July-August 1929

There wasn’t an awful lot to see when W3XK got a new, improved transmitter in July 1929. More people could view the programming, but consisted mainly of silhouette drawings. No live bodies on camera.

W3XK was one of two Jenkins television stations on the air at the time. Frank Jenkins was spending much of his time in mid-1929 trying to transmit from an airplane (which crashed in August, leaving him with a cut over an eye), demostrating a new kind of TV set, and dealing with two lawsuits.

Meanwhile, in the mountains near Poughkeepsie, a television station signed on. You can read more about W2XBU in this post.

The Buffalo News published a roundup of active and semi-active stations from something called the Science Service. This is from July 3, 1929. Later editions added W2XBU, the increase in power of W2XK and put W9XR on the air, so it must have been current.

On Regular Schedule
CHICAGO—W9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts (approved for 1000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. standard scanning*. Time, daily except Sunday; movies, still pictures and living subjects.
JERSEY CITY—W2XCR, Jenkins Television corporation, 5000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. standard scanning*. 2 to 3 P. M., Eastern Standard Time Mon. Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 to 9 P. M., Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
LEXINGTON, Mass.—W1XAY, Lexington Air Station, 500 watts (construction permit granted for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. standard scanning*. Daily, 3 to 3 P. M. and Friday, 7:30 to 8 P. M.
NEW YORK—W2XBS, Radio Corporation of America, 250 watts (approved for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame, 72 elements wide, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. Announcement cards, views and living subjects. Daily, (including Sunday) 6 to 10 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
PITTSBURGH—W8XAV, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., 20,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. and 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame. Transmitting television programs, generally motion picture films, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 5:10 to 6:00 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
SCHENECTADY—W2XCW, General Electric company, 20,000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 145 m. 24 lines, 20 frames per second. Sunday 11:15 to 11:45 P. M., Tuesday, 12 to 12:30 P. M., Wednesday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
WASHINGTON—W3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts (construction permit granted for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 15 m. and 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m. standard scanning*. 8 to 9 P. M., Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular Schedule
BROOKLYN—W2XCL, Pilot Electric company, 250 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m. Construction permit.
CHICAGO—W9XAG, Aeroproducts, Inc., 5000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. Construction permit.
CHICAGO—W9XR, Great Lakes Broadcasting company, 500 watts, 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m. 24 lines per frame, 18 frames per second, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. (Expect to begin operation about July 3.)
NEWARK—W2XBA, WAAM, Inc., 50 watts, 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m.
NEW YORK—W2XCP, Freed-Eisemann corporation, 2000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m.
OAKLAND, Calif.—W6XN, General Electric company, 10,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.—W1XAE, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company, 20,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
WINTER PARK, Fla.—W4XE, William Justis Lee, 2000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
*Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers association. This is 48 lines 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.

W6XN had been testing for several months and had its grand opening in August. The available story is unclear about whether visuals were broadcast.

We’ll skip the Jenkins litigation as we look at highlights in TV in July and August 1929. There isn’t much. The Federal Radio Commission was asked to grant some licenses. RCA wanted a second permit, solely for specific experiments which it outlined to reporters. In San Francisco, Philo Farnsworth conducted another demonstration of his system that eliminated swirling discs in studios and television sets. A short version of the W2AX story appeared in one paper on July 26. Both have the wrong call letters.

MONDAY, JULY 1, 1929
Television Signals from Plane Goal of Washington Inventor
WASHINGTON, July 1 (AP)—Panoramic views flashed by radio from a speeding airplane to a ground station many miles away is the television goal sought by C. Francis Jenkins, Washington inventor.
Army officers are awaiting with interest experiments soon to be made by Mr. Jenkins with his "aerial eye." If television apparatus can be perfected, as the veteran radio engineer hopes, to send pictures of front line warfare, movements of enemy troops and maps of the battle grounds from scouting planes to general headquarters it will be of great military value.
Jenkins has bought a special plane to be used as a "flying television laboratory" and has been piloting it in practice flights. He plans to be at the controls part of the time when the experiments are made. The "laboratory" is a monoplane of special design, seating four passengers and providing space for television apparatus.
A section of the floor of the cabin will be cut away to serve as a scanning apparatus for the aerial eye. Tests will be made as the plane flies over Washington, views of the ground below being transmitted by radio to Jenkins' new television station north of the city.
The new station is known as W3XK, the same call letters assigned to his old laboratory station in the city. A new 5000-watt transmitter has been installed and two 28-foot towers have been erected. The new station will broadcast a daily program of radio movies In silhouette.



WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1929
TELEVISION WAVE SOUGHT
WASHINGTON, July 3.—Formal application has been filed with the Federal Radio commission by Station WSVW, Buffalo, operated by the Seneca Vocational school, for authority to construct an experimental television transmitter to be used on 2150 kilocycles with 500 watts power. If the application is granted, it will represent the first opportunity Buffalonians have had to avail themselves of one of the latest developments of the radio art.
According to statements made to the Radio commission by representatives of WSVS, it is the hope of that station eventually to be able to project not only moving pictures in the home, but also the voice and music accompaniment. (Buffalo News)

SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1929
TELEVISION MOVIES NOW BEING MADE
NEW YORK,--A series of short motion pictures, which are being carried to radio fans by television, now is being produced by Visugraphic Pictures, Inc.
These pictures are being broadcast from station W2XCR, Jersey City, owned and operated by the Jenkins Television Corporation, and may be “tuned in” by radio listeners who have receiving sets equipped for television purposes.
Of Widespread Interest
It is interesting to note that the publicity department of Visugraphic received more than 150 newspaper clippings from every part of the United States and Canada bearing on the new television pictures. This indicates the tremendous news value in the science of broadcasting “movies” by television.
From the commercial advertising point of view, the televisual “movies” offers an unexcelled opportunity to manufacturers to popularize a product in a unique and interest-compelling way. (Calgary Herald)

SUNDAY, JULY 7, 1929
Compact Drum Scanner Advances Home Television
The latest television receiver for home use has just been demonstrated at the Jenkins television laboratories and is regarded as one of the simplest and most practical forms of receivers yet proposed. It is a development of the original “drum” type receiver invented by C. Francis Jenkins, a pioneer worker in this field and also in motion pictures.
The new televisor replaces the usual awkward scanning disc, measuring a yard in diameter, with the compact and highly efficient scanning drum. The complete televisor is incorporated in a walnut cabinet measuring approximately 18x18x24 inches, as shown in the illustration. The front end of the cabinet contains a recessed opening or shadow box leading to the large magnifying lens through which the radio-movies are viewed, together with three switches and a “framing” crank. The operation of the Jenkins televisor is simplicity itself. The first switch snaps on a neon glow lamp. A short wave radio set, employed in conjunction with the televisor, is tuned in the usual manner, until the characteristic note of the television signal is at maximum in the loud speaker. The second switch turns on the motor and also serves as a simple method of bringing the scanning drum in step with the picture. The crank is turned so as to frame the picture properly from left to right.
The interior mechanism of the televisor is compact, simple and rugged. The earlier laboratory set-up has been reduced to commercial production equipment for home use. The synchronous motor and scanning drum are mounted vertically and supported by a stanch angle-iron framework.
A special form of distributor serves to flash the four neon lamp plates in succession, illuminating the four quartets of the scanning drum in four successive revolutions. The operation is exceedingly quiet. The framing crank serves to turn the motor and its scanning drum slightly, so as to bring the picture into step with the scanned image. The scanning drum holes are viewed through the magnifying lens, giving an apparent screen size of about six inches square, or sufficient for the simultaneous entertainment of six to eight persons.
As for the nature of the entertainment, only the simplest subjects are being broadcast at this time. Instead of attempting very crude half-tone pictures the engineers are endeavoring to transmit and receive silhouette or black-and-white movies with a fair degree of accuracy. The demonstration of a thrilling boxing contest in silhouette form can be readily followed on the televisor screen and if anything, is so unique as to be perhaps more fascinating than if it were shown to the usual full tone. Titles are included in the television pictures. (New York Herald Tribune)



WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1929
Bound Brook Likely to be Site Of Television Plant for RCA
Two developments in radio in the metropolitan area are awaiting decisions by the Federal Radio Commission, according to a representative of the Radio Corporation of America. An application has been filed for an experimental television station license for a transmitter to be located at Bound Brook, N. J., where Station WJZ’s transmitting plant is located. The application requests that the thirty kilowatt image broadcaster be permitted to operate on the frequency band of 2,850-2,950 kilocycles, equivalent to 105 to 101 meters.
No definite information relative to the plans of this television outfit will be released, according to the RCA representative, until the license is issued. He declined to say whether this television plant would supplant the one now in operation at 411 Fifth avenue, or whether its entry into the ether lanes would mark the beginning of regular television service for the home. (New York Times)

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 1929
Movies in Home by Radio Object of New Invention
WASHINGTON, July 14.—(Universal News Service)—A 23-year California inventor, E. L. Peterson of Los Angeles, has obtained patent rights on a new and revolutionary new television principal, it was revealed here today.
The Peterson invention solves the present great problem of synchronization between the sender and the receiver of visional broadcasting, according to the inventor and his attorney, Judge Jerome Lyman Richardson of Riverside, Cal., who claimed it will make radio-movies as available as the present vocal radio.
Judge Richardson went to New York today to confer with bidders for the patent rights and for production of the set. He declined to discuss technical details of the new invention, but said:
“It embodies a new and simplified principle, which entirely masters the question of synchronization between the broadcasting and receiving points, heretofore the great problem of televison. All synchronization obstacles of the past have been eliminated and the Peterson invention will make it possible for the average person to sit down in his home, turn a dial and receive the picture broadcast with the aid of no more technical knowledge than is necessary for the operation of the radio.”
The invention is known as ray-o-vision and a corporation has been formed under the laws of California to handle it. Peterson his attorney plan to leave shortly for Europe with a view to interesting foreign operators. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15)

MONDAY, JULY 15, 1929
WOKO BROADCASTING TELEVISION PROGRAMS
Visual broadcasting, known popularly as television, is now part of the daily radio program of Station WOKO, located on the top of Mount Beacon, near Poughkeepsie, N. Y., according to the Hudson Valley Broadcasting Company, its operators. The images are sent out each after between 2 and 3 o’clock, Easter Daylight Time, on a wavelength of about 145 eters. The call letters are W-2XBU. Subjects used for the visual programs at present are persons, placards, letters and small objects. While images transmitters are said to be “not perfect,” it is expected that experiments will find their reception an interesting diversion and an aid in carrying on television work with home-made receiving equipment.
The apparatus required to intercept the visual programs is a shortwave receiving set equipped with resistance-type audio amplifier, scanning disk, driving motor and neon tube. (New York Times)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1929
TO TEST TELEVISION OUTSIDE OF CITIES A thorough study of the possibility of reliable television service for large suburban and rural areas will be made at Bound Brook, N. J., if the Federal Radio Commission grants an application now before it for a 30-kilowatt image transmitter, according to Dr. A. N. Goldsmith, chief broadcasting engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, who will direct the tests. The wave length proposed is 101 to 105 meters, or 2,950-2,850 kilocycles. It is expected that a comparatively short time will be required to prepare for the tests.
“Our plan,” said Dr. Goldsmith, “is to determine the limitations of visual broadcasts outside of cities just as we are now studying such problems within cities. We hope to ascertain the general transmission characteristics of rural television, how such signals will be affected by static and fading, and the power required for coverage of definite areas.
“Television signals have a less useful range than that obtained with a transmitter sending out audible programs. The short wave lengths assigned for television work are more highly absorbed between the transmitter and the receiver. The zone of fading on short waves is nearer the sending station, say within 100 to 150 miles. Television also requires very critical and difficult methods of transmission and reception, therefore we need unusually perfect signals for high quality service. All these characteristics and limitations are to be carefully studied, so the tests will be entirely experimental, leading later perhaps to a study of television over greater distances.
Dr. Goldsmith said the 30-kilowatt image broadcaster probably would give adequate image service in an area of 500 to 1,000 square miles. (New York Times)

MONDAY, JULY 22, 1929
TELEVISION BROADCASTING IS INAUGURATED ON NIGHTLY WASHINGTON PROGRAMS
By KENNETH G. CRAWFORD
(United Press Staff Correspondent.)
WASHINGTON, July 22.—(UP)—Picture broadcasting was placed on a permanent nightly basis for the first time here tonight with the formal opening of a new studio by C. Francis Jenkins, pioneer in the development of television and president of the Jenkins Television company.
For more than a year the inventor has been broadcasting tri-weekly programs from a 50-watt station in his downtown studio and has gained an audience estimated at 20,000, most of its members amateur radio operators.
To serve this audience better and recruit new members, Jenkins established his new station in a converted farm house five miles north of the District of Columbia line. He was recently granted permission by the Federal Radio Commission to operate a station on a wave length of 2,900 kilocycles.
With this more powerful station, he hopes to send pictures regularly as far west as the Pacific coast and as far south as Porto Rico. Even from his old station a few amateurs were able to pick up his programs occasionally from those distances.
Opens New Studio.
Jenkins announced with the opening of the new studio that he will attempt to broadcast views of the national capital radioed from his airplane to the ground station. This will be done with the "aerial eye," on which the inventor has been experimenting almost every day for several years.
The inventor pilots his own plane. His first machine was damaged recently in a forced landing and he is now equipping a new one for the forthcoming tests of the panorama broadcasting device. The mechanical "eye" of the equipment will peer through a hole in the bottom of the ship.
The views it picks up will be sent to the new broadcasting station and retransmitted to the television audience. In order to reach remote receiving stations two 130-foot antenna towers have been erected near the country studio.
The opening program of the new station was a one-hour motion picture which Jenkins prefaced with a brief talk. Later he will broadcast scenes enacted by living images, but the room from which this is to be done is not yet completely equipped.
Jenkins has found that television fans prefer to see living objects rather than motion pictures. The change in power and frequency in the new station has made it necessary for members of Jenkins’ audience to reconstruct their sets somewhat. Most of the amateurs who receive television programs have assembled their own sets from parts made at home, or supplied by the Jenkins Company, the inventor said.
The same equipment required to pick up sound waves is used to receive television waves, but this must be supplements with the picture projection device.
The picture as it comes in is about six inches square and shows on an illuminated screen in black and white.
"We know how to broadcast colors," Jenkins said, "but it isn't practical because it would require too many wave lengths. We would ruin the air for everyone else by attempting it."
Jenkins will not use all the power granted by the radio commission in his initial programs, but plans to utilize it all eventually.

SATURSDAY, JULY 27, 1929
Seeks Television License.
WASHINGTON, July 27. (AP)—The Great Lakes Broadcasting Co. of Chicago has applied to the Federal Radio Commission for a new radio station license for a television transmitter.

MONDAY, JULY 29, 1929
Entire Show Is Broadcast By Television
Washington, D. C., July 31.—Television has turned the corner, according to eminent radio authorities after the encouraging results from the Jenkins television broadcast over station W2AX were made known recently.
For the first time in history, a complete picture story was televised. This "television drama" was on the air one hour. Reports of its satisfactory reception were received from points as far west as Chicago, and as far north as Lexington, Mass. Station attendants expect several days to elapse before all reports are received.
The program was the first of a series to be sent out regularly from 8 to 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, over the new power transmitter recently installed about five miles north of Washington, D. C. The series was inaugurated in the presence of radio commission officials.
Dr. Jenkins shared the enthusiasm of friends, radio engineers and television fans who witnessed or took part in this epoch-making event. From now on the public will take a keen interest in these broadcasts, and a big impetus will be given to the further development of television which will usher in a new era of opportunity for radio men and the general public. (Tampa Times)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1929
'Talkies' in Home Promise of New Television Device
Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of a new television device, which he claims will soon permit owner of radio sets to receive motion "talkie" pictures in their homes, demonstrated his invention last night. A group of scientists witnessed the tests.
Photographs, the silhouettes of moving fingers and the curling upwards cigarette smoke were transmitted in his Green street laboratories, from one room to a receiving set in another, and were visible on a screen.
New Method Used
The scientists who witnessed the exhibition were members of the Board of Directors of the California Research Group of Science of Vision—Prof. R. S. Minor, University of California; Dr. T. A. Brombach, Dr. Van Simonton, Dr. J. R. Morris, Dr. Leland Carter and Al Reinke, lecturer at the University of California.
Professor Minor declared that the demonstration was "most interesting.” He said he was particularly impressed with the new method of “scanning”. The Farnsworth device does not use a "scanning wheel" or scanning disk, as is used in other television system. The picture is "torn down” at the transmitting end and "built up" at the receiving end by electricity.
Farnsworth stated that with his device families possessing radio sets will reasonably soon be able to hear and see in their living rooms musical comedies as they are being acted and sung in some distant city, that they will be able to watch some spectacular play occurring in a football stadium, hear the impact of men's bodies as they buck the line, see the fumbles and the passes and the roaring approval of the stadium crowds.
He promises that pictures of events taken in the sunlight will soon be transmitted clearly by his system.
The astonishing new instrument invented by Farnsworth is not a bulky affair. In a cabinet of ordinary size, it resembles the average home radio receiving set. Instead of a loud speaker there is an attachment on top of the cabinet with a round orifice for the "vision field."
He says that the experiments so far made have convinced him and his associates that the device can be placed in a still smaller cabinet and that plans are under way to put it into practical use on a large scale. (San Francisco Examiner)



TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929
KGO’s program tonight will be a memorable event; impressive from the number of dignitaries to be presented, absorbing from a dra¬matic and musical standpoint and spectacular for those who will witness the broadcast which will originate in the San Francisco Civic auditorium in conjunction with the Sixth Annual Pacific Radio show. KGO will be on the air from 7 to 11 o’clock.
For its night at the radio show KGO has delayed the opening of its 40,000-watt short wave station W6XN. State and civic officials have been invited to participate in this opening which will feature artists of many foreign countries wearing native costumes. This program will be rebroadcast by the New York stations of the General Electric and it is expected that a score of foreign stations also will relay the W6XN transmission.
Preceding the W6XN inaugura¬tion there will be half-hour program by the Rembrandt Trio. the Melodettes, and the Olympians. At 8:30 those celebrated musical no¬mads, the Pilgrims, who have been traversing the ether lanes for nearly four years, will make their appearance, with August Hinrichs directing. Vocal numbers will be sung by Eva Gruninger Atkinson, contralto, Grace LePage, soprano, and the Olympians. (Santa Ana Daily Register)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1929
RCA STATION AT BOUND BROOK ASKS LICENSE RENEWAL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22.—The Radio Corporation of America applied for a renewal of the television license for the portable station serving New York and New Jersey at Bound Brook, N. J. The call letters are W2XBV. Broadcasting station WJZ is located at Bound Brook. (Home News, New Brunswick, N.J.)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 1929
Chicago Station Give Television License
A television broadcasting license has been granted to WENR. The Chicago station has been allocated the visual broadcasting channel ranging from 2,850 to 2.950 kilocycles by the radio commission for television transmission on regular schedule with 5,000 watts power. There are now approximately a dozen stations licensed to broadcast television but all are on an experimental basis. (Chicago Triune

TELEVISION SETS NOW BEING MADE BY JENKINS CORPORATION
With the recent development of a novel combination scanning drum and selector shutter disk by its engineering staff, resulting in a simpler, more economical, and far more practical scanning system, the Jenkins Television Corporation of Jersey City, N. J., now announces the mass production of television apparatus.
“Although we have been in production on experimental television equipment for six months past,” states James W. Garside, President of the Jenkins Television Corporation, “we have withheld mass production of market models until we could be positive of our grounds. Our earlier models were too elaborate and costly for use in the average home, while the results left much to be desired. Therefore, our production until now consisted of sample televisors for use in checking up the efficiency of our television transmitters at Jersey City and Washington, under typical receiving conditions.
48-Line Reception.
“With out [our] latest development, we have evolved a remarkably simple, inexpensive, and highly practical televisor, which can be readily manufactured at a reasonable cost. The new Jenkins televisor will permit of receiving either plain black and-pink radio movies or full half tone pictures, with good detail and illumination within the limitations of our present 48-line system. Should we find it advisable to go to 60 or more lines, based on our present experiments and developments, the Jenkins televisors can be readily changed over to accommodate additional lines and finer detail.
“All in all, I am satisfied we now have a practical televisor with which we can inaugurate everyday television,” concludes Mr. Garside. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1929
Motion Picture Are Broadcast
Distinct Progress Being Made in Television Studios at Pittsburgh
[By ROBERT D. HEINL]
Distinctive progress is being made in the broadcasting of motion pictures at the Westinghouse plant at Pittsburgh. Motion and still pictures are being sent daily from the television studio in Homestead works, thence by wire four miles to the KDKA transmitting station and broadcast from there to the Farm, as the short wave receiving station is known about six miles northeast.
Ordinary moving picture films are used and such subjects being shown a Krazy Kat and Pathe current news events. It was explained that motion pictures were chosen because they are more difficult to than actual objects. However, at the Homestead television studios, scanning devices are also available for the broadcasting of living subjects. A television studio is indeed a curious looking place and with its bright lights not unlike a moving picture studio.
Formerly because of the makeshift apparatus, an observer was constantly reminded of the experimental nature of television, but there is little of this in evidence at Pittsburg. The transmitting apparatus is of a substantial character and finished in appearance. The reels whirl in the same businesslike way as for a regular motion picture and with countless operators the scene presented in the television studio is similar to one so frequently seen in the projection booth of an ordinary movie theater.
Looks Like Going Concern
Likewise there is the air of a going concern at the receiving end. Not a lot of loose junk wired together but the apparatus compactly assembled on a table and resembling a camera outfit about the size a professional photographer uses. Also a thing one rarely sees in an experimental laboratory—the floor was neatly swept. Viewing a television picture recalls vividly the way we used to look at old time motion pictures in a kinetoscope, excepting that here in a darkened room sees the picture by peering into a long cylinder sometimes standing as far as five feet back to get the right focus.
The moving pictures being broadcast at Pittsburgh are as yet small, about three by four inches in size but larger than the Bell telephone pictures being sent over wires in color which are only as big as a postage stamp. In both the Westinghouse and the Bell demonstrations, however, the details of the pictures are surprisingly sharp and distinct.
“If we make as much improvement in the next six months in broadcasting motion pictures as we have in the past six,” a Westinghouse official remarked, “we will really be able to report progress. As soon as we get one thing lacked we go after the next.”
Let not the reader gather from this that any definite time has been set when the last thing will be “licked” or when we may expect to receive regular television broadcasts into our homes. It may be just around the corner and again it may be years. At the moment research is being carried on along two lines. The first is perfecting quality of the transmitted picture and the second is the effort being made by radio manufacturers to design a receiver or an attachment to go on radio sets, capable of receiving broadcast pictures and selling at a price within reach of the general public. Quite tantalizing at Westinghouse is a peep at the new 100,000 watt tubes, said to be the world’s largest, which are in the making for the new KDKA and KYW stations, without being permitted to go into details regarding their construction or possibilities. They look to be about eight feet in length and are the first to have water-colored grids. So intricate is the process of manufacture that, though a new tube is started every week, the net result is only about two completed tubes a month. So it may be some time before the required six are completed for the new KYW station at Chicago and 12 for the new KDKA station near Pittsburgh. Although the Westinghouse people are as silent as clams regarding these great new tubes, it is believed when the facts are known about them they may prove a sensation in the radio world. Rumor hath it that instead of 100,000 watts, tests have shown that they are capable of 150,000 watts power (Tulsa World)

June 1929

26 television licenses had been handed out in the U.S. by mid-1929. That doesn’t mean 26 stations were on the air.

In fact, there was one station broadcasting television signals that wasn’t on the list of 26.
One was W7NK, a ham station licensed to Francis J. Brott, the head engineer at KOMO radio in Seattle. KOMO got its own TV station, but it wasn’t until 1953.

Another was General Electric’s station in Oakland, W6XN. It had been on the government list at the start of 1929 as a “special” station but vanished in a directory published at the end of June. Radio News for June 1929 said the station was broadcasting at 23.346 metres, 5,000 watts from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. That doesn’t mean it was showing pictures; the station was a rebroadcaster of KGO. G.E. applied on August 16th for a license renewal for eight frequencies at 10,000 watts, granted by October 12th.

There were some new developments in technology. Bell demonstrated a colour transmission system, U.S. Radio and Television showed off a transmission by light, while Frank Jenkins came up with a drum to replace the spinning discs inside a television set.

