—(AP)—Trans-Atlantic television—that's a new hope for radio's future. Already picture signals originating in London have been picked up here.
Almost daily, too. This despite the fact that the ultrashort waves used for such transmission usually have a comparatively limited range; the engineers call it a "line of sight" range.
It's at the Riverhead (Long Island) reception laboratories of RCA that engineers have been tuning in on London's radio movies. So far they haven't reproduced a picture, but they have heard both the sound part of the transmission and the musical buzz-saw note of the television signal. To do so they have been using special aerials and an elaborate receiver.
Some day soon, too, they expect to be able to reproduce the London pictures, which are a part of the regularly scheduled broadcasts coming from Alexandra palace as put on by the British broadcasting company.
Sunspots Seem to Help
It's only the daytime transmission that can be heard. That comes over here between 10 a. m. and noon E. S. T. The evening broadcast in London—that would be afternoon over here—has never been logged, apparently because it is sunset between London and New York at the time.
A freak of the air waves is the explanation given by the engineers for their listening success. Their belief is that it is due to the present intensity of sunspots, which are at 'the peak of an 11-year cycle. Five years from now at the other end of the cycle conditions may be just the reverse.
While the engineers have expressed the hope that radio pictures across the Atlantic may some day be as nearly practicable as sound is today, they say they haven't gone far enough with their experiments to attempt any kind of a prophecy.
There's a further explanation for the reception, which despite fading at times, has resulted in fairly steady signals of good strength for both sound and sight. The engineers advance the theory that the sunspot activity has lowered the ionized layer of the atmosphere miles above the earth to the point where it reflects the signals just right to reach this territory.
At other times this invisible layer is at such a height that the angle effect is different. Tests have shown that the ionized layer acts on radio waves something like a mirror does on light rays.
The London signals are divided into two sections, the sound just above seven meters and the sight around 6 ½ meters. Over here television experiments are being made on approximately five meters.
Not only has London been heard, but Berlin also has been brought in. The distances covered are 3400 miles to London and 3900 miles to Berlin.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1937
Television Given A Test on Liner
Captain of British Vessel Calls Venture Success
NEW YORK, Nov. 8 (AP)—Successful reception of television broadcasts by a liner at sea was reported today by Capt. A. T. Brown of the Cunard White Star liner Britannic.
Capt. Brown said the experiments, believed the first of their kind ever attempted, were performed Oct. 29, 30 and 31 after the ship sailed from London.
The experiments were conducted by engineers of the British Broadcasting corporation, who set up their receiving equipment in a vacant cabin. Capt. Brown said the Britannic, until it left the English channel, was never more than 30 miles off shore.
"The pictures were extraordinarily clear, and the sound was perfect," he said. "They broadcast special programs from Alexandria palace, in London, and the reception on the ship seemed excellent.
"The pictures were reproduced on a screen about 10x12 inches. It was as distinct as if they'd been sending it from the next cabin."

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

MOTION PICTURE IN SOUND TELEPHONED
New Medium for Televisiong Transmission Used from New York to Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 9. (AP)—A motion picture in sound was telephoned from New York City to Philadelphia today over a Coaxial cable—a new medium for television transmission.
The scenes and spoken words passed from the Bell Telephone Company laboratories to a special loud speaker and a glass screen in the company's offices here.
They were the first sent over the new cable, which contains conductor units capable of transmitting simultaneously the currents of 240 different telephone transmitters.
The long-distance movie program included a picture explaining the cable possibilities—television with a minimum of distortion—and also several films of the news reel type.
The demonstration was not designed to show an improved television, because the present cable, with a top frequency of about 1,000,000 cycles, cannot carry images as faithfully in detail as those produced by the most modern television equipment.
Dr. Frank B. Dewitt, president of the Bell laboratories, said 2,000,000 cycle repeaters would be tried next in an attempt to transmit scenes with more than twice the accuracy of those carried today.

N.B.C. Gets Permit to Conduct Camden, N. Y. Television Tests
RCA to Deliver 2 Portable Pick-Up and Transmission Sets to Broadcasting Firm; Companies Keep Details Secret
Field experiments in with portable apparatus in or near Camden are contemplated by the National Broadcasting Company early in 1938, it was revealed yesterday [9].
The Federal Communications Commission granted permission to the N. B. C. to operate transmission stations between Camden and New York City on a portable basis, it was revealed in news reports from Washington.
Simultaneously it was learned here that the RCA Manufacturing Company is building in Camden two complete mobile field pick-up and transmission television sets to be delivered to N. B. C. soon after January 1. The sets are mounted on automobile truck chases.
T. F. Joyce, publicity director for RCA Manufacturing Company, said he presumes the sets will be put in operation in and around Camden to test their transmission range.
“They might be operated in or near Camden or in or near Trenton or other points to determine just how far action and sound can be transmitted clearly with the equipment," Joyce said.
He added that neither N. B. C. nor RCA Manufacturing Company is ready yet to release full details of their plans.
Pictures and the full story, Joyce said, will not be ready for another month.
Asked what scope of pick-up power the portable sets would have, Joyce replied:
“They might pick up and transmit football games or baseball games or any other events where their [sic] is sufficient light intensity."
Joyce, however, said he was unable to answer technical questions, such as what light intensity would be sufficient.
The transmission sets will be equipped with cameras capable of picking up both the visual and sound action and transferring both to the transmitting apparatus.
The permit granted by the Federal Communications Commission provides for operation of the transmission sets on frequencies of 175,000 to 180,000 kilocycles, and for 400 watts power for visual transmission and 100 watts for sound transmission. (Camden Courier-Post, Nov. 9)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1937
Lucille-Lanny Televising
Lucille and Lanny, young NBC song team, will sing two comic numbers in an experimental vaudeville television show to be broadcast at 4 p.m. today from the NBC television studio in Radio City. Tests made by the artists Monday showed they were very adaptable to iconoscope lens. (Radio Daily)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

