March 1929

On a rainy day in Washington, D.C., March 4, 1929, Herbert Hoover took the U.S. presidential oath of office as radio covered the story with its top commentators of the era.

What about television?

C. Francis Jenkins, owner/operator of a small station in the nation’s capital, announced elaborate plans to film, broadcast, then re-broadcast part of the ceremony.

Did it happen? In looking through newspapers, broadcasting magazines and other publications of the day, no story exists to say if there was a telecast, let alone how good or bad it was. A sub-headline in the March 5 New York Herald Tribune read “Television Sends Photos of Action During Event” but the actual story, written the day before, doesn’t mention TV at all, just radio. A unsourced, unbylined story in the Gresham, Neb. Gazette on March 8 stated: “Every modern method of dissemination, except television, was used to give the nation and the world instant pictures of the events of the day” and goes on to mention “sound pictures” were made and people “saw the inaugural ceremony in their uptown ‘movie’ places a few hours after the occurrence.” Indeed, Variety reported mentioned Fox Movietone and Pathe News rushed to get the newsreel footage into theatres. Some newspapers wrote about the radio coverage and talked about television progressing so it could air the 1932 inauguration.

Jenkins himself gave quite a number of interviews about television and his station station’s programming to newspapers. Not once did he mention a special inauguration broadcast. There’s no proof it did happen, so I have my doubts.

The decision by the Federal Radio Commission in late February to clear the standard radio band of television signals meant some scrambling, except for WRNY which apparently took advantage of the rule exemption between 1 and 6 a.m. Stations had to change frequencies. As well, several new stations got on the air in the next several months to run tests, including W2XCL in Brooklyn.

There’s a mention in the press of W7AXO in Portland, owned by an engineer at KWJJ radio.

CBS wasn’t in the television business yet, but Bill Paley was planning ahead, reserving space for TV studios in the soon-to-be-built 485 Madison Avenue tower.

Below are some of the major stories in television for March 1929. We’ve omitted dozens and dozens of speculation pieces, including at least a half dozen from Frank Jenkins.

SATURDAY, MARCH 2, 1929
TO SEND FILM OF INAUGURAL BYTELEVISION
Firm Plans to Transmit Moving Pictures of Parade 30 Minutes After Event
WASHINGTON, March 2.—Anyone unable to come to Washington for the inauguration of Herbert Hoover, but who possesses a television receiving set, will be able to see movies of the parade within half an hour after it passes the moving picture cameras, according to plans of the Jenkins Television Company of Washington and New Jersey.
Moving pictures will be taken of the parade, the film rushed to the laboratory where it will be developed and run through the transmitter of the apparatus, the elapsed time being 30 minutes, C. Francis Jenkins, noted inventor and head of the Jenkins Television Co. explained. The program will continue from the time the parade starts, shortly after noon, until 9 p. m., Mr. Jenkins said, owing to the fact that many of the television audience are employed during the daytime and will not be able to "look-in" until after the parade is over. For the benefit of these the films will be re-broadcast in the evening.
Those who are in a position to sit close to their scanning disks, however will see the parade within 30 minutes after it has been glimpsed by the crowds in Washington. It is pointed out that pictures taken of the parade when it leaves the Capitol will be available to the television audience in scattered parts of the country at about the exact time that portion of it swings around the Treasury Building on its way past the White House.
The films will average 200 feet in length and will be run through the transmitter at the rate of about 15 feet a second. After each section of film is transmitted an announcement will be made as to the nature of the next to be shown, and another 200 feet of film will be broadcast.
This will continue while the parade is in progress and will then be re-broadcast in the evening. To overcome showing pictures of parade in reverse form, as would be the case in looking at a photographic film, the electrical equipment of the television transmitter will be reversed, Mr. Jenkins said.
The transmission will be over two short wave channels which were granted to the Jenkins company this week by the Federal Radio Commission. For local reception a 2,000 kilocycle band will be used, and for distance the broadcasting will be over a band of approximately 3,000 kilocycles. The bands will be 100 kilocycles in width, Mr. Jenkins pointing out this is necessary for the broadcasting of movies. In the regular broadcast band with a channel but ten kilocycles wide it is difficult to transmit anything of a visual nature other than still pictures.
The Jenkins company has in course of construction in Maryland a 5,000 kilowatt station, but it is not believed that this will be completed in time to send out the inaugural parade. The transmitter, therefore, will be located in Mr. Jenkins’ laboratory at 1519 Connecticut Avenue. (Springfield News-Sun, Mar. 3)
SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 1929
TELEVISION SCHEDULES
Radiovision Broadcasts Are Finding Place.
Pittsburgh, Pa.—W8XAV, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., 20,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2100-2200. kc or 139 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame. Transmitting television programs, generally motion picture films, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 5:10 to 6 a. m., eastern standard time.
Schenectady, N. Y., W2XAF, 2100-2200 kc. or 145 m. General Electric Co., 24 lines, 20 frames per picture. Sunday, 11:15 to 11:45 p. m. Tuesday, 1[2] to 12.30 p. m. Tuesday. Wednesday and Friday. 1:30 to 2 p. m.
Washington, D. C., W3XX. C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2850-2950 kc. of 103 m. Standard scanning. 8 to 9 p. m., eastern standard time. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radio-movies.
EXPERIMENTAL.
Brooklyn, N. Y.—Pilot Electric Co., license approved, but frequency not yet assigned.
Chicago, Ill.—W9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. Standard scanning.
Chicago, Ill.—Aeroproducts, Inc. 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
Jersey City, N. J.—Jenkins Television Corp., 2100-2200 kc., or 139 m.
Lexington, Mass.—W1XAY, Lexington Air Station, 300 watts, new frequency not yet assigned. Standard scanning. Daily, 3 to 4 p. m. and Friday, 7:30 to 8 p. m. Will soon be equipped to broadcast voice and vision simultaneously.
Newark, N. J.—WAAM, Inc., license approved, but frequency not yet assigned.
New York, N. Y.—W2XBW, Inc., [sic] license approved, but frequency not yet assigned.
New York, N. Y.—W2XBW and W2XBV, Radio Corp. of America, 5000 watts. 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m.
Oakland, Cal.—General Electric Co., 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
Springfield, Mass.—Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
Winter Park, Fla.—William Justis Lee, license approved, but frequency not yet assigned.
NOTES.
Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers Assn. This is 48 lines per picture, 15 frames per second, with scanning consecutive from left to right and top to bottom as one reads the page of a book.
All the above stations have been licensed by the Federal Radio Commission. A number of others who have previously been broadcasting still have their applications pending. (Pittsburgh Press)

SUNDAY, MARCH 10, 1929
The new and powerful transmitter, now being constructed by the Jenkins television corporation in Jersey City, will be ready for preliminary tests on April 1. Its call letters will be W2XCR and it will operate on a frequency of 2150 kilocycles with a variable power up to 5 kilowatts. (Ben Gross, Daily News)

Television Space in New 25-Story C. B. S. Building
Realizing that television as a means of transmitting visually action that takes place in studios is somewhere in the future, engineers of the Columbia Broadcasting System are providing lighting equipment, control rooms and conduits for this purpose in their new 24-story [sic] building now in the course of completion at Madison Avenue and 52d Street, New York.
The five top stories of the structure, which will bear the name "The Columbia Broadcasting System Building," are being specially constructed. They will provide executive offices of the company, as well as tiny studios for individual speakers, medium studios for such presentations as orchestras, and huge, auditorium-like rooms for accommodating up to 250 entertainers. There will be fifteen studios in all. Visitors will be able to witness performances from glass enclosed balconies above the larger studios, which will be two stories high in some cases.
The building is expected to be ready for occupancy by early fall. Officials of the company hope that they may be able to celebrate Columbia's second birthday in the new quarters. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

So far, nothing has been heard of the television films to be made at the Hoover-Curtis inaugural for transmission shortly thereafter.
But, scanning the public prints, Static refuses to mourn a lost opportunity to see ex-President Coolidge again under a top hat. (“Static” radio column, Cleveland Plain Dealer)