CBS and Paramount joined forces, with radio network president Bill Paley speculating this meant Paramount movie stars could show up on CBS television shows. It didn’t quite happen, and the corporate marriage came apart during the Depression. As for NBC, it expanded its television hours, but was still doing little more than showing call-letter cards or a figure of Felix the Cat whirling around on a turntable (if, indeed, they were using Felix that early).

Mention is made of a possible TV studio in the New Amsterdam Theatre. It finally came about in 1949 when WOR-TV set up a studio there.

Below are the highlights from June, 1929. We’ve tried to find programming information, but it’s very scarce.

MONDAY, JUNE 3, 1929
SHOW TELEVISION PLAN OF WORKING TO SEATTLE FOLK
SEATTLE, June 3. (AP)—Elementary and crude as it was, both in transmission and reception, television, newest wonder in radio science, had its inception here tonight.
Hugo Barden, radio mechanic employed by the Stewart-Warner company; Robert Flagler, technician at KOMO, and Kenneth G. Grayson of a local newspaper, reported reception of the moving pictures transmission over W7NK, the station installed by F. J. Brott at his home.
After detailed instructions in the workings of the television, Brott switched on his motors and proceeded to flash through the ether a series of sketches, letters, numbers and sample figures such as a heart, a diamond and a question mark.

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 1929
Television, a crowd collector of the 1928 [Chicago Radio] trade show is all but absent this year. Interest in the subject has faded both in commercial and listener circles, apparently because no practical application is yet in sight.
Indeed whether radio television will ever be practicable still is a moot point, with some observers pointing out that requirements of a wide air channel bars it from the broadcasting wave band, and that uncertainties of short waves present another difficulty.
On the other hand A. J. Carter of the Carter Radio Co., a director of the Radio Manufacturers' Association, maintains there has been considerable advance in radiovision practicality, and that only the Federal Radio Commission's frequent changes of mind as to assignment of channels has delayed the marketing of receiving apparatus.
With television activity in the east subsiding, except in Jenkins Laboratories, Chicago radio circles are taking it up. WMAQ, WIBO and WENR are working on short-wave transmitters which will be devoted partly to television experiments. There seems to be no possibility of a commercial television receiver for the ensuing year at least. (George R. Madtes, Youngstown Vindicator)

SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 1929
Station W2XCL, located at 323 Berry st., Brooklyn, which has been operating since March 27 under a construction permit issued by the Federal Radio Commission, has now been licensed by the commission as an experimental visual broadcasting station to transmit in the 2,000-2,100 kilocycle channel (149.2-150 meters), it was announced yesterday [8] by James L. Benjamin, treasurer of the Pilot Radio and Tube Corporation, owners of the installation.
Television broadcasting will begin soon from W2XCL, Mr. Benjamin stated. A new system of disc scanning and a very simple method of maintaining synchronization will be used, so that experimenters will be able to reproduce the broadcast images with little trouble and little expense. The Pilot company expects to sell the parts for a complete television receiver in knockdown form, for home assembly by the amateur constructor. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 9)

SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 1929
REPORTS 20,000 AS ‘LOOKING’ IN ON TELEVISION
Lookers in Are Scattered All Over United States to Pacific Coast
According to conservative estimate there are over 20,000 "lookers-in" tuned to the experimental programs broadcast by the Jenkins W3XK station at Washington, D.C. These "lookers-in" are scattered over the entire United States, some reporting regular reception of images as far as the Pacific Coast. For the most part, the apparatus employed by these television enthusiasts is entirely homemade.
Just what do these "lookers-in" get with their present home-made television receivers? Why do they indulge in this work? These questions are answered by G. E. Foreman, 621 Fourteenth Street W. E., Washington, D. C.
PICTURES WELL DEFINED
"Of course the pictures are not perfect, but they are well defined and easily recognizable, and absolute perfection at this stage of the art means little to me. The fact is that the apparatus is just as it was on the night of January 21st, when the first movies were received.
"Since then, my room has been filled with spectators each evening that the pictures were on, and I have been besieged with requests to view the movies. Due to this popularity, it has been impossible to make very, necessary changes in the set and televisor, which would greatly improve the reception.
"The interest in practical television, even to the experienced radio enthusiast, is surprising.
OLD-TIMERS ENJOY IT.
"Persons old in the radio art, and amateurs with coast-to-coast reception of audible radio to their credit, have sat before my set and gazed in wonder at the tiny image, and have laughed heartily at the antics of Sambo as he chases his dinner.
"Concerning the more serious side of television, I believe experimenters are fortunate to have a station like W3XK from which to receive. The modulation is perfect, the voice of the announcer being clear and distinct, and the television note exceedingly clear and crisp. The reception is so loud that a minimum of regeneration is. all that is necessary, which clears up the picture tremendously." (Hilo Tribune Herald)

FRIDAY, JUNE 14, 1929
PARAMOUNT BUYS HALF INTEREST IN BROADCAST CHAIN
Screen Stars to Be Put on Air, Eventually by Television
ST. LOUIS, Mo., June 14 (U.P.)—Paramount-Famous-Lasky corporation has obtained a one-half interest in the Columbia broadcasting system, Adolph Zukor, president of the film company, announced tonight.
Fifty-three radio stations in the Columbia chain are involved in the deal.
“The arrangement,” said Zukor, "concludes a definite working agreement which will give the public every feature or entertainment.
“Scientific developments have introduced the voice to the motion picture screem,” Zukor said, “and there is every prospect that similar developments shortly will introduce vision into radio.
Air entertainment by the Paramount personnel, which includes presentations on the stage by Public Theaters corporation, will combine with talent already internationally famous, through screen and stage appearances, Zukor added. Paramount’s screen celebrities include Clara Bow, George Bancroft, Gary Cooper and Charles Rogers, who will be joined by Hal Skelly, Mary Eaton and Maurice Chevalier in radio appearances.

SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1929
TELEVISION WILL CAUSE NEXT MOVIE REVOLUTION
W. S. Paley of Columbia Broadcasting System Pictures Results in Theater and Home.
The perfection of television in broadcasting moving pictures with sound into the home as well as the theater will find the Paramount Famous Lasky Corporation and the Columbia Broadcasting System prepared for this foreseen revolution in the two industries, William S. Paley, president of the Columbia system said in addressing the annual Paramount convention which opened yesterday [15] at the Coronado Hotel. Announcement that Paramount had acquired half-interest in Columbia was made yesterday morning by Paley and Adolph Zukor, president of the Paramount company.
"We hear a lot about television, but not many people know a great deal about it," Paley said. "One thing is certain, however. It is coming. Whether it will be in two years or five, it is sure to come. With our amalgamation of interests, we are prepared. Columbia can lean on Paramount for the new problems entailing actual stage presentations for broadcasting. And Paramount has an outlet in presenting television to the public.
"It is hard to tell just how television will be handled. Whether it will be confined solely to home or whether entertainment houses will also show it on the screen is still problematical.
Television and News Reel.
“It looks as though, because of the size of the theater screen and because of the attractiveness of well-rounded programs presented in the theater, television will somehow fit into the scheme of things there.
"Our imagination can run wild if we think of television in the field of the news reel and imagine seeing flashed on the screen with sound a news event of major importance as it is actually taking place." (St Louis Post-Dispatch, June 16)

A new radio fad, radio television parties, is making a strong bid for popularity in Seattle, according to H. M. Thiel, of the Thiel Hardware Company. Television broadcasting is on the air every night from station W7NK and Hug Barden, engineer for Stewart-Warner last Saturday [15] played informal host for twenty guests at an experimental program. The various objects projected on the screen were plainly discernable and in one picture where a pencil was used to trace the objects the movements of the pencil could be plainly seen. (Bellingham Herald, June 22)

MANY SEND TELEVISION.
THREE OF TWENTY-SIX STATIONS ARE IN CHICAGO.
NEW YORK, June 15. (AP)—Twenty-six stations have been licensed by the federal radio commission to broadcast radiovision on an experimental basis, a recent compilation shows.
All but one are assigned to the short wave band, where they have channels 100 kilocycles wide. The lone station transmitting in the broadcast area is WRNY, New York, which is permitted to send pictures from 1 to 6 a. m.
Power used by the various stations ranges from fifty watts for W2XBA at Newark, N. J., to 30,000 watts for W3XL, Bound Brook, N. J. The majority are operating in the vicinity of 150 or 110 meters. A few have been assigned to the territory stretching from sixty to sixty-seven meters.
Three of the short wave stations are in the first radio district, eleven in the second district, two in the third, one in the fourth, two in the sixth, one in the seventh, one in the eighth and four ninth. The broadcast channel station is in the second district.
The transmitters:
W1XAE—Springfield, Mass.
W1XAY—Lexington, Mass.
W1XB—Somerville, Mass.
W2XBA—Newark, N. J.
W2XBS—New York (portable).
W2XBU—Beacon, N. Y.
W2XBV—New York (portable).
W2XBW—Bound Brook (portable).
W2XCL—Brooklyn, N. Y.
W2XCO—New York.
W2XCR—Jersey City, N. J.
W2XCW—Schenectady.
W2XR—New York.
W2XX—Ossining, N. Y.
W3XK—Washington, D. C.
W3XL—Bound Brook, N. J.
W4XE—Winter Park, Fla.
W6XAM—Los Angeles.
W6XC—Los Angeles.
W7XAO—Portland. Ore.
W8XAV—East Pittsburgh.
W9XAA—Chicago.
W9XAG—Chicago.
W9XAO—Chicago.
W9XAZ—Iowa City, Ia.
WRNY—New York.