Velvet Screen Is Devised For Television
New Invention Said to Offer Images of Signal Clarity and Brightness Material First Oxidized
WASHINGTON, Nov. 11.—The fine velvets that make glamorous gowns also will produce clearer and brighter television pictures, according to the claim in a patent just granted here to Philo T. Farnsworth of San Francisco, noted for his inventions in television.
The patent covers the invention of a television screen made from velvet. Co-inventor with Mr. Farnsworth of the new velvet television screen, on which the telecast pictures are "painted" by rapidly moving beams of electrons, is Bernard C. Gardner of Philadelphia.
So brilliant can the pictures received be made that the screen cannot be viewed directly because the glare would temporarily blind the eyes. The light is pure white, unlike the greenish and bluish tinged images received on screens of the fluorescent type. The pictures are two to four times as bright as ordinary home moving pictures, asserts the inventor. By use of suitable lens the television pictures can be projected from the velvet on to an ordinary motion-picture screen as large as five feet square. The brightness of the pictures makes it unnecessary to darken the room.
Velvet First Oxidized
In making the new screen finely woven rayon velvet is the starting material. The velvet is dipped in a solution of thorium and uranium salts until it is thoroughly impregnated. Then it is dried and "burnt off." The original velvet fabric disappears and in its place is an oxidized velvet made from thorium and uranium oxide.
The process is akin to that in making incandescent gas mantles. It is this oxide velvet that forms the new screen in the cathode ray tube, that ingenious device that is able to take the electrical impulses representing the images sent through the ether and convert them into pictures which are viewed on the screen.
This it [is] does by means of an electron gun which sends crashing into the screen a pencil beam of electrons which zips over every bit of the velvet screen.
So great is the impact of the electron beam that, where it strikes, a very fine incandescent spot or trace shows up on the screen. But the extent of incandescence varies with the electrical impulses received by the television receiver. And it is this variation in the brightness of spots that results in the formation of an incandescent picture on the screen as the electron beam zips across the screen striking every elemental bit thereof.
Blurred Images Avoided
Sharper and distinct images are produced, because velvet keeps the incandescent spots that make up the television pictures from spreading and thus blurring. It prevents conduction of the heat to other areas of the screen.
"Using the finest weave velvets as a base, these screens have been satisfactorily operated to display pictures having a detail corresponding to 400 lines: that is, pictures wherein the area of the focal spot was but one 160,000th of the area of the screen. With these pictures transmitted at the rate of 20 a second, the time which any individual area is bombarded is one 3,200,000th of a second." (Burlington Free Press)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1937
Crude Television Sets Of Youths Prove Success
CLAIRTON, Pa., Nov. 13.—(AP). A battle of experiments and electrons is on in this industrial section as three Clairton youths race fame in further development of the electrical wizardry of the age —television.
Everything from old radios to bed springs are being utilized by the three participants—Thaddeus A. Dragoski, 22, and two brothers, Pete, 23, and Mike Sedor, 21.
A measure of success has already been won by the three. They have built two sets which successfully received news reel pictures from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind., some 400 miles away [W9XG].
It all began three years ago when the boys were students in Clairton high school. An electrical instructor assigned them to ferret out information on television.
At first, they tore apart old radios, their own and then a neighbor's set which were unrepairable.
Restricted by lack of cash, but with the eyes of experts, they scoured junk yards and obtained old motors and tubes from radio dealers.
While the work of the two Sedor brothers was being acclaimed by townspeople, Dragoski's experiments were unknown. He was busy pulling apart a bed spring to make a stand for his set which he kept hidden in a third floor workshop in his home.
The task of the three cut out for themselves was not easy but finally after "fooling" with tubes and discs, the Sedor brothers announced a demonstration.
Neighbors were invited to the Sedor home to watch the boys prove they could receive Purdue University's pictures.
Young Dragoski watched the experiments but did not disclose his own work. He continued to work in silence until he got the Purdue pictures clearer, he says, than the Sedor boys.
Recently, the three youthful inventors were invited to exhibit their sets at Clairton high.
When Dragoski arrived with his set, the Sedor brothers were astounded for they did not hear of its existence. But, they declare, they will carry on and aid their fellow inventor.
The two television sets are the same in principle the boys explain. However, Dragoski employs a cathode ray—one of the newest developments in televisors. Dragoski's set cost $80; the Sedor boys built their set for $7.
Collectively, they said:
"We are going to continue working on our sets. A lot of development in radio and other things were maded by amateurs and we might hit on some idea. If we don't, then when the real engineers find the answer we'll be sitting pretty and step right into some job.
"But, we're going to continue alone. May the best man or men win."

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1937
Swor and Lubin [blackface comedians] are set for a shot on the NBC experimental show Monday. (Radio Daily, Nov. 11)

Start Television Tests
Kansas City — W9XAL, television station of the First National Television School, went into operation yesterday [15] for daily equipment tests authorized by the FCC. (Radio Daily, Nov. 16)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 1937
Television Test Set for Tuesday by Engineer Here
Long Beach tomorrow night [16] will be the scene of television demonstration.
Roger Howell, Long Beach radio engineer and television research expert, said today that he had arranged for a special broadcast from the Don Lee television studios in Los Angeles at 10 o’clock.
Howell has perfected a receiving set at his home, 857 Cerritos Avenue, where the first Long Beach television party will he conducted for a selected list of guests. The television broadcast will be previewed at 6:30 P. M. tomorrow [16] at the Howell home and will be repeated at the formation presentation three and one-half hours later when reception will probably be better.
Don Lee station W6A0 [W6XAO] for seven years has been experimenting with television. Howell said that a motion picture news reel accompanied by full sound effects will be the first to be broadcast tomorrow evening.
The distance of more than twenty miles between the sending and receiving sets is said to be the farthest that television can be broadcast under the present power facilities of the Don engineers.
An attempt will be made to broadcast singing and speaking by men and women at the Don Lee studio. (Long Beach Press-Telegram, Nov. 15)

Widen Scope Of Television
Many Tests Scheduled Within Week.
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
Associated Press Radio Editor
New York, Nov. 16 (AP)—Television, as displayed on occasion while field testing is under way in New York, is widening the scope of its demonstrations.
Within the next week a half-dozen or more test showings have been docketed—one for fashion experts and all the others for amateur radio station owners. All will originate from the RCA-NBC picture studio in Radio City via the Empire State building transmitter.
The fashion guests, here for the annual style spectacle, Fashion Futures, naturally will see by air a program of fashions. This showing will be Thursday afternoon [18].
The amateurs are to take a look at television next Monday [22] and Tuesday night [23], the demonstration to be divided into six sections, three each night, to accommodate all of them.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1937
Television Test Is Enjoyed at Residence Here
Human images were hurled through the ether last night [16] between Long Beach and Los Angeles in one of the most successful television experiments in Southern California.
While radio technicians at the Don Lee station in Los Angeles broadcast motion pictures and still pictures, a thrilled party of spectators at the home of Roger Howell, 857 Cerritos Avenue, saw the latest achievement in science. City Manager Randall M. Dorton and Mrs. Dorton headed a party of guests who saw news reels of the recent New York American Legion convention reproduced on the Howell television set.
Harry R. Lubcke, director of television for W6-XAO, the Don Lee experimental station, today hailed last night's television reception by Howell as “a pioneering achievement."
The Board of Supervisors, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz and other prominent personages are scheduled to attend the next television demonstration which will be conducted next month by Howell. (Long Beach Press-Telegram, Nov. 17)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

1st Fashion Show Is Sent By R. C. A. Television
Broadcast From Empire State to Rockefeller Center
The first all-fashion demonstration of R. C. A. television was presented by the National Broadcasting Company yesterday afternoon [18] at the R. C. A. Building. It was produced under the supervision of Betty Goodwin, N. B. C. fashion editor, and announced by Ben Grauer. The clothes shown were from Saks-Fifth Avenue.
For the purposes of the demonstration the show, sent out by the antennae on the Empire State Building, was picked up on the experimental television receivers on the sixty-second floor of the R. C. A. Building. If television receivers were now in general use, it could just as easily and effectively have been picked up in thousands of homes throughout the city.
A few of the highlights of the show, from the fashion angle, were a bois de rose slipper satin gown with a brown velvet jacket, a hostess gown of tangerine silk jersey with a bolero jacket of maroon velvet embroidered in silver, and a pastel blue satin negligee with matching ostrich feathers.
Another interesting feature was the appearance, via television, of Lester Gaba with his famous dummy Cynthia Cynthia wearing a white lace evening gown and a Chanel four-strand pearl necklace with an emerald and rhinestone clasp. The demonstration was scheduled in recognition of Fashion Futures, the annual style spectacle to be presented by The Fashion Group on November 22 in New York, and during the broadcast Helen Cornelius, Margaret Case and Ruth Mills discussed plans for the style showing. (New York Herald Tribune, Nov. 19)