TUESDAY, MARCH 12, 1929
TELEVISION STATIONS BEING ERECTED
JERSEY CITY, N. J., March 12.—Having been granted the necessary transmitting licenses by the Federal Radio Commission, the Jenkins Television Corporation of this city is now building a powerful television transmitter here and another In Washington. D. C. According to James W. Garside, president of the corporation, the Jersey city transmitter will operate at a frequency of 2150 kilocycles, which is equivalent to about 140 meters, a variable power up to 5 kilowatts. The construction work should be completed in time to have the transmitter on the air for preliminary tests by April 1. The transmitter is being installed in the radio room on the roof of the Jenkins Television plant. The call letters of this transmitter will be W2XCR.
Meanwhile, a similar license has been granted the Jenkins Television Corporation for the Installation of a television transmitter in the vicinity of Washington. The site will be in Montgomery County, Me., [sic] between Norbec and Rockville. A 5-kilowatt transmitter will be installed to serve Washington, Philadelphia. Baltimore and other surrounding cities. (Burlington Press, Mar. 13)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1929
TELEVISION PERMIT GRANTED LEXINGTON
Station to Use 5000 Watts on 2000-2100 Kilocycles
The Lexington Radio Station was notified yesterday [13] by the Federal Radio Commission that the petition of the company for a 5000-watt television transmitting wave band has been granted. This station will be the first station New England to have a television transmitter.
At present there are but three other licensed television stations. They are owned by the Westinghouse Corporation, General Electric Company and the Jenkins Television Corporation.
The Lexington station will have a band covering 2000 to 21000 kilocycles [sic].(Boston Globe, Mar. 14)

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 1929
Demonstration of Outdoor Scene By Improved Television
By DR. R. W. KING
ENGINEERS of Bell Telephone Laboratories, who nearly two years ago gave the first demonstration of television, disclosed some of the further progress which they have made during their continued researches by demonstrating a new transmitting device which is capable of putting upon the television circuit outdoor scenes. On the roof of the Laboratories actors boxed and danced, swung baseball bats and golf clubs to appear in brightly illuminated pictures in one of the laboratories on the eighth floor. The present apparatus differs radically from that of the first demonstration when the scene to be transmitted was illuminated by a powerful artificial light and only the actor’s head and shoulders appeared in transmission. With the improved apparatus the scene was illuminated by ordinary sunlight and covered the area occupied by the golfer.
In the first form of apparatus, demonstrated in April, 1927, the scene was illuminated by a rapidly oscillating beam from a powerful arc light, and that limited the scene to be transmitted to a very small area. The new development frees television from one of its most serious limitations.
The scene or event to be transmitted is reduced to the form of an image by a large lens, this image being scanned by a rapidly rotating disc similar to but much larger than that previously employed. The lens served somewhat the same purpose in the television apparatus as the large lens of an astronomical telescope, and like the latter it should be large to gather as much light as possible.
The experiments show that moving persons and objects can be successfully scanned, although at a considerable distance from the lens, and therefore in such a position that the focus of the lens does not require changing from moment to moment. Light passing through the lens and scanning disc actuates a light responsive device of extreme sensitiveness and generates an electric current which after amplification may be transmitted either by wire or radio.
The developments in television which were demonstrated were perfected by Dr. Frank Gray of the Laboratories working in collaboration with Dr. Herbert E. Ives. They illustrate the continued interest and progress of the telephone engineers in the problems of television, but the engineers themselves refused to prophesy as to future developments or applications. They pointed out that the improvement was in the television transmitter and that its use required no fundamental change in the two types of receiving equipment for use by either single individuals or larger audiences which were developed and demonstrated year ago. (Paterson Morning Call)
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 1929
That Strange Sound in Radio Is Nightly Television Program
NEW YORK, March 22—Radio fans who twist the dials between 7 and 9 o'clock these nights are hearing, when they get down between 142.8 and 149.9 meters, a strange stuttering gibberish and unmusical mixture of musical sounds which only a few amateurs, those who are experimenting with television, are able to untangle.
Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, vice-president and chief broadcasting engineer of the Radio Corporation, let the secret out yesterday [21] and explained this nightly program is sent an almost unknown broadcasting station at No. 411 Fifth Avenue and is for the enjoyment of "lookers in" not "listeners in."
In the small laboratory at 411 Fifth Avenue, where the 250-watt transmitter is situated, every now and then Dr. Goldsmith, instead of making the usual announcement, "This is station W2XBS,” reaches over and picks up a placard on which simply “W2XBA” has been printed and holds this up to the electric "eye" of the television transmitter.

Immediately this "eye" flings its retinal message into space, making that mysterious gibberish for the "listeners in" but recording a perfectly intelligible message in the television receivers or "electric brains" which a few scattered experimenters have set up on Long Island, in Jersey or upper New York State or Connecticut, attached to wires strung over apartment roofs.
Although David Sarnoff, executive vice-president of the Radio Corporation, said only two months ago that it would be three to five years before television equipment was on the market for anybody to buy and set up, in the same fashion as sound broadcasting goes on at present, Dr. Goldsmith let it be known that the scheme has already reached a very research workable stage, thanks to the research work of Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson of the General Electric Company and Dr. Frank Conrad of the Westinghouse laboratory, not to mention Dr. Goldsmith's present work. (Springfield Union, Mar. 22)

OFF THE ANTENNA
For over six months past the Jenkins laboratories of Washington, D. C. have been broadcasting television pictures for members of the American Radio Relay league and radio amateurs at large. This service has proved highly popular. Many "lookers-in” have built their own television receivers or have made use of the simple kit offered by Mr. Jenkins for purely experimental purposes. However, of late there is a steadily increasing demand for a simple, compact and practical television receiver which will soon be met by the production of the Jenkins televisor.
The Jenkins radio movies, as they are termed, are broadcast on 46.72 meters (6420 kilocycles), in the form of a 48-line picture with 15 pictures per second. The station call is W3XK. The same pictures are also simultaneously broadcast on 186.92 meters (1605 kilocycles) for Washington and neighboring receivers within the skip distance of short-wave signals. The radio movies are broadcast on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings at 8 p. m., eastern standard time.
The Jenkins broadcasts have been in the form of experimental tests. Mr. Jenkins, a firm believer in the great laboratory of everyday application, has had the active co-operation of experimenters throughout the country who have tuned in his television signals. At first, simple subjects have been sent out, but of late Mr. Jenkins has arranged for more elaborate subjects, step by step, in keeping with the experimental facilities of his scattered collaborators. Each subject is preceded by an announcement (both in code and phone at present) and each picture story finishes with “End,” which means, of course, that the looker-in must throw a switch back to the loud speaker for the next announcement.
Until now, the subjects have been in the form of silhouet or black-and-white pictures and the action has been relatively simple. This simplicity has been for the purpose of making reception easier for amateurs, and also to insure best results with the frequency bands available. However, Mr. Jenkins has about completed a new broadcast transmitter for working in the band of 4900 to 5000 kilocycles, which will permit of transmitting half-tone pictures in place of the present black-and-white or silhouet pictures. Nevertheless, it has been found by repeated broadcasts of Jenkins radio movies that stories in silhouet can be made quite as entertaining as movie cartoons in the theater, not forgetting in addition the appeal of the mystery of movies by way of radio.
Within the very near future the first practical television receiver or televisor will be placed on the market for use with any standard short-wave or broadcast receiver, as the case may be, in place of the usual loud speaker for the reception of the Jenkins radio movies and other television signals. Through the medium of the Jenkins radio movies projector, a sufficient number of stations will broadcast television signals throughout the country for a nation-wide service. (Springfield, Mass. Daily News)

SATURDAY, MARCH 23, 1929
TELEVISION EXHIBITED
Demonstration Features Verona Business Show.
A television demonstration is a feature of the Verona Business show at the Gearty building, Bloomfield and Fairview avenues, Verona. The show, which opened Wednesday and will end tonight, is being held under the auspices of the Verona Chamber of Commerce.
The television apparatus is being shown by Leland St. George, radio dealer, through an arrangement with Station WAAM, Newark. Demonstrations have been given nightly to large crowds. (Montclair, N.J. Times)

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1929
GRANT TELEVISION PERMIT
WASHINGTON, March 26.—(AP)—The radio commission today granted stations WHAS, operated by the Courier-Journal and the Louisville Times Co., permission to engage in television and picture broadcasting on 820 kilocycles between the hours of 1 and 6 a. m. The commission also granted the station a construction permit to increase its power from 5,000 to 10,000 watts.