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 1929
Now that “Glorifying the American Girl” is completed, the elaborate sets are being torn down from their frames at the Paramount Astoria studios, and Director Millard Webb is coastward bound already, to take up the megaphoning for another company—First National. Under a new agreement, Webb will direct Billie Dove in an all-talkie, “Give This Girl a Hand,” adapted from a story by Fannie Hurst. This is the first movie for which television rights have been purchased by the author, besides dialogue rights. (Irene Thirer, Daily News)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 19, 1929
Theatre Includes Radio Television and Movies
NEW YORK, June 19.—(AP)—A roof top theatre such as Jules Verne might have imagined equipped for radio broadcasting and for the showing and recording of sound color and three dimensional motion pictures is being constructed above the new Amsterdam playhouse at 42nd street and Broadway, A. L. Erlanger, theatre owner, announced today.
A sound proof glass curtain which may be lowered in front of the stage will enable the broadcasting of any sort of performance from a tap dance to a grand opera without intrusion of sounds from the auditorium, Mr. Erlanger said, while the audience looks on through the glass and listens through amplifiers.
It will be possible at the same time, he declared, for motion picture cameras and microphones to record the performance and when television is perfected for the scenes on the stage to be broadcast visually. Heating and cooling apparatus will regulate temperatures to control acoustics.
The new playhouse, to be called the Aerial theatre, is to be finished in September. It will occupy the upper floor of the new Amsterdam building recently vacated by Ziegfeld's midnight frolics.

FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 1929
The [Federal Radio] commission has...granted an experimental television license to radio station W A A M, Inc., of Newark, N. J. The company plans to operate with 500 watts in the 2750-2850 band. (Daily Herald, Passaic)

SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1929
BEGINS TELEVISION SIGNAL BROADCAST FROM JERSEY CITY
Jenkins Corporation Says Signals Picked Up With Ample Power at Distance
The Jenkins Television Corporation announces the completion of its powerful television broadcasting transmitter which will serve the New York metropolitan area as well as a large section of the country. Experimental programs are being broadcast on 140 meters, and reports from near and far indicate that the television signals are being picked up with ample power.
The Jenkins Jersey City transmitter, W2XCR, is a 5-kilowatt, crystal-controlled outfit fed by the Jenkins film pick-up for the transmission of radio movies. Later, when the art warrants more elaborate transmission, direct pick-up from living subjects will be undertaken. The power supply for the transmitter consists of two generators, each producing the 2000-volt current for the plate supply, and two smaller generators supplying 24 volts and 250 volts for the filament circuits and grid bias requirements. The transmitter is installed in the annex on the root of the Jenkins plant, and comprises two large panels. Alongside is the operator’s table, with the usual receiver for listening in for S O S calls, together with the elaborate pick-up amplifiers. A microphone permits of making vocal announcements to the “lookers-In” when necessary. There is also a television monitor, so that the quality of the outgoing signals may be checked up.
A second Jenkins television transmitter is being rushed to completion in Montgomery County, Md., outside of Washington, D. C., with the call letters W3XK and a 5-kilowatt rating. This station will be on the air shortly, serving another large section of the country with television programs. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 22)

SUNDAY, JUNE 23, 1929
California is considered rather remote from Ohio, at least in terms of miles; but by radio and through the medium of newspapers that state is apparently easily in touch with this section of the country, at least in the mind of Hugh Okeson, WHK operator.
For last week Hugh received a letter from Station KGO, Oakland, Cal., revealing the fact that an old buddy of his, Kenneth Sherman, former Clevelander and owner of amateur station W8ABR here, is in charge of experimental transmissions from W6XN short-wave station of KGO. Television broadcasts on regular schedule are occupying much of Sherman's time, he relates. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26, 1929
Ask Television Station In City
General Electric Wants Short Wave Sender Here
A short wave radio station for the purpose of experimenting with television may be erected in this city by the General Electric company, according to a dispatch from Washington yesterday [26].
The application of the company for permission to build the station will be heard by the Federal Radio commission soon after the resumption of hearings in September, it was announced.
Request was made for the frequencies of 2750 and 2250 kilocycles of the television band and power of 50 watts. Under the procedure followed by the commission, the construction permit is first granted and after the station is built a license to operate it is issued, if it is satisfactory to the commission.
The proposed location or other details concerning the station could not be learned yesterday. M. P. Rice, Schenectady, is the broadcast director for General Electric. Efforts to secure further details in that city were unavailing last night. (Atlantic City Press, June 27)

THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1929
COLOR TELEVISION PROVES SUCCESS IN EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED IN NEW YORK
NEW YORK, June 27. (AP)—Color television—another step of that infant of science— was demonstrated today at the Bell Telephone laboratories, which devised the apparatus for the American Telephone and Telegraph company.
The apparatus, except for the addition of special color mechanisms, was the same as that demonstrated three years ago in a wire and radio test between New York and Washington. The system is subject to use over long distance wire or radio circuits.
The difference between the color television apparatus and the regular television machine is merely the addition of three electric eyes, each transmitting a current corresponding to the amount of the natural color in the subject. Before the three electric eyes in one end of the auditorium, a young woman stood holding various objects such as a glass of water, a colored ball and a pineapple. The current was turned on. In the darkened receiving chamber at the other end of the wall her image, in the natural colors, was reproduced.
Three wires connected the machine picking up the image and the receiving apparatus, each carrying its own color-current. Bell experts said that where radio was the transmitting medium three wave lengths would be used.

May 1929

Television looked ready to expand in the New York and New England area in May 1929, while the Federation of Labor station in Chicago proclaimed it would be broadcasting every Sunday.

W2XBU in Beacon, N.Y. near Poughkeepsie, and W2XCP in New York were approved to go on the air; W2XBU had already aired test programmes.

W2XBS, now WNBC, announced test broadcasts, as did a station with a much shorter life, W2XCL in Brooklyn.

In Lexington, Mass., W1XAY said it would be expanding its studios, while the Barnberger company conducted a successful test using ultra-violet rays. Bamberger would finally have a TV station on the air for good on Oct. 11, 1949 when WOR-TV began broadcasting on channel 9.