Fashion Experts See Television Styles
Study Materials in First "Broadcast" of Models
By ETTA WILSON
NEW YORK, Nov. 19—A glimpse into the comfortable future of television when we can do our Christmas shopping from an armchair, see the Easter parade from our living room and watch celebrities arrive in a city without moving out of our own home, was previewed here today [18].
It was the first fashion television broadcast ever presented.
With 300 other persons, here to attend the Fashion Futures Show at the Waldorf-Astoria Monday night, I sat in a room on the 62d floor of the RCA Building in front of a machine that resembled an overgrown phonograph with the lid propped up. In the lid is a mirror that reflects what appears in a rectangular portion of a globe.
The revue was presented by National Broadcasting Co. not so much as an entertaining feature, but as a laboratory experiment to see how much detail of fabric and trimming could be shown by television.
As an experiment, the show was interesting, but as a medium for presenting fashion shows, all the experts agree television still has a long way to go. The screen is small, 8 ½ by 10 inches, and the pictures in black and white. However, as we watched the reflections, regardless of their wavering, we all felt that when perfected television will open a wide merchandising field.
All of the revue was presented from the third floor of the same building and transmitted 59 floors by television.
Among the new styles broadcast by television was an apricot makeup . . . an Antoine coiffure sprinkled with "star dust" to match your evening gown . . . plaind wool housecoat, and a resort costume of brown and white printed seersucker. (Cleveland Press, Nov. 19)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1937
Radio League To Cooperate In Television
Amateurs Mobilized to Receive Experimental Programs; RCA Offers Equipment
Thousands of licensed amateur radio operators are being mobilized by the American Radio Relay League for participation in a program of cooperation in the field of television. The objective of the league is yet forth in the December issue of QST, league publication, by James J. Lamb, technical editor, who spent months of preparation for the event.
Coincidently the Radio Corporation of America has invited amateur cooperation towards perfecting television equipment already devised in laboratories, and announces in QST the availability of parts for assembly of television receiving sets by licensed operators. In the same issue, also, appears the first of a series of articles on modern cathode ray television reception.
Significant Step.
These announcements mark the first significant step from laboratory experiments towards ultimate realization of television on a commercial basis with widespread public use. The amateur field now is recognized as the testing sphere. Technicians predict that advancement in television will now show an abrupt upward swing.
In connection with the history-making announcements, the RCA states: "RCA knows and is deeply appreciative of the radio amateur's contribution to the art of ultra-high frequency communication. The early development of television gave rise to problems best solved in the laboratory; but as the art slowly emerges from this status, to the stage where experiments can best answer the current problems, the RCA believes the amateur can, and is eager to, contribute to the perfection of this new art."
Transmitting Stations.
It is expected that television interest will establish transmitting stations in various centers of the nation, in addition to the few existing ones centered principally in New York and New Jersey. Meanwhile, amateurs will prepare for reception of experimental programs, which can be received now within a radius of 100 to 150 miles, anticipating considerable activity by spring.
Equipment has been perfected for transmission of television programs. The league is arranging for fairly accurate information on transmission of television programs. As schedules are prepared, the league will be notified and pass the word along to amateurs through QST.
The league membership includes approximately 10,000 licensed amateurs. The cost of constructing the receiving set, including the cathode-ray tube, is now within reach of amateurs.
Assistant Secretary Clinton B. DeSoto of the league announced Saturday [20] that 1500 licensed amateur operators from the Metropolitan New York area, or a radius of 300 miles, have been invited by RCA to attend the largest demonstration of television yet given in this country. Six performances will be given Tuesday [23] and Wednesday [24], the 1500 being divided into groups of 250 each because of limited facilities. The demonstration will be at Radio City. (Hartford Courant)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1937
A. T. & T. Coaxial Cable Is Again Demonstrated
Another demonstration of the coaxial cable installed last year by A. T. & T. between New York and Philadelphia was given this week at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in New York, supplementing the recent demonstration witnessed at the Philadelphia end.
Though officials were reticent about making predictions on practical application of the cable, results obtained thus far were regarded as encouraging, especially with respect to the adaptability of coaxial cables to long distance transmission.
Pictures of 240 lines were shown, on a small screen, although tele broadcast via ether has developed to the 441 -line stage.
Two other series of television demonstrations were given this week by NBC for amateurs, with a view to encouraging the "hams" to try their hand at the visual broadcasting art. (Radio Daily)

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1937
FCC DECISIONS
CALL LETTERS ASSIGNED
National Broadcasting Co., Portable, W2XBT. Television station.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 1937
FCC DECISIONS
HEARINGS SCHEDULED
Nov. 23: Allen B. DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Upper Montclair, N. J. CP for television experimental station.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1937
Sherlock Holmes Enters Television
Conan Doyle's Super Sleuth Carries on Via the Ether
By WILL BALTIN
Radio Theatre Editor
A new medium has been found for the adventures of the immortal Sherlock Holmes. Sir Conan Doyle's super sleuth first captured the imagination of the world with his amazing detections when he appeared on the pages of Doyle's late 19th century novels.
So famous did he become that he soon was portrayed on the stage. Development of the motion picture opened a new channel through which Holmes could carry on his celebrated sleuthing.
Last week several hundred radio amateurs watched Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery of "The Three Garridebs.” They saw him patch together remote bits of evidence, and applauded his efforts when he wove a web of circumstances about an imposter, counterfeiter and murderer. But they neither saw him on the motion picture screen, nor on the stage.
They saw him by means of TELEVISION!
Sherlock Holmes thus has the distinction of being the first fictional character of world renown to have his image reflected through the ether by means of Iconoscope and transmitted to the television kinescope for the edification of the multitude.
Thrilling Experience
It was a thrilling, as well an entertaining experience, one that brought boldly to the fore the possibilities of the future entertainment values of pictures through the air.
The demonstration of program technique as developed by the National Broadcasting Company was given before hundreds of members of the American Radio Relay League at several performances held on the 62nd floor of the RCA building last Tuesday and Wednesday nights. The A. R. R. L. men witnessed the presentation on 16 television sets operating on separate antennas.
It was the first real studio effort by NBC and was exceptionally well staged. There were a number of scene changes including an "outdoor shot” which had been previously filmed and blended into the story with admirable deftness. The characters wore costumes suggestive of the late 19th century, and the proper English atmosphere was created—even to the broad accents.
The televised detective story ran for nearly 30 minutes and is said to be the first studio-staged presentation of any consequence ever televised in New York.
The demonstration also included "short subjects" consisting of filmed newsreel, novelty piano duo and a one-reel song and dance picture.
RCA announced that it now invites amateurs to interest themselves in television development. (Home News, News Brunswick, N.J.)

Television Tubes Placed On Sale to Experimenters
2 Kinescopes Priced at $60 and $40 Yellow Picture
Two cathode ray tubes for television reception are being made available to radio amateurs, educational institutions, laboratories and to others interested in experimental television by the R. C. A. Manufacturing Company. This is the first television apparatus offered for general sale by R. C. A. in the United States. Placing the tubes on the market, R. C. A. said, should not be construed as an announcement of commercial television apparatus for use by the general public.
The tubes, known as kinescopes, are of the electromagnetic-deflection type and employ viewing screens on which the picture appears with a yellowish hue. They are numbered RCA-1800 and RCA-1801, the former being a nine-inch tube and the latter a five-inch tube. They carry suggested list prices of $60 and $40, respectively.
The kinescopes each employ an electron gun and a fluorescent screen assembled within a vacuum tube. The negative electrode delivers a stream of electrons varying in intensity with the strength of the signals received by means of magnetic deflection coils, this beam is made to scan the fluorescent screen, which then emits light in proportion to the beam intensity. The beam can be made to trace a patern [sic] of 441 lines, thirty times a second, giving pictre definition substantially equivalent to a good photographic enlargement.
The tube will permit experimenters to build receivers to pick up experimental transmissions. (New York Herald Tribune)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

SAM TOWNSEND
Manager WJW [Cleveland]
"The public isn't ready for pictures with its favorite parlor entertainment, and the engineers know it. How many people are going to darken their living rooms for hours at a stretch to look at a television screen? The modern tempo won't allow it. The radio listener now takes his air entertainment along with his evening newspaper and other activities going on in the home at the same time. He can wander away to any part of the house and still hear it. With television, it would be a matter of doing nothing else. I don't believe the public wants to darken its homes for a continual movie performance." (Radio Daily)
[Note: WJW went into television. Its station signed on in December, 1949]

October 1937

Nope. Their plans weren’t going to happen.