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1929
WASHINGTON, March 26, (AP)—Twenty-two visual broadcast stations soon will be transmitting pictures and television images on channels assigned by the federal radio commission.
Twelve of the stations are located in the east, four in the middle west, two in the far west and one in the south. Three are portables owned by the Radio Corporation of America. One station, WRNY, Coytesville, N. J., operated by the Experimenter Publishing Company, is operating on 1010 kilocycles in the broadcast band. The others send on channels, 100 kilocycles wide, in the high frequency band.
Stations operating on short waves and their frequencies follow: W1XAE, Springfield, Westinghouse Company, 2000 to 2100 kilocycles; W1XAY, Lexington, Lexington Air Stations, 2000 to 2100; W2XBA, Newark, N. J., WAAM Inc., 2750 to 2850; W2XBS, portable, RCA, 2000 to 2100; W2XBV, portable, RCA, 2000 to 2100; W2XBW, portable, RCA 2000 to 2100; W2XCL, New York, Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company, 2000 to 2100 and 2750 to 2850.
W2XCO, New York, RCA, 2100 to 2200; W2XCR, Jersey City, Jenkins Television Corporation; 2100 to 2200; W2XCW, Schenectady, N. J., General Electric, 2100 to 2200; W2XX, Ossining, N. Y., Robert F. Gowen, 2000 to 2100; W3XK, Washington, Jenkins Laboratories, 2000 to 2100 and 2850 to 2950; W3XL, Bound Brook, N. J., RCA, 2850 to 2950; W4XE, Winter Park, W. J. Lee, 2000 to 2100; W6XN, Oakland, Cal., General Electric, 2000 to 2100; W7XAO, Portland, Wilbur Jerman, 2750 to 2850.
W8XAV, Pittsburgh, Westinghouse, 2000 to 2100, 2100 to 2200 and 2750 to 2850; W9XAA, Chicago, Federation of Labor, 2000 to 2100; W9XAG, Chicago, Aero Products, 2100 to 2200; W9XAO, Chicago, Nelson Bond and Mortgage Company. 2000 to 2100; W9XAZ, Iowa City, University of Iowa, 2000 to 2100.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 1929
TELEVISION PERMIT SOUGHT BY WENR
Chicago Station Proposes to Give All-Day Service
Special Dispatch to the Globe
WASHINGTON, March 27—John V. Hogan, consulting radio engineer of New York City, today appeared before the Federal Radio Commission on behalf of Station WENR, Chicago, which has an application before the commission for television broadcasting. WENR wishes to erect a 5000-watt station to broadcast pictures on a frequency of about 2000 kilocycles from 7 in the morning until midnight.
Speaking of television, Hogan told the commission that he knew of no visual broadcasting with any program that was available to the public the present time. “However,” he said, “it is of a character and in a condition that should be encouraged as much as possible. As a program service television is very much in need of technical and program development. Even in its present state it has aroused interest to the extent that there now between 500 and 1000 receiving sets in the vicinity of Chicago.”
At the same hearing WENR also applied to the Commission for several short wave channels to use experimentally for relay broadcasting. E. H. Gager, chief engineer for WENR told the Commission that for the past little while his station had been conducting experiments in the rebroadcasting of programs from WWVA at Wheeling, W. Va, and WDRC at New Haven, Conn.
“If the Commission will permit us the use of these short wave channels we are asking for,” he said, “We hope to distribute ours to WRUF, Gainesville, Fla., and WEBR, Buffalo, and eventually over the South and West of the United States, after we have solved the national problem we will attempt to do some international relay broadcasting." (Boston Globe, Mar. 28)

FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 1929
GREAT LAKES COMPANY ASKS STATION PERMIT
WASHINGTON, March 29.—The Great Lakes broadcasting Company, Chicago, today applied to the federal radio commission for permission to construct a broadcasting station having 5000 watts power and operating on the 6000 kilocycle wave length.
Application was made also for permission to erect television apparatus having 20,000 watts power and to be operated between 7 a. m. and midnight daily. (Camden Evening Courier)

February 1929

It took a mere four days for the Federal Radio Commission to make some decisions about television after a public hearing on February 14, 1929.

More or less, it maintained the status quo. Stations needed permission to go on the air in the broadcast band (that is, the a.m. band), and could only do it between 1 and 6 in the morning. Otherwise, they had to operate in the short waves.

The Commission also granted licenses for 17 TV stations, though many had already been operating, but only on a six-month basis. It held off on a decision on 15 others—some of them had been licensed and on the air—and rejected three others. The most interesting “on hold” one was by Alfred M. Hubbard, who set up a radio station in Seattle for a major bootlegger, and became a dry agent who turned state’s witness in a trial involving the head of the dry squad. He had apparently tested some television equipment in 1928, but was never did get a license. One of the rejections was pioneer Boston radio broadcaster John Shepard III.

The off-again/on-again live coverage of the Hoover inauguration in March was both off and on in February.

As ironic as it was, one of the people who appeared and spoke on television in February 1929 was D.W. Griffith, the silent film director.

Below are some highlights, and they are few, of television for the month, including a transcription of the Commission ruling. For some reason, it didn’t appear in the Radio Service Bulletin put out by the government in February, it was in the March edition, along with the tabulation of approved TV stations. We have a biographical note about one of the losers below.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1929
EXPECT 200,000 AT INAUGURAL
Giant Radio Hookup Arranged for Ceremony
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1. (UP) — With Inauguration day little more than a month away, the nation’s capital is preparing to receive the 200,000 guests who are expected to see Herbert Hoover take his oath of office March 4. Four thousand persons saw Calvin Coolidge inaugurated in 1924.
Reviewing stands to seat 28,000 along the line of march from the White House to the capitol are under construction. Washington’s leading hotels already are booked to capacity.
Each mail brings the inaugural committee reservations for the charity ball at Washington auditorium the night of inauguration day.
Preparations for the most extensive radio “hook-up” in history are being made. Combined networks of the National and Columbia broadcasting chains, co-operating with independent stations, will carry a reportorial account of the parade and the speeches of President-Elect Hoover and Senator Curtis.
Powerful short-wave stations will speed descriptive words of the ceremonies even to foreign countries.
Also a television broadcast of the inaugural scene is being considered by radio engineers and the committee.

Television to Bring Producer's Voice and Figure From N. Y. to L. A.
Opening a new era in radio television transmission and reception, an arrangement has been made between the United Artists Theater and the General Electric Company to have D. W. Griffith, producer of "Lady of the Pavements," now at the local playhouse, broadcast his voice and form over the experimental short wave station of the electrical company at Schenectady, New York [W2XAD]. The television picture and voice will be broadcast Sunday, 4:30 p. m. local time, and will be received here after traveling through 3,000 miles of space.
The picture and voice will be received by Gilbert Lee, consulting engineer of General Electric, and foremost of local radio experimenters, on his short wave set stationed at 2274 Hidalgo street. His apparatus was constructed especially to receive the Griffith speech, which is in the form of a serious experiment to decide the future of commercial television. (Los Angeles Evening Express)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1929
TELEVISION TO BE REPLACED BY SOUND PICTURE
Experiments Throughout The Country Are Making Rapid Progress
New York, Feb. 2. (INS)—Experiments now in progress will bring television out of the "peep-hole stage," in the opinion of James W. Garside, president of the DeForest Radio Company and president of the newly formed Jenkins Television Corporation.
"In television, as in other fields, there varying degrees of progress,” said Mr. Garside today. "There are experimenters throughout the country working with huge scanning disks, large neon lamps, and speed control, with the ‘looker-in’ gazing at a tiny image woven by the whirling holes in the scanning disk.
Like Penny In Slot
"This is the peep-hole of television, and is comparable to the penny-in-the-slot stage of the motion picture industry before C. Francis Jenkins of Washington, D. C. developed pictures on the screen, so that hundreds, and even thousands, might view them at one time.
"For several years past Mr. Jenkins has working, on television. Long before demonstrations early last year Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson of the General Electric Company and the Radio Corporation of America, as well as other workers in this field, Mr. Jenkins was transmitting and receiving television pictures over considerable distances.
“For more than six months past his transmitter, W3XK, at Washington, D. C. has been broadcasting simultaneously on two wave lengths, namely, short waves for distant 'lookers-in' and broadcast waves for Washington and nearby. "Although Mr. Jenkins, in order to foster interest in practical television, has distributed thousands of simple television outfits with cardboard scanning disks to amateurs and experimenters at cost, he has progressed far beyond the usual scanning disk technique.
"Indeed, he has discarded the scanning disk in preference of a special scanning drum of compact dimensions. Instead of the usual neon lamp with a single large plate requiring considerable output so that a special power amplifier or considerable B-batteries are required, Jenkins employs a four-plate neon lamp of his own invention, with each plate flashing in rotation so as to be scanned by one quarter of his scanning holes, in turn.
“An ingenious optical system projects the whirling dots of light on to a magnifier screen, so that not one but a dozen 'lookers-in' may enjoy the television program. Here, again, we have the transition that took place when selfish radio with its headphones made way for unselfish radio with its loudspeaker.
"The entire televisor, as he terms it, occupies less room than the average radio receiver. It may be operated on the usual radio set in place of the loud-speaker, if tuned in for a television signal. The operation is simple that the average broadcast listener can handle it.
Transmission Progress
"And at the transmitting end, Mr. Jenkins has scored comparable progress. While most television workers are struggling with the limitations of the television stage, with its small dimensions, scanning disk, sensitive photo-electric cells, lighting conditions and so on, as well as the search for so-called television faces or faces that televise properly with or without make-up, Jenkins has gone ahead with his radio movies.
"In this process he films suitable television subjects in any place and manner desired. The negative film is printed up on one or more positive film, and these are available for his radio movies projector. This device simply takes the film and converts it electrical impulses which are impressed on the outgoing waves from a broadcast transmitter, just as the microphone picks up sound waves, converts them into electrical terms, and impresses these on the outgoing radio waves.
"As the direct result of Jenkins' radio movies, any broadcasting station, with a simple device, is set up for television work. Ample subjects are made available. It becomes possible to prepare television subjects for the entire country without the trouble and cost of wire networks."
Projecting Image
Even that does not tell the whole story, Mr. Garside said. He declared that Jenkins has a scanning disk with matched lenses so that it becomes possible to project the television image on a fair sized screen, in order that the entertainment can be followed by a small theatre audience.
Jenkins is working on a television camera for is outside work will permit of picking up far greater detail and scope than has so far been attempted. He has a checkerboard lamp device which will convert television images into a powerful light-woven pattern, with many advantages over tiny holes of the usual scanning disk with so little light for magnifying purposes.
"I firmly said Mr. Garside, speaking of the future, "that television will find a place alongside our present radio programs. There will be television features just as there are sound features.
"Perhaps in some instances simultaneous broadcasting of sight and sound may be attempted, for it is entirely practical, even now."

Portland Man Will Operate Television Plant.
Permit Granted to Wilbur Jerman to Transmit Pictures.
WILBUR JERMAN, one of Portland's pioneer radio experimenters and broadcast operators, has been granted permission to operate a vision and still picture transmitter on 107 meters, using his experimental station call, W7XAO.
Television equipment supplied by the Daven corporation will be used for the transmission of pictures from W7XAO. The first pictures will be broadcast in about three weeks, according to Mr. Jerman, who is assembling the equipment in conjunction with station KWJJ.
Television is the broadcasting of images, the annihilation of distance for the eye, as aural radio has done for the ear. At the transmitter is a photoelectric cell. A beam explores the object to be "televised" reflected to the cell. This cell mondulates [sic] the carrier wave, just as though it were a microphone. Varying light actuates it just as varying sound actuates the microphone. At the receiver, in place of the loud speaker, is a glow lamp—a neon tube in one form or another—which changes its brilliance in step with the received impulses from the photoelectric cell. The light from this lamp is made to explore a screen in synchronism with the beam at the transmitter. The usual method of swinging the beams of light and down and over the object and screen is a mechanically revolving disc perforated spirally with holes, a device patented by Nipkow licensed in 1884.
There are two stations licensed for visual broadcasting within the broadcast band, WGY at Schenectady and WIBO, Chicago, and approximately 20 operating on short waves. Television and still-picture broadcasting, which heretofore have been permitted experimentally within the broadcast band, have been ruled out of that band, except between midnight and 6 A. M. However, W7XAO will be permitted to operate at any time on 107 meters. (Oregonian)

Griffith’s Face Seen in L. A. By Television
The features of David Wark Griffith and the sound of his voice were seen and heard in a tiny garage atop a hill at 2214 Hilalgo Street in Los Angeles yesterday [3] while he was speaking in Schenectady, N. Y. His likeness and voice were transmitted over the short wave stations of the General Electric Company there by television [picture on 2XO, short wave, 21.58 metres, sound over 2XAF 31 metres].
Mr. Griffith’s half-hour talk on the motion picture of the future and on the possibilities of receiving them in the home came over the air with little interference, but the outlines of his face were visible only for a few minutes and could not be picked up again. Gilbert Lee, an amateur experimenter, conducted the Los Angeles tests. (Hollywood Daily Citizen, Feb. 4)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1929
Improves Tube for Television
Chicago Man With Meagre Apparatus Designs a New Television Tube
By JOE LOVE
(NEA Service Writer)
BERWYN, ILL., Feb. 7—With hand-made apparatus and in the laboratory he has assembled in the basement of his home, William L. Cummings has constructed a new kind of television reproducing tube which may leave a decided impression on perfected television apparatus of the future.
For 20 years he has studied and done research work with special interest in photo-electric phenomena. At one time, in 1919, Cummings says he received an invitation from Lord Northcliffe to return to England and continue his experiments.
The reproducer now in use is the neon type, the result of the labors of Dr. MacFarland Moore. The shortcomings of this tube prompted Mr. Cummings to set about his experiments.
Neon, which gives off an orange light, has not the power to cast an image successfully upon a screen. When so done the result is like shadows rather than a clear cut and positive image. What was needed, others as well as Cummings believed, was a white light tube.
Improves Talkies, Too
Cummings started work with two ideas in mind; to make a tube that would give a black and white image on a ground glass and to do away with the oscilligraph used in the film registering of sound waves for phonograph records and talkie-movies. He succeeded in both.
The new tube looks like a regular radio tube, but instead of a flat surface of light as in the neon, it has a point source of light suspended like a ball of fire. The gas in the neon, due to cohesion to the plates, Cummings says, slows it up while the point source of light in his tube has no mechanical or physical losses. Cummings figures his new tube responds in one twenty-four millionth of a second!
Cummings finds that with a three-stage amplifier his tube gives superior service to the neon with an eight-stage amplifier and as a much lower cost.
This new tube, Cummings, says is more of an approach to the cathode tube in the matter of speed than anything he knows of. Another advantage over the neon tube is in the matter of enlargement of the image. In the neon the image is in the tube itself.
Has Large Range in Size
In the Cummings tube the light is projected upon a ground glass giving it a larger range of size. With the present tube a four by five-inch image is possible. Cummings plans to make a larger tube capable of an image eight by 10 inches in dimensions.
Cummings says his tube will be of service in the making of film records for modern phonographs and the production of talkie movies. The rays that are necessary for the recording of sound waves on film are emitted by this tube. With this tube, he claims, a portable outfit can be assembled which will do away with the cumbersome oscillograph now necessary the making of talkies. Not only that, but it will register any sound that is capable of being made and without undertones or overtones.
“I do not want to give anyone the impression that I myself am trying to perfect television. What I do is in the hope that I can supply those who seek that perfection with apparatus that will function better,” he says.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1929
LINDBERGH IS INVITED TO HOOVER INAUGURATION
Sound Movies of Ceremonies Assured but Television Reproduction Hope Wanes
WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 9 (AP)—Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was invited today to participate in the Hoover inaugural festivities.
The inaugural committee mailed the flier a specially embossed invitation. Assistant Postmaster General Glover, executive secretary of the committee, said Lindbergh will stop in Washington on his return flight from Central America. It was indicated that the request that he participate in the ceremonies will be personally confirmed at this time.
Asserting that the inauguration will be “the most photographed event in history,” committee members today were busy assisting photographers in making arrangements. More than three hundred, it was said, will “cover” the event. Sound movie producers have guaranteed to reproduce scenes at the ceremonies of inducting the president and vice president on Broadway on the evening of March 4. Films will be transported to New York in airplanes which will be specially equipped to allow development of the negatives en route.
Hope that the ceremonies would be reproduced by television dwindled today when members of the committee said plans by television operators had been virtually abandoned.