NBC had talked about remote broadcasts on W2XBS in October 1937. But the equipment wasn’t ready so the idea was postponed. The same with CBS announcing it would get W2XAB on the air “soon.” It had to admit in October 1937 it wouldn’t be ready until 1938.

One station that returned to the air, judging by local newspaper clippings, was W9XK at the University of Iowa. It resumed broadcasting once or twice a week, 15 minutes at a time, that month, after stopping its programmes earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, the FCC assigned frequencies specifically for television, even though manufacturers said they couldn’t be used yet to send signals.

Below are some of the news stories of the month pertaining to television. We’ve again skipped various opinion pieces. There’s a brief description of a W2XBS broadcast, and word that NBC was setting aside space in its about-to-be-built studios at Sunset and Vine in Hollywood. KNBH would not begin broadcasting until 1949. NBC outgrew the lovely building and it was torn down some years ago.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1937
TELEVISION OFF MT WASHINGTON
Summit Station Planned by Col H. M. Teague
Confers Here With National Broadcasting Officials
A long-range radio television station, equipped to send pictorial images through the air in synchronization with speech and music, is being planned for the bleak summit of Mt Washington, 6293 feet above sea level, the highest point in New England.
Out over the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the modern miracle at television will flash to local radio sets, if Col Henry M. Teague, president of the Mt Washington Railway Company—the famous cog railroad—is successful in negotiations he opened in Boston yesterday [4].
He visualizes a sending station on the summit, far above timber line, in the coldest, most windblown spot east of the Rockies, that will be powerful enough to reach to the larger communities—Boston, Portland, Montpelier, Springfield, Providence.
Height Primary Factor
The mountain top, he believes, will be an ideal location for such a station, because height is of primary importance in the broadcasting of television waves. These waves do not follow the curve of the earth like radio waves, but go forth in straight lines. The horizon is practically their range, at the present stage of development.
Col Teague came to Boston yesterday to confer with officials of the National Broadcasting Company. Little was said about the outcome of the day-long conference, but it is known the price of rental is one of the stumbling blocks to a completion of negotiations.
The railway company owns several acres on the summit, reached both by the cog railroad from the western slope and a toll automobile road from the east. A hotel shares the summit with a year-round meteorlogical [sic] station.
Tanks Ready at Fabyans
Col Teague, in anticipation of a successful outcome to his idea, has drawn plans for a site and the necessary equipment. Several steel tanks, to be used for gasoline storage, are loaded on flat cars at Fabyans, ready for the steep trip up the mountain. These tanks, it is planned, will be located near the marker to Lizzie Bourne, who perished years ago during an attempted climb to the top. She died in her father's arms with the summit almost in sight.
The Mt Washington Railway Company is a corporation within itself, although it is virtually a subsidiary of the Boston & Maine Railway. It acquired the rights for the cog railroad and purchased the summit area from the heirs of Coe and Pintree, many years ago.
Col Teague, who is the proprietor of the Mt Kinco House, in the Moosehead Lake section of Maine, spent several hours yesterday with John Shepard, head of WNAC. No statement was made about further discussions. (Boston Globe, Oct. 5)

DAVID SARNOFF REPORTS ON TELEVISION PROGRESS
By DAVID SARNOFF
DURING my five weeks abroad, I studied the latest developments of television in Europe. While interest is shown everywhere in this new branch of the radio art, greater progress has been made in England than elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, the experience to date with television in England, has only served to emphasize the formidable nature of the problems which must be solved before a satisfactory service of television to the public can be rendered, and a new industry soundly established.
The question is often asked: "Is England ahead of the United States in television?" I shall try to answer this question by stating the facts as I have now observed them on both sides of the Atlantic.
British Broadcasting Corp. has been operating its television transmitter, located at Alexandria Palace in London, for about a year. The range of this transmitter is more than 25 miles and covers all of London and its immediate vicinity. The system employed is known abroad as the Marconi E.M.I. Television System which is fundamentally based on the RCA Television System first developed in the RCA Laboratories in the United States. Under an exchange of patent licenses, this British company may use RCA patents in England and in turn, RCA and its American licensees may use British Patents in the United States.
Each side is therefore in a position to benefit from developments and improvements made by the other.
For nearly one year BBC has been broadcasting television programs to the public on a regular daily schedule of one hour in the afternoon and one hour in the evening.
Some fifteen British Radio Manufacturers have been offering television receiving sets to the public at prices ranging between $200 and $500 each. At the Olympia Radio show which I visited while in London, all the manufacturers exhibited their latest television sets and the BBC arranged special programs so that the public could view the actual operations of television while visiting the radio show. From a technical standpoint the results were highly satisfactory. The public filled the television booths and showed great interest. But while hundreds of thousands of ordinary broadcast receivers were sold during the show the public bought less than 100 television receivers in total.
During one year's operation of a public television service in England, less than 2,000 receivers in all have been sold to the trade and less than 1,000 are actually in the hands of the public. There is but one television transmitter in London, and I was informed that it will probably be two years more before a second transmitter is erected in any other part of England.
The foregoing represents the present status of television in England despite the fact that geographically its problem is simple compared with the vast area to be served by a television service in the United States. Also it is to be noted that in England the costs of erecting a television station, the establishment of a special organization, and the furnishing of television programs, have been paid by the Government out of license fees paid by the public annually for the privilege of listening or seeing by radio.
The range of the RCA television transmitter atop the Empire State Building now operated by the NBC from its television studios in the RCA Building in New York City, is approximately the same as that of the BBC station in London. The television receivers installed in the homes of our experts, who have been carrying on field tests during the past year, are likewise of the same order of performance as those in use in England.
The major problem of television, in both countries, is to provide a program for the home that will meet public requirements and maintain public interest.
To place television on a commercial basis in the United States, it is necessary to establish a sufficient number of sending stations, that must be interconnected and able to furnish a regular service at least to the population residing within the principal market areas of our country. The erection of such stations, the provision of necessary interconnecting facilities, and the establishment of a regular program service that would meet public requirements and hold public interest, call for vast financial expenditures before any returns can be reasonably expected.
I firmly believe in the American System of private enterprise, rather than Government subsidy; of free radio to the home, rather than license fees paid to the Government by owners of receiving sets; and I have no doubt, that in due time, we shall find practical answers to the practical problems that now beset the difficult road of the pioneer in television. The road calls for faith and perseverance as well as ingenuity and enterprise but it is a road that holds great promise for the public, for artists and performers, and for the radio industry. (Radio Daily)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1937
Says Tele Must Create Own Program Technique
New Brunswick, N. J. — Television must develop its own program technique, and the ultimate characteristics of such programs should be "spontaneity"— in other words, television must capture images of the world in action — declared Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, RCA technical consultant, in a talk before the New Jersey Press Ass'n here yesterday [4].
"Television networks of stations comparable to those existing in sound broadcasting," said Dr. Goldsmith, "must await the development of either the co-axial cable or automatic radio relay stations. Meanwhile, if public service should be inaugurated, individual stations can use local talent, films and traveling units."
Dr. Goldsmith said more than $10,000,000 had already been spent on television experiments, and current research appropriations may total between one and two million dollars a year.
New York presents problems in television transmission that are unique, Dr. Goldsmith stated, because of the effect of tall steel structures on the ultra-short radio waves employed in the new art, but he said that communities in northern New Jersey are in direct air line with the antenna on the Empire State Bldg.
Charles L. Allen, executive secretary of the press association, said newspapers must learn to use television as a supplement for their services in future. He termed coming of television as "an age of terrific competition in eye appeal." (Radio Daily, Oct. 5)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1937
Television Up Another Notch
Special Demonstration Scores Hit.
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK (AP)— Television is trying to grow up. It's [sic] latest demonstration had 25 persons in the "cast."
That was when the RCA-NBC system, now being used for field tests in New York, was operated yesterday [7] to give a preview of the National Business show open here Oct. 18.
The special Television studio on the third floor of Radio City was transformed into something on the order of an exhibit hall and the electric camera was moved about much as would a show visitor. The 25 persons included demonstrators, Albert Tangora, champion speed typist [right], and Miss Eleanor Rankin of New York, who was in charge of the televised tour.
The guests, business executives, looked on by means of receivers installed three floors above and connected to the studio by a special wire line. They thought the demonstration “interesting and marvelous." It took 45 minutes for the preview.