Homemade Television Set Thrills Observers at Easton
EASTON, Md., Feb. 9.—J. Valentine Muller of Easton has completed the manufacture of a home-made radio television apparatus.
Mr. Muller has been one of the most active television enthusiasts on the Eastern Shore and has been widely known for several years for his experiments in radio receiving apparatus of all kinds.
Muller constructed out of home made parts his television receiver, using a 24 inch disc, a neon gas-glow lamp, and adjustable speed motor. He has had good reception of Jenkins' "radio movies" on 47.7 meters, he declares.
The few privileged to watch Mr. Muller's production in action have had the thrill of their lives by looking through the small square glass window and observing the radio "movie actors."
The receiver is of the short wave type, using aero coils and three stages of transformer coupled amplifiers. Muller has made it possible to use a transformer-coupled amplifier as his transformers are exceptionally large, with heavy cores.
Practically all television engineers, Muller said, have considered resistance coupled to be necessary because of its comparatively smooth amplifying characteristics. Muller's transformers with the large and heavy cores may account for his success with them. (Every Evening, Wilmington, Delaware)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1929
Scanning Disc Is Adjustable To Four Transmissions
THE usual difficulty encountered by experimenters with television receivers is inability to synchronize the signals from more than one or two stations, due to the difference in the number of holes in the scanning discs. This has necessitated the use of a different disc for every station picked up. The speed can easily be controlled by either friction or resistance devices, but the discs cannot be changed so easily.
These difficulties can be overcome by using one of the devices illustrated on this page. It is 24 inches in diameter and contains two discs of aluminum, one behind the other. One of these discs is fitted with a bushing for the motor shaft, while the other is cut out in the center and mounted on the first by several machine screws. The main disc is drilled with several lines of holes, in the usual spirals, and the second also is pierced by similar spirals; but they are so arranged that the holes of only one spiral coincide in the two discs at the same time. The second disc is mounted with slotted holes and a key is provided so that any of the spirals can be used by merely sliding the discs with the key until the holes match. An indicator shows which set of holes is in line.
The disc is provided with four sets of holes. The first has 24 holes and is suitable for use when receiving WGY, W2XAD, W2XAF, Schenectady, or W4XA, Memphis, Tenn. The second has 36 holes for W6XC at Los Angeles. The third has 45 for WCFL and WIBO, Chicago; and the fourth has 48, the recommended standard, used by other transmitters such as WRNY and W2XAL, New York and W3XK, Washington. (Radio News, March 1929)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1929
RADIO COMMISSION WEIGHS TELEVISION
National Authorities Drawn Into Hearing on New Phase of Wireless
OPTIMISTIC OF FUTURE
Jenkins Corporation Head Says 5,000 Amateurs Pick up His 'Movies'
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (AP)—The radio commission Thursday began consideration of one of its remaining major problems—television and picture broadcasting—and in doing so drew to its hearing room a number of the country's leading authorities on radio.
The hearing developed into a highly technical discussion.
C. Francis Jenkins, head of the Jenkins Television corporation of Washington, told the commission that by using the low frequency assigned him and through co-operation of amateurs he knew that motion pictures broadcast from his studios were being received by at least 5,000 persons.
He said he believed it should be tried out on the public to see what reaction came from "lookers in."
Lee De Forrest, one of the pioneers in the development of radio, said he believed the business of television and picture broadcasting should be encouraged and that if it would further the progress of such broadcasting to include it in the regular broadcast band he believed it should be included.
Frank Conrad, of Pittsburgh, in whose station KDKA first began operations, told the commission he believed television should not be allowed in the broadcast band at this time. He was joined in this belief by Julius Wineberger, representing the Radio Corporation of America.
The commission was told by C. E. Hoffman, engineer for the Jenkins Television corporation, that his concern was broadcasting a series of animated cartoons on a 10 kilocycle frequency very successfully. He said a regular receiving set properly equipped with a televisor could receive these animated cartoons and that the cost of a televisor would not be more than the cost of a good loud speaker.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1929
RADIOVISION BROADCASTING SCHEDULE.
(Copyright, 1929, by Science Service)
On Regular Schedule.
LEXINGTON, Mass., W1XAY, Lexington Air station, 300 watts, 4800-4900 kc. or 62 m. Standard scanning. Daily, 3 to 4 P. M. and 7:30 to 8 P. M. Will soon be equipped to broadcast voice and vision simultaneously.
PITTSBURGH, W8XAV, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., 20,000 watts, 4700-4800 kc. or 63 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame. Transmitting television programs, generally motion picture films, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 5:10 to 6 P. M. Eastern Standard time.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y.—W2XAF and W2XAD, General Electric Co., 24 lines, 20 frames per picture. Sunday, 11:15 to 11:45 P. M., W2XAD, 19.56 meters or 15,340 kc. Tuesday, 12 to 12:30 P. M., W2XAF, 31.18 m. or 9,530 kc. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P.M., W2XAD.
WASHINGTON, D. C.—W3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts, 6415-6425 or 47 m. and 1600-1610 kc. or 187 m. Standard scanning. 8 to 9 P. M., Eastern Standard time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular Schedule.
BEACON, N. Y.—W2XBU, H. E. Smith, 100 watts, 4500-4600 m. or 66 m. Standard scanning. (Under construction).
CHICAGO, Ill.—W9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts, 4560 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning. At present standing by, awaiting sanction from Federal Radio commission.
LONG ISLAND CITY, N. Y.—W2XBT, Frank L. Carter, 8190-8200 kc. or 36.6 m. Irregular nightly experimental broadcasts.
LOS ANGELES, Cal.—W6XC, Pacific Engineering Laboratory Co., 500 watts, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. Will start on definite schedule within next six weeks.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—W4XA, WREC, Inc., 5000 watts, 2400-2500 kc. or 122 meters.
NEW YORK, N. Y.—W2XBW, Radio Corporation of America, 5000 watts, 15,100-15,200 kc. or 20 m. The corporation also has been granted construction permits for W2XBV, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. and for W2XBS, 4600-4700 kc. or 64 m.
NEW YORK, N. Y.—W2XAL, Experimental Publishing Co., Radiovision suspended pending hearing by Federal Radio commission.
WASHINGTON, D. C.—C. Francis Jenkins, 5000 watts. (Under construction.)
Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers association. This is 48 lines per picture, 15 frames per second, with scanning consecutively from left to right and top to bottom, as one reads the page of a book.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1929
(RULES AND REGULATIONS GOVERNING VISUAL BROADCASTING)
The Federal Radio Commission has adopted the following rules and regulations governing visual broadcasting:
That visual broadcasting be designated to include both television broadcasting and picture broadcasting, or moving-picture broadcasting and still-picture broadcasting, and that ali licenses issued be of an experimental nature for & period of six months only, the licensees to report to the commission the results of their experiments; the transmitters to be located outside the city limits and sufficiently distant from important receiving centers to avoid interference.
For joint use to visual broadcasting licensees the commission authorizes the following bands of frequ encies for experimental use only; 2,000 to 2,200 and 2,750 to 2,950 kilocycles. In addition, the commission will authorize the operation of visual radio broadcasting transmitters in the band hetween 2,200 and 2,300 kilocycles, on the condition that they do not interfere in any way whatever with the services of any other nation on the North Ameriean Continent and in the West Indies, and that licenses be subject to revocation in case there are any complaints from any other nation of any such interference. The commission may continue to issue experimental television or visual licenses in the broadcast band for operation between 1 and 6 a. m. only, in accordance with General Order 50.
The commission adopted the following rules of priority in the granting of applications:
1. Those engaged in experimentation to improve the technique of visual broadcasting.
2. Those who employ methods which give the maximum definition with the minimum radio frequency band widths.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1929
Board Limits Hour and Wave For Television
Regular Band May Be Used Only Between 1 and 6 and After Licenses Expire
Short Waves Assigned
R. C. A. and Jenkins Receive Vision-Sending Permits
From the Herald Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—Transmission of television will not be permitted in the regular broadcast band after present licenses expire, except for experimental purposes between 1 and 6 a. m., the Federal Radio Commission announced this week [19] in granting numerous licenses for visual broadcasting. A number of relay broadcasting permits also were authorized. A public hearing, at which well known engineers from all parts or the country appeared and expressed their views on television, was held last week by the commission and it was generally agreed at this hearing that the regular broadcast band should not be used for television until it was out of the experimental stage.
In addition to the high frequency channels, between 2,000 and 2,200, and 2,750 and 2,950 kilocycles, which have been in use experimentally for visual broadcasting, the commission authorized use of the frequencies between 2,200 and 2,300 kilocycles. If any interference is caused with services operated by North American countries by the use of these channels, licenses will be revoked, it is stated. Licenses will be issued for periods of only six months.
Twenty-seven frequencies, lying between 6,020 and 21,540 kilocycles, were designated by the commission for relay broadcasting. This consists of high frequency transmission of programs between stations which, when picked up, are sent out over the regular bands. These frequencies were not assigned for the exclusive use of any one station, it was explained, and will be issued to others who may later qualify. The present licenses are issued for terms of six months, but longer-term licenses may be issued if, after six months’ trial, it is found that a station is operating in the public interest.
Licenses Issued
Those issued visual broadcasting licenses include two stations of the Radio Corporation of America located in New York and New Jersey—W2XBW and W2XBV—and a construction permit for a third station; one license to the Jenkins Laboratories, Inc., W3XK, to be located in Washington, and a construction permit or another station in Jersey City; four licenses to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company for stations to be located in East Pittsburgh, Pa., and Springfield, Mass.; two to the General Electric Company in Schenectady and Oakland, Calif.; one each to WAAM, Inc., Newark, N. J.; Lexington Air Station; Lexington, Mass.; the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company, Brooklyn, N. Y.; the Chicago Federation of Labor, Chicago; William Justice Lee, Winter Park, Fla., and Aero Products, Inc., Chicago.
The following applications for similar licenses or construction permits, while not denied by the commission, were set for a hearing in order that the applicants might have an opportunity to establish whether or not public interest, convenience or necessity would be fulfilled by the granting of licenses: The Great Lakes Broadcasting Corporation, Chicago; John Milo Lutts, Los Angeles; Dudley R. Hooper, Rutherford, N. J.; Radio Air Service Corporation, Cleveland; Charles A. Johnson, Philadelphia; T. L. Kidd, San Antonio, Tex.; Harold E. Smith, Beacon, N. Y.; Ben S. McGlashan, Los Angeles; Stewart Warner Speedometer Company Corporation, Chicago; Alfred N. Hubbard, Seattle; Crocker Research Laboratories, San Francisco; Nelson Brothers Bond and Mortgage Company, Chicago; Robert B. Parrish, Los Angeles; Durham & Co., Inc., Philadelphia, and Western Broadcast Company, Los Angeles.
- - -
Three [applications] were denied, including Boyd Phelps, Jamaica, Long Island, N. Y.; Frank L. Carter, Long Island City, N. Y., and Shepard-Norwell Company, Boston. (Herald-Tribune, Feb. 19)
[Note: Boyd Phelps was the operator of amateur station 2EB in Jamaica, New York. He was born in Blunt, South Dakota in 1899 and became interested in radio at the age of 12. During World War, he was a radio operator and instructor in the Navy. After the war he spent time with the American Radio Relay League in Hartford before moving to New York by 1925. In 1928, he was sent a “radio photo” (like a fax) from the S.S. Berengaria in in the mid-Atlantic from its test with a television station in London. While in New York, he worked as a radio engineer. He moved to Minneapolis in November 1932 where he continued to work as an engineer and operated ham station W9BP. He soon settled in Morningside, Minnesota. He was killed in a car crash near Zimapan, Mexico in 1959, age 60. He was a Shriner, an Elk, a member of the VWF and the Radio and Teletype Club].

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1929
TELEVISION EQUIPMENT NOT INSTALLED HERE
Westinghouse May Take Some Time Before Provision is Made for Broadcasts
No provision has yet been made at the local plant of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company for a program of television broadcasts, General Manager A. B. Reynders said last night [20]. The company has recently been issued four television broadcasting licenses by the Federal Radio commission. According to the application for the licenses, the tests are to be conducted at Pittsburg and Springfield.
When the plan called for in the licenses is put into effect, local radio experimenters will have an opportunity to try out television reception. Special equipment will first have to be installed at the local plant, which may require some time to complete.
The licenses cover short-wave tests on frequencies from 2000 to 2300 and 2750 to 2950 kilocycles. Broadcasting will be restricted from 1 to 6 mornings. Up to this time experimenters have relied on stations operated by the General Electric company at Schenectady, C. Francis Jenkins stations at Washington, and the Lexington air station at Lexington. Since January 1 television tests have not been permitted within the broadcast area and those who have continued attempts to receiving pictures by radio have built short-wave sets and tried for the television broadcasts to be found in the high frequency bands. From occasional reports this reception has not been reliable. (Springfield Daily Republican, Feb. 21)

WBZ TELEVISION NOT TO BE TRIED FOR SOME TIME
Steps Await Changing of Radio Board's Ruling on Land Wire, Says Engineer Myer.
No immediate steps to broadcast television from radio stations WBZ at Boston, or KDKA at Pittsburgh are contemplated by officials of the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company, unless the Federal Radio Commission changes its ruling that no station may use a radio circuit to broadcast television where a land wire is possible, it was learned last night [20] from D. A. Meyer, engineer in charge of broadcasting for the Westinghouse in Massachusetts.
Not because the distance between the East Springfield and Pittsburgh plants of the company is so great, but because a land wire may be used, the company comes under this ban. A change in the ruling would probably in result in television broadcasting from both stations, but the present plant to plant communication between East Springfield and Pittsburgh is done on a low wavelength and with high frequency, which makes possible only point to point communication.
Should the company be allowed to undertake television broadcasting on an experimental scale, Mr. Myer said, there is still little possibility that the broadcasts would benefit experimenters, because of the fact that television is not standardized. The work is so complicated, said Mr. Myer, that unless an understood the equipment being used in the broadcasting and constructed his own equipment to conform with that, there would be little success to reward his efforts. (Springfield Union, Feb. 21)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1929
Inaugural Movies May Be Televised
The inauguration ceremonies of March 4 may be seen by some fifteen or twenty thousand lucky persons outside of Washington, if the plans of C. Francis Jenkins, the noted television inventor, do not go awry.
Jenkins expects to take motion pictures of the inaugural and put these on the air by means of his own invention—a radio movie transmitter.
These pictures would go out on short waves to amateurs and others equipped with the proper television receiver. Jenkins says he is prepared to take movies of the inaugural all day and even up to ten in the evening, and have them on the air within fifteen minutes after taking. (Olean Evening Times)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1929
Wilbur Jerman, KWJJ technician, reports that he awaits only photo-electric cells to begin the television broadcast [on W7XAO]. Jerman said that as television is still in experimental stages it will not be advisable for those interested to invest in receiving equipment because when the problems confronting the engineers are solved and television becomes practical, receiving equipment will probably differ in many respects from that in use today. (Oregon Daily Journal)

January 1929

As 1929 began, the Federal Radio Commission had no idea what to do about television.

In less than two weeks after the start of the year, the Commission revised a decision made in 1928. It agreed to allow television broadcasts on A.M. frequencies between 1 and 6 a.m.—most radio stations then signed off around midnight—while it held hearings in February.

A unbylined story in the Santa Ana Register of January 24th said only WGY Schenectady and WIBO Chicago were licensed for television within the A.M. radio band, but several other stations were operating in the overnight hours “without express commission authorization.”

There was a great to-do about whether the presidential inauguration in March would be televised. There was only one station in Washington, Frank Jenkins' W3XK, on the air three days a week. But it was only airing films of people in silhouette. First, coverage was on. Then it was called a rumour.

There were plenty of inventors in the U.S. working on television; Philo Farnsworth comes to mind. In January 1929, a 22 year old man from Wichita Falls, Texas named Bryan Yancey Cummings, Jr., went on a mission to patent his tele-developments. In 1931, he was granted a patent, filed in 1928, for a radio receiver that had "special arrangements for the reduction of the damping of resonant circuits of receivers." Another patent was awarded in 1934, filed in 1932, with this explanation: "Scanning details of television systems; Combination thereof with generation of supply voltages by optical-mechanical means only having a moving aperture also apertures covered by lenses." Scanning discs were pretty much obsolete by then.

In 1930, Cummings was working in Dade County, Florida as a sounder recorder for a movie company. His Draft Card in 1940 has him self-employed in Fort Worth. He certainly changed careers as in 1950, he was employed in Dallas as an assistant physicist for the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company. He died in Dallas on Dec. 2, 1977.