Urges Launching Television Without Awaiting Perfection
Upper Montclair, N. J. — The sooner American television goes on a regular program basis, with television sets made available to the public, regardless how crude and no matter what the obstacles may be, the sooner this country will realize practical television. So says Allen B. Du Mont, head of the Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, a pioneer in the cathode-ray tube field, following his recent return from abroad and an inspection of television progress in England and on the continent.
Du Mont says there has been too much loose talk about television in this country, whereas in England they have gone ahead and started television broadcasts, thereby learning more in six months of practical activity than the U. S. is liable to learn in six more years of laboratory experiments. He believes that the only way to get the right answers to questions about technique, programs, service areas, networks and economics is to bring television out of the laboratory and make a real try.
Some 10,000 television sets have already been sold in England, according to Du Mont. Average price now is $350, but will be reduced to $200 shortly. He said the range of the London BBC transmitter is 100 miles.
Du Mont also declared the BBC has proved there is no absolute need for special co-axial cables for transmission of programs from pickup source to remote television transmitter and to associated stations of a network. (Radio Daily)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1937
BROADCAST TESTS OF TELEVISION TO START NEXT YEAR
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD

NEW YORK, Oct. 13 (AP)—The CBS network, which as soon as technically possible, plans to join in the New York testing of television, reports that work on the installation of its picture transmitter is expected to get under way not long after the first of the year.
This belief is based on the progress made at the RCA laboratories at Camden, N. J., where the equipment is being put together. It is just about ready for the preliminary power checkup before shipment to New York.
The transmitter, designed for ultra short waves, is in two sections, one for sight and the other for sound. It will be placed on the 73rd and 74th floors of the Chrysler building, to be connected by cable to a special studio in a building across the street. The antenna is to be built around the spire on top of the skyscraper.
While no date has been set to begin the actual broadcast tests, it probably will be well on toward summer before they get under way.
Meanwhile, the NCB-RCA setup on the Empire State building, with studios in Radio City, is making preparations to extend experimentation into the outdoor field by the addition of mobile equipment.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, 1937
Television on 3x4' Screen Is Demonstrated by RCA
First demonstration of the RCA projection tube in the reception of a broadcast television program took place last night on the tower of the Empire State Building with the sending of a program received from the NBC studios back to the RCA Building.
An enlarged picture, approximately 3x 4 feet, was thrown on the screen by the projection tube. Recent advances made in black and white television picture transmission and reception also were shown by RCA. The NBC television transmitter recently was equipped with a new antenna system which is expected to materially improve the field test transmissions.
Demonstration was held in connection with the convention of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers, and President David Sarnoff of RCA addressed the group.
The New RCA cathode-ray tube of intense brilliance enabled the projection of moving images in black and white on the 3x4-ft. screen, marking the first demonstration of a broadcast television program on such a screen.
Addressing the engineers, Sarnoff pointed out that although television progress seems slow at times, and "television today is an unfinished product," the size of the screen has been increased from approximately 5x8 inches to 7x10, and in addition important progress has been made in projecting pictures 3x4 feet on a screen.
Television programs will cost much more than present radio shows, Sarnoff stated, and this constituted a tele problem as formidable as the technical problems yet to be solved. A program technique also must be worked out, and advertisers must be provided with assurance that the more costly medium will be worth the expense, he added.
Both film and live talent were used for the demonstration. Show included two dramatic sketches written for television, harp solos by Margaret Brill, a comedy skit by Herman and Banta and a newsreel. The show was picked up by iconoscope cameras in the NBC studios at Radio City, relayed by coaxial cable to the Empire State Tower transmitter, and broadcast from there back to the RCA Building. (Radio Daily, Oct. 15)

PROGRESS MADE BY TELEVISION DEMONSTRATED
Special Studio Show Is Put on for Motion Picture Engineers
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
Associated Press Radio Editor
NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (AP)—Television on a screen came out of the laboratory temporarily last night [14] to show members of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers how far it has gone.
Studio Show Given
While the images it reproduced were somewhat dim, it did indicate some of its possibilities by putting them on an area three by four feet.
The apparatus was operated under actual broadcast conditions, displaying a 35-minute studio show of both live talent and films, in its first semipublic demonstration. In a test last summer before the Institute of Radio Engineers there was only a still picture without transmission.
The projector, which uses a special cathode ray tube and other apparatus, differs from direct reproduction in that the tube is designed to pass the image through a set of lenses onto the screen. In direct reproduction the picture appears on the flat end of a much larger cathode ray tube, which despite its greater size can handle pictures only about seven by ten inches. However, the resulting detail is better than in the case of projection.
Still in the process of development, the projection tube is part of the research now under way by Radio Corporation of America and National Broadcasting Company engineers. This work includes field testing in New York by the use of a special studio in Radio City and an ultra short wave transmitter for both sight and sound on the Empire State Building.
Receiver Demonstrated
Besides the projection, the movie engineers were shown the direct type of receiver, 13 of which reproduced images in black and white and two of which were operated in the shade of green of earlier cathode ray experiments. The black and white tends to give a sharper picture.
David Sarnoff, president of R. C. A., told the guests that while "television is today an unfinished product," its progress to date led him to express the belief that "the same pioneering spirit of private enterprise that has produced the great industries of the automobile, motion picture and radio will likewise provide us with a nation-wide system of television."
Participating in the entertainment, put together much like a vaudeville revue, was Betty Goodwin, who has become known as NBC’s "television girl." Improvement in production was noticeable in that one scene was blended into another with much greater ease than in previous demonstrations.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1937
PHILCO APPLICATION REFUSED
WASHINGTON, Oct. 15—The Communications Commission returned today to the Philco Radio and Television Corporation, Philadelphia, its application for authority to build a new television broadcast station.
The commission said the Philco application was “not in proper form.”

MONDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1937
FCC SEES TELEVISION LONG DISTANCE AWAY
Washington.—A virtual admission that television is actually rounding the corner in the United States is seen in the action yesterday [18] by the Federal Communications Commission in clearing the upper traffic bands in an allocation move which is considered one of the most important in recent years. The FCC order is a significant basic step in paving the way for the actual development of reliable service and proper technical standards preparatory to the practical use of television.
Air space will be increased ten-fold by the FCC act. Ultra high frequency bands from 30,000 to 300,000 kilocycles are affected by the new allocation standards set up by the FCC order. Seven channels between 44,000 and 108,000 kilocycles, and 12 channels between 156,000 and 300,000 kilocycles are assigned to television, including in six megacycle width, both pictures and synchronized sound.
In the 41,020 to 43,980 kilocycle band, 75 channels are made available for assignment to aural broadcasting stations. Sixteen channels for relay broadcast stations are provided in the band from 30,830 to 39,820 kilocycles.
The FCC order is effective October 13, 1938, but due to the scarcity of assignments at present in ultra high frequency bands, the commission may make assignments before that date. (Hollywood Reporter, Oct. 19)

Television Test To Be Delayed
More Time Needed To Assemble Equipment.
By C.E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, Oct. 18.—(AP)—Outdoor pickups of experimental television broadcasts here are not to get under way as soon as it was first hoped. The indications now are that it will be two or three weeks before they do.
The delay is due to the fact that more time is being required to put the equipment together. It is being housed in two mobile units, one for the electric camera and the other for the ultra-short wave relay transmitter. When the apparatus is ready it will be put to work about the streets of New York and other sections of the big city as another adjunct for the field test studio and Empire State transmitter be operated with the RCA-NBC system.
It is not expected that a demonstration will be conducted until some time after the arrival of the apparatus because of a desire to iron out any possible kinks.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

Westmore Says Television Won't Need Freak Makeup
Television performers will be required to use only natural makeup, and probably less of it than the average New York woman uses for street wear, it was predicted yesterday [21] by Percy Westmore, prominent Hollywood makeup man, following an inspection of the NBC television studio in Radio City.
Westmore scoffed at the oft-circulated stories that purple lipstick, green rouge and blue powder would be required for makeup of artists appearing in front of the television camera.
"I have had an opportunity to study studio conditions and see the television image, and I am convinced the development of makeup technique for television will follow the current trend in motion pictures," said Westmore. "We are using less grease paint today, less powder and less lip rouge. There is every reason for television to do likewise, particularly because spontaneity and naturalness are keynotes of the medium."
Makeup's two biggest contributions to television, Westmore believes, will be to define features more clearly and accentuate the plans of the face.
Gloria Dickson, Hollywood actress, accompanied Westmore on his NBC tour and did voluntary duty as a subject for the iconoscope camera. (Radio Daily, Oct. 22)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1937
Parts for Television Sets to Be Sold Soon
Receiving apparatus, like first radios, will be home-made
New York, Oct. 23 (AP)—The first television sets, like the first radios, will be home made.
Engineers confirmed this today after word leaked out that the Radio Corporation of America will soon market parts from which such sets can be built.
The first sets will probably cost from $200 to $300.
The parts will be sold, it was explained at the RCA offices, because television experts have found no better way of bringing radio pictures from the experimental stage into widespread practical use. Programs too Expensive From the time television emerged from the dream phase, engineers have striven to bring the new medium to life full grown. They wanted receiving sets, broadcasting apparatus and programs perfected together so the thing could start at full tilt. The Federal Communications Commission co-operated in this limiting television broadcasting licenses to an experimental basis.
But experience has shown that television programs are too expensive to attract commercial sponsors unless those sponsors are assured a large audience. The audience will not be there unless buyers of television sets are assured a steady flow of good programs. And—here is the big catch—television engineers are afraid to sell complete sets now because developments are coming so fast the sets soon would be out of date.
So the television men are turning deliberately to the man who, accidentally, was responsible for the development of radio—the great American handy-man-around-the-house—the fellow who can build anything as long as he has the parts.
Builds Own Set
The handyman builds his own set, and when a change comes he makes 'it by inserting a new part instead of buying a whole new set. His experiences help the television engineers, and when commercial sets are ready they are compact and cheaper because they are made for mass consumption.
The growth of television will thus be like that of radio, but it will also be different. In the earliest days of wireless anyone anywhere could sit in his parlor with his crystal and earphones and listen to dots and dashes of the Morse code. That was great stuff then because no one thought of anything better. The voice and music broadcasts which followed could also be heard over a wide range.
The first television sets, on the other hand, will be dependable only within a 100-mile radius of New York and Philadelphia, the two cities from which regular picture programs are now broadcast. Another difference between young television and young radio is that the first radios had innumerable, crude parts.
In television, much of this preliminary detail has already been eliminated in the laboratories. The main part in the home made sets will be a large cathode ray tube, similar in appearance to an over-grown radio tube, through which electrical impulses are filtered, amplified and converted into light rays. Other important parts "scan" the picture, picking up light and shadow line by line just as your eye reads a book, from left to right, down the page; focus the screen and “stepup” the current.
The parts, which will go on the market within a few months, can be assembled and hooked up to an ordinary radio set.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

Philco has re-submitted to FCC its application for television station, on 204,000 to 210,000 band. (Radio Daily)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1937
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI, 910 kcs.

Many FCC Tele Channels Too High, Says Murray
Philadelphia — FCC assignment to television of channels 44-108 megacycles has given television companies a number of desired channels, but some of them are so high that they cannot be used today for this purpose, according to A. L. Murray, Philco Television engineer, and Chairman of the Television Committee of the Radio Manufacturers Association. In addition, Murray said, the television channels are sandwiched between those used for other purposes.
He pointed out that the assignment does not cover commercial television. "The commission," he said, "made it very clear that there does not appear to be an immediate outlook for the recognition of television service on a commercial basis. These assigned channels are solely for the continuance of experimentation and the solution of the many problems that still confront television, and must not be taken as an indication that commercial television is right at hand."
The R.M.A. committee told the FCC that before television experimentation could be successfully carried on the whole band from 42 to 90 megacycles had to be cleared for this purpose. (Radio Daily)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1937
Zenith Amends Charter For Television Activity
Chicago — The way was paved for Zenith Radio to enter the television field at a meeting of stockholders here this week amending articles of incorporation permitting the firm to broaden its activities to include the field of visual radio. An application for permit to build transmitter had previously been turned down by FCC on grounds company charter did not permit television activity.
E. F. McDonald Jr., president of Zenith, told stockholders that while problems of television are not insurmountable, commercial application appears to be well in the future. He expressed the belief that television will come over telephone wires instead of through the air by radio waves. Added that he expects American Telephone and Telegraph Company to handle the transmission of television programs, with the public paying for the service as it does for phone services today. Radio manufacturers, he thought, would probably restrict their television activity to building receivers. (Radio Daily)

NBC STARTS BUILDING IN HOLLYWOOD
TO REPLACE its present Hollywood studios, already outgrown although built only two years ago, NBC will begin immediate construction of its new Hollywood home at the famous intersection of Sunset Blvd. & Vine St., site of the original Famous Players-Lasky film lot.
The new structure will provide for the immediate needs of NBC, occupying about half of the five-acre tract, comprising two city blocks, and leaving ample room for future expansion as well as for television studios when needed. Designed by O. B. Hanson, NBC chief engineer, and the company's design unit, working in cooperation with the Austin Co., which will erect the building, the studios will be patterned after the motion picture unit plan.
Four large individual studios under separate roofs, each with an audience capacity of several hundred persons and four non-audience studios will be used for broadcasting. Executive offices will be housed in a central office building at the corner of Sunset and Vine, which visitors will enter through a three-story lobby from which a huge master control room with its intricate panels and apparatus will be visible. Modern in every respect, with the latest lighting facilities, air conditioning, acoustical treatment, the studios will also represent the latest development of NBC engineers, including an automatic pre-set switching system.
"This development," said President Lenox Lohr [on Oct. 29], "marks a definite step in the importance of Hollywood as a center for the radio industry. That Hollywood is important in radio is borne out by the fact that less than two years ago we opened the most modern broadcasting center we could construct. Already we have outgrown it."
It is expected that Don Lee Broadcasting System, Los Angeles, will take over the present NBC Hollywood headquarters. (Broadcasting, Nov. 1)

September 1937

NBC and CBS duelled over television in September 1937, but neither had much ammunition.

Broadcasts of sports, parades and other outdoor events were announced for W2XBS by NBC, starting a month away. The down side is almost everyone who had a TV set in the New York area worked for RCA. It’s not like anyone at home would catch the New York Giants in action. And the vans weren't delivered to the network until December 12th.

As for CBS, Bill Paley also talked about news and sports broadcasts “coming soon” from its New York station. Not only were there no television sets to view them, the station had no studios or even a transmitter yet.

Meanwhile, Du Mont applied for a license for an experimental station.

The most gimmicky story of the month was one the Associated Press circulated about the mannequin that filled in for humans on NBC test broadcasts. Hot TV lights, you know.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1937
Confirmation of the opinion that high cost is holding back the development of television as a popular medium of entertainment is given by Dr. P. C. Goldmark, chief television engineer of the Columbia system, who has just returned from five weeks of study abroad. Dr. Goldmark reports that in England receiver prices range from $300 to $800. Less than 8000 receivers have been sold despite the fact that the British Broadcasting Company has broadcast visual programs for almost a year.
• • •
So far as picture quality is concerned Dr. Goldmark says that unusually fine transmissions have been made out-of-doors with daylight illumination ranging from bright sun-light to dim haze on foggy days. He notes that the sensitivity of the television camera has been increased beyond that of ordinary photographic emulsions so that the field of usefulness is greatly extended.
• • •
A little known phase of television is the inability of the photoelectric ray tube to equal the color evaluation of panchromatic film. Engineers are striving to reproduce all colors in the spectrum in their original intensities. Thus far this lack of color sensitiveness has required the use of unnatural makeup for television performances. Dr. Goldmark says that the BBC has made definite progress in developing a television camera rendering color in a fair degree of naturalness.
• • •
Dr. Goldmark witnessed the Davis Cup finals at Wimbleton in the London office of the CBS. The small size of the screen made action hard to follow, but Dr. Goldmark was told that by the end of the month a British manufacturer would have a projection type receiver producing images two feet wide. In France television is in more experimental stage. Projection type receivers throwing a picture comparable in size with homo movies were seen in Germany. The images, Dr. Goldmark reported, were as sharply defined and as steady as the ordinary commercial motion picture. Interest in television in the latter country was keen, but the cost of receivers was still too high for mass distribution. (Springfield Evening Union, Sept. 1)

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1937
TELEVISION STATION SOUGHT FOR CAMDEN
N.B.C. Asks U S. Permission to Operate Portable Experimental Set
Washington, Sept. 3.—The National Broadcasting Company today asked permission of the Federal Commission to place in service a portable television broadcasting station to be built on a specially constructed automobile truck and operated from Camden and nearby points.
Transmitter equipment would be operated in conjunction with NBC'S station N2XBS [W2XBS] in New York. Camden was selected as the principal base for testing and reception and transmission from and to New York City because, it was explained, engineers at the Camden plant of the RCA Manufacturing Company also will utilize the facilities for experiments in the development of television.
The transmitters, with associated control gear, including independent source of power supply, iconoscope cameras and required laboratory tests equipment, will be transported on the truck from point to point in the Camden area, the application explained. Only an experimental license was asked. In addition to transmission of images, sending and receiving of sound will be tested both by radio and wire between Camden and the Empire State Building and Radio City, New York. (Courier-Post, Camden)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1937
MOVIES TO SPEED WITH TELEVISION
Visual Performance Through Ether Will Concentrate Plot and Action
New York, Sept. 4.—(AP)—How would you like to be entertained by a machine gun?
A gun that fired chunks of sight and sound instead of bullets?
That's what television will be like if it follows the pattern Gilbert Seldes, Columbia Broadcasting Company's new experimental television program director, expects.
Seldes predicted in an interview today that when it finally comes into common use the radio's seeing screen will provide the fastest entertainment on earth—a brand new high speed form of fun.
Just as the movies speeded up the stage, so, Seldes said, television will speed up the movies. But the speed increase will be much greater for this reason:
When the movies were new, they took a play or perhaps an incident from a play and elaborated it, enlarging and adding detail, widening the scene of action and the scope of the plot.
Television, Seldes said, will work in the opposing direction. It will boil everything down to bare essentials. It will concentrate entertainment into virtual bullets of sight and sound, much as medicine and food now are concentrated into pills and capsules.
Programs will last only 15 minutes or less generally, because experience has indicated an audience cannot concentrate longer. This short period is one reason why so much must be packed into a small pace.
Seldes, who began his new television job this week after a long career as a writer and critic, would make no prediction of how soon the average man would have television in his home. He stressed the point that none of his statements must be accepted as definite predictions, but rather as well informed speculation.
Television screens will be about two feet or so square, and will be part of the receiving set, not panels in the walls of homes.
Home-made television sets will be possible, just as home-made radios were in the early days.
Radios will continue in use in their present form after television comes in, because "some programs are made to be heard and not seen." Example: Orchestra music.
Movie houses will continue popular after motion pictures are broadcast because "people are naturally gregarious. They like to get together."
Newspapers will prosper rather than be hurt by broadcasting of devised pictures of news events, because "broadcasts only serve to stir up interest. They will never replace the printed word."
Although not sure when all this would come to pass, Seldes said people were wrong in thinking television was "just around the corner.” He said it was "straight down the street, marching this way; a few hurdles, and it will be here."

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1937
NBC Tests Tele Sketch
NBC-RCA television experimental test today will include a script called The Match Maker, featuring James Meehan and Noel Mills. Sketch is scheduled to be televised at 1:45 p.m., and will run for 15 minutes. (Radio Daily)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1937
TELEVISION PERIL SEEN
Electrical Overload in Homes Held Possible Danger
BEDFORD SPRINGS, Pa., Sept. 9 (AP).—Television may create a safety problem in the American home of the future, George R. Conover of Philadelphia told the thirtieth annual convention of the Pennsylvania State electric association yesterday [8].
He said damage might result from the anticipated heavy “wire load” and recommended to the 600 delegates that their companies take precautions to prevent strain on household wiring.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1937
First testing of television on a much shorter wave-length than that now being used is planned for New York by NBC. At present 6.5 meters are carrying the picture transmissions being sent out on an experimental basis. Under an application filed with the federal communications commission space in the vicinity of one meter is being sought to make further tests. Engineers are anxious to determine whether the lower wave would be more practicable under transmission conditions that prevail in this area. (Flint Journal)