Below are selected highlights of TV stories for the first months of 1929.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1929
TELEVISION IS ATTRACTING THE PUBLIC INTEREST
NEW YORK, Jan. 2. (AP)—Experiments seeking the development of a successful system of television transmission have keen public interest.
Such is the consensus of a committee headed by H. B. Richmond of Cambridge, and appointed by the Radio Manufacturers' association to study the progress and prospects of sending instantaneous light by radio.
Summing up its survey the committee stated: "One point was evident, that much confusion would be avoided among television interests if a standardization committee on television were appointed. Such a committee was named and has begun its work.
“Television is an actuality today, but only experimentally. Current television pictures are possible, although the pictures are small and reduced in detail.
"They provide excellent entertainment to a skillful experimenter. From the amusement standpoint they are in no way comparable with audio broadcasting. The necessity for close attention to the operation of the receiver should be stressed. A television reproducer cannot be started and left to itself.
"The complicated problem of synchronization is much simpler over wire lines than by radio. The difference should also be emphasized between sending photographs by radio, the sending of images from moving picture films and the more difficult feat of actual television.
"Television apparatus is an additional attachment which may be used with an existing set or connected to a specially designed receiver.
"Going beyond the present small picture means wider channels and under most known methods it would take the entire broadcast spectrum to put out a picture comparable with the moving pictures of the theater. One much discussed television experiment required three transmitters and receivers with a crew of trained engineers to keep the system in operation.
"There still is considerable disagreement as to how far television will go beyond the experimenter interest stage. This is because of the continuous attention required by present visual reproduction. The most careful analysis favor the experimental and strictly professional viewpoint."

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1929
TELEVISION PUTS MOVIES IN HOME
Chicago Radio Station Makes Successful Broadcast of Pictures.
CHICAGO, Jan. 3.—(AP)—Television has placed movies in the home within the realm of possibility.
The first successful broadcasting of ordinary motion picture films, not silhouettes, was done by WCFL, the Chicago Federation of Labor's station. Several listeners, with television reception apparatus, saw the movies on miniature screens.
So limitless are the possibilities of televising motion picture film, in belief of Virgil A. Schoenberg, chief engineer of WCFL, that he hopes to radiocast movie films, as well as other public spectacles such as football games and prize fights.
Within a few months, Schoenberg says, the radio fan may be able to see pictures of public events a few hours after they occur as he now sees them in his neighbor theater.
Silhouettes and small objects have been televised before, Schoenberg explained, but never has an ordinary movie film been put onto the air. Now WCFL engineers are experimenting to determine what particular tint of film may be broadcast most successfully.
Talking movies by television may be a reality soon, coming as the next development from experiments which have brought movies into the home, Schoenberg believes.
WCFL's television of motion picture films is achieved by a device which passes the film before a beam light that scans the film from left to right. The light images then are converted into electrical impulses, which are amplified and in turn converted into radio frequency pulses.
Use Standard Reproducer.
For the reception of movies via television, a standard television reproducer is used. It consists of a 48-hole disc revolving at 900 revolutions per minute, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. The output of a receiver including a detector tube may be fed into several stages of any good resistance coupled amplifier and that output in turn feeds into a neon tube set behind the disc.
WCFL broadcasts by television daily between 1 and 2. p. m., except Sundays, on kilocycles. From 9 to 12 p. m., the station's experimental substation 9XAA broadcasts irregularly on a 5,600 kilocycles.
A movie approximately one and one-half inches high appears on the receiver's disc. Lenses ordinarily are used to magnify the pictures. Details are transmitted by the WCFL apparatus SO that a piano player's fingers, for instance, may be singled out. Keys on the piano may be distinguishable, and the pianist's motions followed closely.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1929
DR. POWER LEAVES COLLEGE TO WORK FOR WESTINGHOUSE
The resignation of Dr. A. D. Power as professor of physics and director of radio research at Lawrence college was announced Saturday by Dr. Henry M. Wriston, president of the college. Dr. Power has been engaged by the Westinghouse Lamp company to conduct scientific research for the improvement of radio vacuum tubes at the Westinghouse branch at Bloomfield, N. J. [. . .]
While at Lawrence he has won recognition for his research in radio activity. Under his direction the Lawrence broadcasting station 9EHB has served in the national relay system, and apparatus for television has been set up with successful results. (Appleton, Wis., Post-Crescent)

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1929
TELEVISION LIMITED TO AFTER MIDNIGHT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7.—Pending a public hearing which will be held later this month, the Radio Commission today issued an order prohibiting all television broadcasting except between the hours of midnight and 6 A.M.
At the public hearing, the date for which has not been fixed, the commission will hear technical testimony on the status of television. The desirability of placing it in the broadcast band must be shown by its advocates before the new order will be modified.
Louis G. Caldwell, general counsel for the commission, said in a letter sent today to L. A. E. Gale, secretary of the National Association Opposed to Blue Laws, Inc., who had protested against the resolution of the Lords’ Day Alliance for exclusive religious programs on Sunday:
“The commission is without authority to censor programs which are broadcast over the air or to make any regulation interfering with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.”
Senator Dill of Washington, on the floor of the Senate today, read extracts from a letter in which WCFL, the Federation of Labor station in Chicago, asked whether anything could be done by the Senate to allow it to rebroadcast on short waves. The station was allowed 1500 watts by the Radio Board for daylight broadcasting, but was not allowed to broadcast after sunset.
“In other words,” said Senator Dill, “the labor station, designed to serve and reach laboring people of the central part of the United States, was not allowed to broadcast during the night time, the only time when the great masses of laboring people can listen to its program.”
Mr. Dill said that WCFL applied for a full cleared channel and 50,000 watts power. The commission has granted a construction permit for 50,000 watts but denied the station the right to rebroadcast from small stations in various parts of the country.
Senator McKellar of Tennessee, said that Congress should enact legislation to compel the commission to take action in favor of the labor station.
Representative Crowther of New York has introduced a bill in the House to make it mandatory upon the commission to provide fifty cleared channels for radio communication instead of forty.
Following their meeting here today recommendations will be submitted by the directors of the National Association of Broadcasters to the House Merchant Marine Committee tomorrow, on the bill to continue the life of the Radio Commission for another year.
The recommendations will concern the administration of the radio law, length of broadcasting licenses, distribution of radio facilities, power and rebroadcasting. (New York Times, Jan. 8)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 1929
TELEVISION PLANT NOW ESTABLISHED, JENKINS ASSERTS
Jersey City Factory Will have Television broadcasts if License is Granted
That television has reached the commercial stage is confirmed by the news that the Jenkins Television Corporation has acquired a factory at 346-370 Claremont ave., Jersey City, N.J.
“We shall have our general offices and factory, as well as our engineering laboratories, at this address, states James W. Garside, “we shall have a television broadcasting station for the New York metropolitan area [later W2XCR] installed in the annex on the roof of the building, with ideal conditions for satisfactory signal propagation, as of as license is granted by the Federal Radio Commission.
“Meanwhile, our experimental and research laboratories remain in Washington, D. C., in charge of C. Francis Jenkins, our vice president in charge of research.
“We are working toward production on standardized television receiving equipment for the home, as well as transmitting equipment for broadcasting stations desirous of engaging in this new art. The first sets of television receivers are now coming through our production department. Following exhaustive tests and satisfactory demonstration, our mass production schedule will follow. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1929
GENERAL ORDERS OF THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION.
Picture and television transmissions restricted in use of frequencies in the broadcast band (General Order No. 56, January 14, 1929).—From and after the date hereof and until further order of the commission, neither picture broadcasting nor television broadcasting will be permitted in the broadcast band between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, except upon written application to and formal authority from the commission, and then only between the hours of 1 and 6 a. m., local time at the location of the transmitter. The written applications shall be on forms provided for that purpose by the commission.
For the purpose of determining whether picture broadcasting and/or television broadcasting may be permitted in the broadcast band in the future either at all or to & greater extent than above authorized, the commission has determined to hold a hearing for the presentation of evidence as to whether such broadcasting can be accommodated on a 10-kilocycle band of frequencies; whether such transmission will result in undue interference with the broadcasting of other stations; whether there is any general publie interest in having such transmission take place in the broadcast band rather than in the high-frequency band, and such other questions as will bear upon the issue of whether permission of sfich transmission in the broadcast band will serve public interest, convenience, or necessity. This hearing will be held at the office of the commission at Washington, D. C., on February 14, 1929.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1929
RADIO PICTURES
WGY, Schenectady, has discontinued television transmission on the broadcast band. Hereafter the signals go out only over the companion short wave transmitters, W2XAF, 31.48 meters, and W2XAD, 19.56 meters, on this schedule: Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays from 1:30 to 2 P. M., eastern time, and Sundays from 11:15 to 11:45 P. M. by W2XAD; Tuesday from 11:30 to midnight by W2XAF. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1929
Television Is Radio Too Late for Inauguration
BY MARTIN CODEL.
North American Newspaper Alliance
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21.—All talk about television at the inauguration of President-elect Hoover March 4 is pure fabrication.
The inaugural ceremonies will be broadcast to the nation and the world through the great radio networks and their short wave stations, but the process will be the familiar audible one. Visual broadcasting has not reached the point of perfection where the national audience can see as well as hear the great event.
Senator George Moses of New Hampshire, heading the committee in charge of the inauguration, reports that no one has even proposed to broadcast the event visually.
The leading experimenters in the field of television all assert that they are not responsible for the reports.
A reply telegram from the Bell Laboratories in New York says there are no plans to use the Ives televisor at the inauguration This is the apparatus which transmitted living images of Mr. Hoover’s features by wire and wireless between Washington and New York something more than a year ago.
As far as can be learned, Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, who has been working on television at the General Electric laboratories in Schenectady, has no idea of introducing his television apparatus by March 4.
Jenkins Not Ready.
C. Francis Jenkins, the Washington inventor, reports that he will have his new television transmitter in operation here before March 4, but asserts that he does not expect to try to broadcast the image of Mr. Hoover making his inaugural address.
He adds, however, that his new station, utilizing a 100 kilocycle band of wave lengths will soon be broadcasting recognizable images in half tone that can be same sets that are now receiving his “shadowgraphs.”
It is practically a certainty both the National and Columbia Broadcasting System will offer the program through their coast-to-coast hook-ups.
One of the innovations of the 1929 inauguration will probably be the placing of a microphone in the United States Senate chamber for the first time. The plan is to broadcast the vice presidential inauguration that precedes the presidential ceremony.
By a curious turn of fate, the man who has consistently opposed placing a radio "mike" in the Senate, Senator Charles Curtis, Republican floor leader, will be the central figure in the ceremony in that chamber.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1929
Powerful Station For Radio Vision
Soon Be In Operation Few Miles From Washington By The Jenkins Laboratories
Washington, Jan. 25—Radiovision will soon be on the air every night for a large share of the country reports, Science Service. A broadcasting station for radiomovies and television with power of five kilowatts will soon be in operation a few miles outside of Washington by the Jenkins Laboratories, of this city. As the station will operate on a short wave, it is expected that it will have a much greater range than an ordinary broadcasting station of equivalent power. Just what wave length will be used has not yet been determined, as the federal radio commission has not yet announced the wave bands that will be assigned though they have to allocate certain bands each of a hundred kilocycles width for this purpose. With a hundred kilocycle band authorities are agreed that satisfactory details can be transmitted.
Pending the completion of the new station and the granting of a license by the commission, the Jenkins Laboratories are broadcasting three nights a week from their present station W3XX [W3XK]. This is done on two bands, one of 187 meters primarily for nearby reception, and the other of 47 meters, which is heard throughout the eastern part of the country. Though using only 250 watts of power, the radiomovies broadcast Is received regularly in Ohio and Indiana. As the bands licensed for this use are only ten kilocycles width, broadcasts have so far been confined to movies in silhouette, which, however, have been specially prepared for the purpose, and tell stories.
Present-day radiovision broadcasts only faintly portray the future possibilities, thinks C. Francis Jenkins.
“Perfect?” he says. "No, and the receiver looks no more like the ultimate structure will than the old “one lung” horseless carriage of twenty five years ago looked like the eight-cylinder limousine of today.
“But the ten thousand pioneering with our picture broadcasts are the radio pictures engineers of tomorrow, for they are building up a technical experience which will be of inestimable value in the art later on.
“After the day's work is done these youngsters rush home: bolt a hurried dinner: and then race away to the radio shack to tune in on our pantomime broadcasts.
"Exactly the same thrill which came to them with their first crystal set and headphone, now comes again when they pick their first motion pictures out of the air; pictures radiated into invisible space from miles and miles away and put together by their home-made receiver.
“Many of these amateurs have attained such quality of picture that they have moved their apparatus into the living room where the whole family may join in the fun.
"The pictures they see are black and white comparable to the cartoon movies in the theatre and just as interesting.
"Incdentally, it is rather a surprise to those who see these silhouette movies for the first time to find them so entertaining; but the explanation is that in movies the story is told in the action and halftone quality is not necessary to any enjoyment of them. The public is not usually critical of first efforts in any new thing the novelty alone entertains for awhile.
"From many letters we get, apparently the greatest anxiety of our audience, or should I say, optience, is that we will eventually get tired and stop broadcasting.
“On the contrary we are putting up a powerful station a few miles outside of Washington to make their picture reception easier, and the pictures better; and each broadcast from now on will contain at least one picture story.
Direct Vision Of Activities
"We are broadcasting in black and white only at present in order that the frequencies involved in motion picture transmission may stay within the legally permissible width of carrier channel.
“The halftones in regular movie film and in broadcasting from living subjects and scenes, require a broader band. This was recognzied by the federal radio commission, and bands one hundred kilocycles wide will be assigned for such work. The new, more powerful, station we are building outside of Washington is for this width of band, and we shall broadcast for fireside entertainment pictures selected from those now shown in theatres.
"Our present transmission on 6420 K. C. was undertaken principally to learn the possibilities and the limitations of this new entertainment; to build up a radio-movies technique; and to insure later the availability of radiovisors giving larger and brighter pictures, which can conveniently be watched by the whole family and friends of the family circle.
"Already radiomovies are giving pleasure to thousands of radio amateurs and shortwave radio fans. Ultimately this pantomime story-teller will come to our fireside with appropriate sounds and speech, as a fascinating teacher and entertainer, without language literacy or age limitation; an itinerant visitor to the old homestead with photoplays, the opera, and a direct vision of world activities." (Lynchburg News, Feb. 1)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1929
Yancey Cummings Perfects Radio Television Set
B. Y. Cummings, Jr., young Wichita Falls inventor, who has perfected an improved machine which he predicts will revolutionize television, has gone to the East where he will spend some time in Washington and New York City, making arragements for the manufacture of his machines.
Attorneys say that Mr. Cummings is entitled to six basic patents. Mr. Cummings and Orville Bullington will probably organize a company here for the manufacture of the machine after the patents are granted.
In the past all telephoto pictures have appeared as silhouettes. Mr. Cummings' machine makes them as half tones and they naturally appear much more likelike. (Wichita Falls Times)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1929
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31.—(AP)—With the erection of a special radio picture broadcasting station five miles north of Washington, C. Francis Jenkins, pioneer radio inventor, plans to transmit pictures every night of the week except Sunday.
The new station will start operating within two or three weeks, Mr. Jenkins says, and it is hoped with an increase in power to serve "lookers" throughout the United States. The band in the short wave field recently set aside by the federal radio commission for television and picture broadcasting is better adapted for clear transmission than the channels on which he is now operating and should eliminate much of the fading which is the bane of good picture reception, he says.
The new transmitter under construction at the Jenkins laboratories will be adjusted for the sending of half-tones and images of living persons. Jenkins has been giving a silhouette movie program. Picture stories also will be broadcast from the new station.
Mr. Jenkins says the radio picture art has passed the stage of early experimentation and is already bringing entertainment to hundreds of enthusiastic "lookers." Picture transmission, he declares, is at a point comparable to the position of KDKA, of Pittsburgh, when it inaugurated aural programs.
Most of the lookers are amateurs in the United States and Canada. Bonafied reports of reception of his pictures have been received, he says, from amateurs in California, Porto Rico, Montreal, Bismarck, N. Texas, northern Michigan, Florida, Colorado and Iowa as well as nearby states. Particularly good reception has been reported by Boston amateurs.
Until the commission designates the particular channels to be used under the new allocation, the Jenkins laboratories will continue to broadcast on 46 and 186 meters. The pictures are broadcast Monday and Wednesday nights from 8 until 9 o'clock, eastern time.

WRNY, New York, telling about 1928, reports that it was on the air a total of 2,192 hours. Included were 53 hours and 15 minutes of television transmission. (Associated Press)

Radio Service Bulletin
The Federal Radio Commission approved the following frequency revisions in January 1929:
East Pittsburgh, Pa., (W8XAV, owned by Westinghouse).—2,000 kilocycles (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9); power, 40,000 watts.
Ossining, N. Y., (W2XX, Robert F. Gowan).—2,000 kcs. (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9); power, 100 watts.
The Commission approved the following special station
Iowa City, Iowa (W9XAZ , State University of Iowa).— 200 kcs. (150 metres) to 2100 (142.9); power, 500 watts.