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1937
Meet Patience; She's the Tops For Television
Wearing Only Bathing Suit, She's Charlie McCarthy's Dream Girl
By C. E. Butterfield
New York, Sept 11.—(AP)—Right now, the most televised girl in New York is known only to her co-workers as Miss Patience. Most of the time, all she wears is a black satin bathing suit.
Never protesting about her hours nor the suffering sometimes encountered under the heat-producing high-powered Kleig lights that are just as necessary in television as the movies, Patience shows more than the fortitude of a real trouper [note: the last word was misspelled in some newspapers].
Well she can, for she's a show window dummy, called forward by engineers and program research men to do her share in the television field tests under way in New York.
The black satin bathing suit was selected mainly because of the color contrast it offers to her whitish pink features, giving the camera two extremes of the color range. Patience has her living assistants who also go through their television paces, but most of them never like to stay under the lights longer than can be helped. Patience just smiles on.
Almost any evening she is at work at the special NBC television studio in Radio City, standing on as the camera picks up her image and sends it along to the transmitter atop the Empire State Building for experimental broadcasting purposes.
These broadcasts, in continuation of the tests being conducted with the RCA system, still put on solely for engineer observers at special receiver locations about the city. They come mainly at night, a couple of hours at a time, but not on a regular schedule.
Outside of Patience's efforts, the program material is principally that of the drama, such as small intimate sketches that require only two or three characters and little setting.
The engineers and studio research staff also on occasion look on other acts like singers and dancers, solo scenes for the most part, in their attempts to solve the problems being encountered in the development of suitable program matter for television broadcasting. Lighting effects also come in for consideration.
As soon as they get farther along with the studio research, the engineers plan to take their camera outdoors in the streets of New York and thereabouts to see what results they can obtain under ordinary conditions. When this will be hasn't been determined yet, but it is the next test step.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1937
R. C. A. Prepares Mass Television Production
Negotiates for New Factory Site in Harrison, N. J.
Special to the Herald Tribune
HARRISON, N. J., Sept. 16.—The Radio Corporation of America is making preparations for the mass production of television apparatus, it was earned here today. The corporation already has opened negotiations with the Harrison Town Council, to acquire a block-square site for erection of a television factory.
The R. C. A. has a radio tube manufacturing plant here which employs 8,000 persons. The site under discussion for the television factory lies across the street and as bounded by Sussex, Bergen, Sixth and Seventh Strets.
F. H. Corregan, representing the R. C. A., in a letter today to Harrison town officials, asked for an adjustment of tax arrears which have accumulated on the parcels of property making up the site. Although his letter made no mention of television, town officials and spokesmen at the R. C. A. factory both said that was the purpose of the plant expansion.
The corporation also wrote that its present railroad sidings were inadequate and that it had acquired an option permitting the building of a new siding from the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad to its plant.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1937
18 STATIONS SEND IMAGES
Tele-Stations Scattered Throughout the Country Use Tiny Waves
EIGHTEEN stations are now licensed in the United States to transmit television images experimentally, according to the latest figures of the Federal Communications Commission.
Three licenses are held by the RCA Manufacturing Company at Camden, N. J., two of them being designated for portable stations. The University of Iowa has two permits.
Licenses to conduct experiments in New York have been granted the National Broadcasting Company and Columbia Broadcasting System.
Other licenses are held by: Don Lee Broadcasting System, Los Angeles; Farnsworth Television, Inc., Springfield, Pa.; First National Television, Inc., Kansas City, Mo.; General Television Corporation, Boston; The Journal Company, Milwaukee; Kansas State College of Agriculture and Applied Science, Manhattan, Kan.; Philco Radio and Television Corporation, Philadelphia; Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.; Radio Pictures, Inc., Long Island City, N. Y.; Sparks-Withington Company, Jackson, Mich., and Dr. George W. Young, Minn.
All television stations are as-signed to one of four groups of ultra-high frequencies. (New York Times)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 1937
NBC Outdoor Television
First Mobile Pickup Unit in America Will Start Experimental Service Next Month, Lohr Announces
First mobile television unit in America, now being built by RCA for delivery to NBC on Oct. 18, will be placed in service next month when NBC inaugurates outdoor pickups on an experimental basis in cooperation with RCA, it was announced yesterday [23] by President Lenox R. Lohr of NBC. The work will be strictly experimental, with a view to improving the equipment and methods of RCA television, Lohr pointed out.
As the public will expect television to bring into the home distant currents events, including sports, parades, elections and other news happenings, and will eventually demand faithful image as well as sound reproduction of the events, the new mobile unit will make a start toward supplying that demand, said O. B. Hanson, NBC chief engineer, in outlining the work to be done.
The immediate purpose, Hanson stated, is to train a group of men in handling the problems of special events. NBC has been conducting experiments for eight years, and Hanson declared that while much progress has been made it would be foolhardy to guess when actual daily television service, even in the limited area of New York City, will be a reality.
The new mobile television station will consist of two specially constructed motor vans, each about the size of a large bus. Apparatus for picture and sound pick-up will be installed in one, and a video transmitter, operating on a frequency of 177,000 kilocycles, in the other. In the metropolitan area, where many tall buildings make high frequency transmission difficult, the unit's workable range will be about 25 miles. Ten engineers will be required to operate the two television units. In the experimental field work NBC's present mobile sound transmitter will be included in the station.
Both picture and sound will be relayed by micro-wave to the NBC television transmitter in the Empire State Building. There the programs will be broadcast to the 100 receivers NBC has placed in the homes of trained observers throughout the metropolitan area. The television system to be used will be entirely electric, based on the cathode ray tube developed by RCA.
The van mounting the video, or picture, apparatus will be the mobile equivalent of a television studio control room. It will be fitted with television and broadcast equipment similar to that now in use at Radio City. This will include two cameras, video amplifiers, blanking and deflector amplifiers, synchronizing generators and rectifiers for supplying the iconoscope beam voltages. The principal sound apparatus will be microphones, microphone amplifiers and sound mixing panels. All the equipment will be mounted on racks extending down the center of the van, affording easy access to any part for repairs, and the alterations which will arise from the outdoor experimentation.
Directly in front of the operating engineers in the semi-darkened control room will be two monitoring kinescopes. One will show the scene actually being transmitted; the other will show the scene picked up by the second iconoscope camera preparatory to transmission. Sound will be picked up by a variety of microphones, including the parabolic microphone developed in the NBC laboratories, and will be monitored by loudspeaker. An elaborate telephone cue circuit will keep the ten engineers in contact with each other.
The two iconoscope cameras, to be mounted on tripods, will be technically equivalent to studio cameras, although considerably lighter in weight. Focusing will be by looking directly onto the plate of the iconoscope, instead of through a separate set of lenses, as in the case of studio cameras. The cameras will transmit the image through several hundred feet of multiple core cable, affording a considerable radius of operations. Four operating positions will also be available on the roof of the van.
The micro-wave television transmitter will be housed in the second van, linked to the first by 500 feet of coaxial cable. Here the principal apparatus will be the radio frequency unit, generating the carrier wave for picture signals, and modulating apparatus for imposing picture signals on this carrier. The signals will be transmitted to the Empire State station's directional receiving antenna either from a single dipole antenna raised on the van's roof, or from a highly directive antenna array raised on the scene of the pick-up. (Radio Daily, Sept. 24)

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1937
Zenith Revising Setup For Television Activity
Chicago — Zenith Radio Corp. is calling a stockholders' meeting [for Oct. 26] to fix its charter so it can apply again to FCC for a television transmitter. Charter at present is not broad enough to cover such expanded activity, the FCC ruled.
President E. F. McDonald Jr. says there is no rush, as television is still far off. He points out that a recent Zenith survey indicates it will take 9,000 television stations to cover the country, and 90,000 miles of coaxial cable at $1 a foot just to link these stations. Elimination of interference and discovering of a way to transmit television beyond the horizon are other problems still unsolved, he said. (Radio Daily)

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1937
Television Station Permit Is Sought by DuMont Lab
Upper Montclaire, N. J. — Allen B. DuMont Laboratories has applied to FCC for construction permit for an experimental television station on 46,000-56,000 kc, 50 watts visual and 50 watts aural power. (Radio Daily)

CBS to Put on Television as Part of Regular Program
New York. Sept. 30—(INS)— Definite plans have been made by the Columbia Broadcasting system to put on television programs from atop New York's Chrysler building, William Paley, president, announced today.
Returning from Europe where he made a study of the progress of television abroad, Mr. Paley said his company would soon begin construction of a transmitter to broadcast pictures through the ether waves.
He discredited reports that Europe is ahead of the United States in television and said that England was on shout a par with her American rivals.
"Television won't progress as rapidly as did radio," he said. "There are still a great many things to be adjusted before it will be perfect."
Experimental programs will be television broadcasts of sports and news events, Mr. Paley said.
Carrying one of the most brilliant passenger lists of the season, the Normandie arrived with a host of notables, including Ambassador William E. Bullitt, envoy to France and a score of stage and screen stars.
Latest importations to Hollywood included Danielle Darrieux, glamorous blonde of the French films, and Fernand Gravet, Parisian screen idol, who is said to be the wealthiest actor in the world.