Here’s a summary of TV news for May, 1929.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1, 1929
Operators of Station WOKO Plan Television Demonstration
Smith and Curtis Soon To Reveal Results Of Long Experimentation in Laboratory Of Radio System on Mt. Beacon
Exhaustive research in a laboratory atop Mount Beacon, 1,545 feet above the Hudson River, by which it is hoped to make television available to the average person in his home at small expense, has just been completed by H. E. Smith and R. M. Curtis, operators of radio broadcasting station WOKO. Although this system of television has not been put on the air, radio tests will be made as soon as a license is granted by the Federal Radio Commission. Meanwhile experiments have been conducted over private wires between the station and its studio in the Hotel Windsor, a distance of about 18 miles.
Simple Apparatus
Like the radio in its infancy, television is as yet a strange thing to the lay person, but inventors and developers such as Mr. Smith and Mr. Curtis hope to make it possible within a short time to transmit television into the homes for reception by small and simple apparatus such as the present radio sets.
The radio laboratory in which this system of television was developed is perhaps the loftiest laboratory in the world, so high on the summit of Mount Beacon, Mr. Smith has given out a few facts concerning his system which he feels will be welcomed by the public interested in radio.
“The system used,” he says, “is what is known as the direct lighting, that is, the subject or person whose image is to be transmitted sits in a small recording studio which is flooded with 4,000 watts of incandescent lamps. Between the recording studio and the recording apparatus there is a small opening in the partition through which the image or subject is focused through a series of lenses upon a scanning disc.
“The signal received after being amplified by the six stages of amplification is then put into the transmitter in the usual way, or in the case of the laboratory tests just conducted, is connected to the neon tube which is placed behind a scanning disc of the same size as the transmitting disc containing the same number of holes and revolving at the same speed. By then looking at the neon tube with the disc revolving in front of it in synchronism with the transmitting disc, the picture is formed, caused by the holes in the receiving disc being between the eye of the observer and the neon tube.
"With the neon tubes now available the received picture is approximately one and one half inches square, but by using a magnifying glass it can be enlarged. But the more it is enlarged the less detail there is."

THURSDAY, MAY 2, 1929
George Nelson 1st Local Man To Get Successful Television
Constructs Set As Part of Thesis Work In Physics
When in Schenectady, N. Y., a man held a playing card before a strange-looking apparatus of tubes, discs, and coils, George H. Nelson, 422 N. Few st., Madison, senior in physics in the university, peered through an eye-piece in another apparatus in Sterling hall on Madison campus to see the five-spot of diamonds take shape before his eyes. Thus was received the first completely successful television transmission in Madison.
The television receiving set in Sterling hall has been constructed by student-physicist Nelson as part of his thesis work in physics. He has been working on the set since November.
In part the apparatus built by Mr. Nelson for the reception of television resembles the ordinary radio receiving set. There is a two-tube, short-wave-length receiver with a four-tube resistance-coupled amplifier. Power is supplied to the outfit from batteries furnishing 225 volts, and from a six-volt storage battery.
Lamp and Rotating Disc
The picture-producing part of the mechanism consists of a round disc, a small electric motor, and a neon tube. The only fundamental difference between an ordinary radio receiver and a television outfit is this additional equipment. The rotating disc has spirally arranged holes around the outer edge. The neon lamp is behind this disc.
Reference is made frequently to the 'screen' of the television receiver. There is no screen. That is probably the reason for the fact that television images resemble nothing one has previously seen. They are not reproduced on any flat surface but are formed from individual dots of light from the neon lamp behind the disc, these dots being distributed by the holes in the scanning disc in such a way as to form a complete image at each revolution of the disc.
This is similar to the method employed for projecting moving pictures, where one picture after another is thrown on the screen in such rapid succession that the eye receives the impression of continuous movement.
It has been said that one of the most fascinating features of television is the strange almost ghost-like appearance of the images. When the receiver is slightly out of phase, the images float across the opening like spirit pictures. The dim, flickering image seems to appear on the rapidly revolving disc.
“One of the chief problems in television is getting the scanning disc at the receiving end revolving at precisely the same speed as the disc at the sending end," comments Mr. Nelson. "In addition to running at the same speed, hole number one of the receiving disc must be in the same relative position as hole number one of the sending disc, just as if both discs were attached to a single shaft, when as a matter of fact they are separated by thousands of miles and connected only by radio waves.
Receives From New York
"If the discs are not running together the picture floats across the field of vision as many times in a second as is the difference between the two disc speeds."
The pictures received by Mr. Nelson's set are 1 ½ inches square, but viewed through a magnifying glass the image is considerably enlarged. Mr. Nelson tunes in with an ordinary pair of headphones. On the television sounds similar to high-speed code transmission, except that the sound is more continuous.
Station WGY at Schenectady is the only station broadcasting television powerfully enough to be received in Madison. As WGY transmits pictures during the time when the university station WHA is or the air with its noon-hour program, Mr. Nelson has some difficulty with the local interference. All of the television broadcasts from WGY are as yet purely for experimental purposes. (Capital Times, Madison)

TELEVISION TO BE BROADCAST DAILY BY WCFL, CHICAGO
BY GEORGE D. BUCK.
Station WCFL of Chicago will broadcast television as a regular feature between 9 and 11 a. m., Sundays excepted. Programs will consist of motion pictures and still subjects. The broadcast is on a wave length of 146.25 meters, standard 48-hole scanning disc, r. p. m. 950. They would like to hear reports from radio fans as to how their pictures are received.
Much progress is being made in television. According to reports from the Westinghouse, Bell Telephone and R. C. A. laboratories, improvements have been made both in enlarging the size of the picture shown and increasing the illumination of it. While early experiments only succeeded in showing a 2-inch picture, it is now possible to project images on a screen 15 by 18 inches. Much encouragement in this field has resulted since the allotment of wider bands of frequencies for these experiments, 100 kilocycle bands now being allowed, making larger pictures and greater detail possible.
Owners of short wave receivers are requested by Station W2XCL, Brooklyn, N. Y., to report on their reception on this station, which broadcasts on 143.5 meters every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 9 and 11 p. m., with spoken announcements and musical notes of different frequencies. They will not start actual television until they have made these preliminary tests and satisfied themselves that a considerable number of people can hear the station clearly and with good volume. They intend to transmit images of living persons and not merely photographs. (St. Louis Star)

Experiments In Television Being Carried On Here
Television, one of the most modern discoveries in science, is being studied extensively in the Coe college laboratories by Lee Hruska, major student in the physic department. He has received television broadcasts from Washington, D. C., and has already succeeded in making a photo-electric cell, one of the most difficult parts of the television sending apparatus to construct.
Hruska has done a large amount of experimenting with radio and the allied sciences. Recently the Federal Radio commission acted to prohibit the experimental broadcast of pictures but word has just been received from James W. Good, Secretary of War, of a special frequency dedicated to the service of television.
Hruska has been interested in radio since the days when there were no broadcasting stations such are on the air at the present time. He was a member of the Amateur Radio Relay League, an organization composed of the most outstanding radio amateurs of the country, and assisted in communicating with explorers in the Arctic regions. (Coe College Cosmos)

SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1929
20,000 “LOOKERS” ESTIMATE
WASHINGTON (AP)—Short wave station W3XK, which broadcasts television signals from films, estimates that it has an audience of 20,000. This observation was made from a flood of letters that followed a 10-day suspension of transmission on 46.72 meters while changes were made.
Television programs are now being broadcast on a regular daily schedule from W1KAY [sic], Lexington, Mass. Pictures are being sent from W3XAV, Pittsburgh, W2XAF, Schenectady and W3XK, Washington, D. C., three times a week. (Honolulu Star-Bulletin)

W1XAY to Increase Television Equipage
LEXINGTON, Mass., May 4. (AP)—Construction of a new 5,000 watt transmitter is being undertaken by television station W-1XAY, at Lexington, as the result of a granting of a license for experimental television work by the federal radio commission.
SUNDAY, MAY 5, 1929
A few days ago Dr Alfred N. Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, invited several guests to his home to witness a demonstration of television reception. Gathered about the television receiver in Dr Goldsmith’s Riverside Drive apartment, the guests saw the image of an operator standing before a television transmitter located at 411 5th av. They saw the operator pick up a telephone in answer to a call from Dr Goldsmith, saw him stroke his hair, saw him smile when the doctor spoke in a humorous vein—convincing evidence that he was actually following instructions.
At the conclusion of the demonstration Dr Goldsmith asked his guests if they were satisfied from what they had seen that television had arrived. They were satisfied that it had.
“Well, then” remarked Dr Goldsmith, “I have prepared you for a little surprise. What you have seen demonstrated here tonight is now largely obsolete as far as television is concerned. In our laboratories we have apparatus working which does away with all the cumbersome moving parts and scanning discs used by this machine. We have apparatus much smaller and much easier to manage which is capable of casting images on a screen to the full size of about 15x18 inches. The television receivers of the future, comp1ete and ready for plugging into the light socket, will not occupy a space larger than is now required by a high quality radio set and speaker.” (Boston Globe)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1929
SMITH TELLS COMMISSION HE WILL SPEND $100,000
Seeking a renewal of the television license rescinded a month and a half ago after being in effect since July, 1928, Harold E. Smith, operator of radio station WOKO told the Radio Commission in Washington he is prepared to spend $100,000 on television.
Mr. Smith told The Eagle-News the station was backed financially too make television experiments to this extent and that he hoped to have the license soon so the experiment can be put on the air. Thus far they have been conducted on special wire between the station on Mount Beacon and the studio in the Hotel Windsor, this city.
In making his application for renewal of the license, Mr. Smith requested a frequency of 4,300-4,900 kilocycles but at the hearing Wednesday [8] amended it to whatever frequency is necessary to bring it within the experimental television bands. The same thing was done with his request for 100 watts power. (Poughkeepsie Eagle-News, May 11)

SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1929
A SERIES of motion pictures, which will be carried to radio fans in the New York area by television, now is being produced by Visugraphic Pictures, Inc., New York.
These pictures will be broadcast from station W2XCR, Jersey City, operated by the Jenkins Television Corporation, and will be “tuned in” by radio listeners who have receiving sets equipped for television purposes.
This new development in the science of television and cinematics, made possible by the indefatigable effort and research on the part of radio technicians, brings nearer the time when radio enthusiasts will be able to “tune in” the finest motion picture entertainment—sound, dialogue and all, according to television engineers.
With television movies still at an experimental stage, the Visugraphic productions necessarily will be simple sketches, especially adapted for the purpose.
In the broadcasting of motion pictures, the radio studio presents the appearance of a projection room. There are no "Silence" signs; noise is not picked up by the television apparatus.
One hears the familiar clicking of the motion picture projector and sees the film unreeling through lenses much the same as in ordinary projection work. The graduations of light thrown through the film are transformed into radio impulses and sent out over the antenna to be detected and picked up miles distant and reproduced upon a small screen attached to the receiving set of the television enthusiast.
Experiments made in the production of suitable television subjects in the Visugraphic laboratories indicate tremendous possibilities in this new form of entertainment. (Washington Herald)

MONDAY, MAY 13, 1929
W2XBS, the experimental television station of the Radio Corporation of America, has extended its broadcasting hours to include the period from 7 to 11 p. m. daily. This change has been made in order to allow a greater period for the study of reception at various locations. The transmitted pictures consist of sixty horizontal lines each divided into sixty-two elements laterally. Twenty pictures are scanned per second. (Nick Kenny, Daily News, New York)

TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1929
Buffalo Station Ready to Give Television Service as Soon as Radio Commission Grants an Application—First Broadcast Expected Sept. 1
WASHINGTON, May 14.—Television talkies in every Buffalo home during the coming year is the aim of station WSVS, Buffalo, which today filed an application with the Federal Radio Commission for an experimental television license. The application was filed by John D. Donlon, director of transmission for WSVS, and seeks use of 500 watts on 2050 kilocycles.
If the experimental license is granted, the new equipment will be installed in the Seneca vocational school, operator of WSVS, on Delavan avenue, and the first visual broadcast will take place Sept. 1.
"Buffalo has no station to advance the art of television in that vicinity," Mr. Donlon declared today, adding that "the nearest television stations are in Pittsburgh and Schenectady. They are too far away to do Buffalo any good.
"We propose to begin the visual broadcast service Sept. 1 and will begin by sending ordinary photographs and pictures of living facsimiles. Whan we find these are reaching the Buffalo homes satisfactorily we shall try sending motion pictures.
"The ultimate will come when we can use our broadcasting station to send out music as an accompaniment to the television motion picture which we plan sending out on the short waves.”
Mr. Donlon declared he had been making personal experiments with television for several months and that WSVS is ready to go ahead with the work The new apparatus for the television broadcasting has been ordered and will be installed as soon as the Radio commission approves the application for construction permit.
This is the second application filed by station WSVS with the Radio commission within the two weeks. The former covered the station's broadcast service and requested use of 1200 kilocycles, a Canadian-shared wavelength, together with 200 watts power for daytime use and 100 watts power at night.
The matter is pending before the commission, awaiting word from Canadian radio authorities at Ottawa, who must pass on the desired wavelength before it is assigned to the Buffalo station. At present there are no Canadian stations on the 1200-kilocycle band. (Buffalo News)

ENGINEERS SEE TELEVISION FOR ALL HOMES SOON
By JAMES STOKLEY
Science Service Staff Writer
WASHINGTON, May 14.—The time when television images will be flitting back and forth through the air as thickly as broadcast music today is not far off. Radio engineers are doing all they can to hasten the day and to bring television into every home.
Meeting in Washington is the Institute of Radio Engineers, including the best known names in radio. At their session today they devoted their time to a symposium on visual radio, which includes sending of still pictures by radio as well as the rapid transmission of motion pictures.
One simplification of the television receiver, looking toward bringing it into the home, was described by C. Francis Jenkins, Washington inventor. This is a drum scanner, in which a seven inch drum does the same work as a 36 inch disc in older forms of apparatus. Such a drum, with its driving motor, can be enclosed in a small cabinet, comparable in size with a modern dynamic speaker.
Transmit Picture in Colors
Improvements in picture transmission have now reached the point where a picture in colors has been transmitted by radio across the continent. Captain R. H. Ranger described his latest form of photo-radio transmitter and receiver with which this can be done.
The transmitter makes use of the varying reflection from a picture, wrapped around a revolving drum, to a photoelectric cell. In his newest transmitter, Captain Ranger uses five prisms which split the light into five parts, each of which goes its respective cell.
The receiver records on waxed paper, instead of photographic paper, as in other methods. The incoming signal regulates a jet of hot air, which is squirted at the paper as it moves in step with the original picture. The wax is waterproof but the hot air melts it in spots. These spots are no longer waterproof, and when a dye is applied, the color is absorbed where the hot air struck.
Homes to Have Two Receivers
Dyes of any color may be used and by sending three separate pictures of the red, blue and green of the original, each may be printed in the proper color. In the finished picture, all are combined to produce color print.
Probably the home of the future will have two radio receivers, one for broadcasting, the other tuned to short waves for television. With these two it will be possible to obtain both the voice and view. This is because television is the most difficult form of radio transmission—a view expressed to the engineers by Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, vice-president of the Radio Corp. Very special forms of receivers will be required satisfactory television images are to be received, he said. At present the corporation, under his direction, is broadcasting television nightly from a New York studio.

MONDAY, MAY 20, 1929
WILKINSBURG AMATEURS' TELEVISION SET SUCCESS
Pittsburgh boasts of its luxurious and ultra-complete radio stations. There are a number.
But Wilkinsburgh has one that for modesty of surroundings is unequalled.
In a little workshop back of the home of Anthony Mag, 1027 Franklin avenue, is short-wave station W8OW, and every one of the seemingly hundreds of mechanical gadgets in it have been constructed by himself, or his fellow hobbyists, John Clark and Robert Marshall.
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, they get motion and still pictures from KDKA on their home-made television receiving set. For six months the trio labored, finally, the big disk revolved and on it appeared the pictures that meant they had succeeded. Besides their time, the equipment cost them nearly $200.
But that's not all. At odd times during the past 10 years they have caused to grow numerous radio receiving sets. Now they have built a short-wave sending set, so successful that their little station W8OW has been heard in New Zealand, Hawaii, and nearly all European countries.
They have little machines for everything, it seems. One cuts, another polishes, another tests the quartz use in the transmission set crystals. All types and sizes of motors are connected and interconnected. Miles of tiny wiring make the little workshop a labyrinth of mechanics.
Since their grammar school days, all three have had radio as a hobby. Only Marshall works at it directly.
Now they're planning to tear down the first television set and rebuild for greater efficiency. Mag is a night student at Carnegie Tech, and works for Duquesne Light Company during the day. (Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph)
SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1929
Washington, D. C.—Harold E. Smith, owner of the broadcasting station WOKO, Mt. Beacon, today received permission from the federal radio commission to conduct television experiments over his experimental television station, W2-XBU, an hour daily.
The commission for the present will restrict Smith to experiments between 1 and 2 p.m. A license with the proviso is being issued him.
The action was taken on the recommendation of the engineering division which, according Carl H. Butman, secretary of the commission, felt that this would be a fair arrangement for Smith. Later, said Butman, the commission will, if Smith wishes it, consider a more generous allowance of time for him, although it will not at this time pledge itself as to the future.(Beacon News)

TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1929
SHOWS TELEVISION TRANSMISSION BY ULTRA-VIOLET RAY
For the first occasion in radio history, television was transmitted by visible light and ultra-violet rays in a demonstration conducted by the United States Radio and Television corporation at L. Bamberger & Co., in Newark, yesterday [28]. At the same time, the first public transmission of sound by ultra-violet rays was shown.
On the eleventh floor at the Bamberger & Co., in Newark, yesterday, observed a battery of transmitting equipment at one end of the building and a receiving device at the opposite end. A bulb emitted a beam of varying colored light from the transmitting end. The light flickered and changed in intensity in accordance with the speech which an official poured into a nearby microphone connected to apparatus operating the bulb. The bulb behaved the same way attached to the television transmitter.
A loud speaker and ear phones delivered the speech given at the opposite end, while a television screen showed a clear image. Whenever the light was intercepted, the reception stopped.
Following this, a filter allowing only a near ultra-violet ray to proceed was placed over the bulb. Reception of both sound and television still continued except when an object or person was interposed between the receiver and transmitter, thereby cutting off the ray.
EXPLAINS SYSTEM.
Paul A. Kober, television engineer of the United States Radio and Television company, who conducted the showing and developed the process, is an engineer of reputation. Last August he directed over WOR radio station in collaboration with Bamberger engineers, the first television drama synchronised with music.
He explained the television process was by means of a high frequency Mercury induction lamp, the light of which varies in accordance with the electrical impulses representing high lights, half tones and shadows of the image transmitted and, two photo-electric cells which receive the varying light translate it back into a varying current, actuating a neon lamp and causing the image to be recreated on a television screen by the aid of an ordinary scanning disk and light pencil.
RAPID CHANGES.
"Its feasibility," Kober said, "is due in large measure to the extraordinary qualities of the Mercury induction lamp originally developed for therapeutic work, but recently discovered to have characteristics for light modulation beyond the highest frequency needed for television.
A remarkable feature of this lamp is that the radio frequency which actuates it causes it to darken, and glow at least 30,000,000 times a second.
"Moreover, besides its capacity for transmitting television I have employed it as a receiving lamp for television in place of the ordinary glow lamp, making possible a larger and better detailed picture.
"An ultra-violet filter encasing the mercury Iamp will allow only ultra-violet rays to extend in the same path where the light beam would ordinarily be. As to the distance this type of transmission can extend it is safe to say at present it can be projected ten miles. There is, of course, no limit to its possibilities."
The ultra-violet exhibition made apparent immediate scientific usages and opened a wide experimental field. An example is ship to ship communication in time of war when radio signals and light beams would be impractical. In short, an invisible ray, for the transmission of sound and picture, which ray can neither be seen nor heard, has far-reaching potentialities.
In addition to pressmen and officials of the United States Radio and Television corporation and L. Bamberger & Co., a number of electrical scientists were present. (Bergen Evening Record, May 29)

THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1929
FREED EISEMANN GETS TELEVISION STATION PERMIT
BY GEORGE D. BUCK.
Construction permits have granted to the Freed Eisemann Radio Corporation to build a visual broadcasting station to be known as W2XCP. This call letter will cover the experimental work done on both of the wave lengths granted to the corporation, namely, from 2,000 to 2,100, and from 2,850 to 2,950 kilocycles, this being the 100-kilocycle band of frequencies allotted for this kind of broadcasting. Construction work will be started at once, as the research department of the company has been experimenting for some time in anticipation of the granting of this permit. (St. Louis Star)

April 1929

Brooklyn had a TV station in 1929, but didn’t have it for long.

The New York Times of March 19, 1929, in a story dated the previous day, said Zah Bauk of Brooklyn had received a construction permit for television station W2XCL. A story on June 23, 1992 in the Baltimore Sun reported it had been operating under the permit since March 27.

In mid-April that year, the station owner, Pilot Radio, began test broadcasts. Radio-Craft magazine, in its September 1929 issue, told readers: “For the time being the transmissions will consist merely of spoken announcements and of musical notes of different frequencies. The purpose of the tests is to determine the quality of the modulation, the ability of the apparatus to handle the wide frequency bands required for television work, and the field strength of the signals in various parts of the Metropolitan area.”

The station didn’t last long. An unbylined story in the Jan. 10, 1930 edition of the Paterson Morning Call told how Pilot had asked the Federal Radio Commission to move the station to Lawrence, Mass., where its manufacturing plant was. The Commission agreed and the station call letters were changed to W1XY by July 31, 1930.

On the other side of the country, W7XAO in Portland was getting closer to being on the air. As well, a story in April 1929 tells how the Charles Freshman company in New York planned to get into the television broadcasting business. The company’s Joseph Freed set up a corporation later that year and was awarded construction permits on two frequencies as W2XCP in Allwood, N.J. The Commission's Radio Service Bulletin of August 31, 1931 says "strike out all particulars."

A story about a DXer with his home-built set mentions he visited C. Francis Jenkins the day of the Hoover Inauguration. There is nothing about a special telecast of film of the event on W3XK, so it likely did not happen.

There isn’t much to report on television for April 1929. The highlights we’ve come across are below.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1922
Those interested in television will be pleased to know that 2XAG [General Electric in Schenectady] is broadcasting television every night from 7 to 9 P. M. on the band from 140.9 to 141.8 meters. (Buffalo Evening News)

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1929
Freshman Company To Broadcast Television From Allwood Plant
Announces That Work Will Begin As Soon As Two Channels Are Granted By Federal Radio Commission—Stations To Aid Home Experimenters—Five Years Of Tests Ahead
The Charles Freshman Company, which has practically completed the moving of its radio set manufacturing equipment into a new home in the former Allwood Plant of the Brighton Mills, announced yesterday [12] that it would establish two television broadcasting stations there to aid the rapidly growing number of home television experimenters in the Metropolitan District.
Mr. Freed In Charge
The broadcasting stations will not be placed into operation until the Federal Radio Commission grants the necessary channels, application for which has already been made. Work will be begun as soon as the permission is granted under the direction of Joseph D. R. Freed, vice-president of the company, in charge of engineering.
Mr. Freed said that he did not expect to see television sets for home use on the market before five years. During that time, he said, his concern will devote its time to experimental work.
The Freshman Company is closely allied with the Freed Radio Company, and both concerns will have their main plants in the large Brighton Mills buildings. It is planned to manufacture the sets together to effect economies.
"There is little doubt that within ten years television receivers will be in every home which boasts a radio set today,” said Mr. Freed in commenting the television situation yesterday. "Many will, no doubt, have one within five years, but very few will have them before that time because I doubt that television will be perfected for home use much before five years.
"However, television is developing along lines which will make the radio receivers of today part of the new television receiver. There will not be any scrapping of radio sets in order to enjoy television; they will only have to get supplementary receivers. We are devoting a sum of money to develop television, but we feel that all the labor at this time should be expended in experimental work. (Daily News, Passaic, N.J.)

AERIAL TELEVISION IS DESIGNED
Plane Views Would Be Sent to Ground Receiving Station by Apparatus.
An “aerial television eye,” designed to transmit airplane views of cities or countryside to a ground receiving station, is being constructed by C. Francis Jenkins of this city, noted television inventor.
The apparatus, a sensational development of the Jenkins process of broadcasting visual scenes by radio, is to be tested for the first time shortly in a special plane ordered by the inventor from the Curtiss factory. The plane is to be delivered within a few days.
The experiment undoubtedly will be watched with keen interest by Army and Navy officials, as the device concededly would have great military value in time of war. With the aid of the apparatus, general headquarters of an army would be put within sight range of actual operations at the front.
Refines Visual Detail.
The apparatus will be of special type, built to insure “refinement of visual detail,” Mr. Jenkins said. The panorama below will be recorded in the usual way, by means of a “scanning disc,” light-sensitive cell and broadcasting paraphernalia. The scenes will be received on regular television machines set up in the Jenkins laboratory.
The Jenkins laboratory at present is at 1519 Connecticut avenue, but a new laboratory and television broadcasting station now is under construction in Maryland, on the Brookville Pike. Formal tests may be deferred until the new station is completed.
Mr. Jenkins was reluctant to discuss his plans in detail in advance of the tests, as he said “something might go wrong and spoil the first tests.” He declared, however, that he had “a lot of confidence in the outcome.” Preliminary experiments simulating airplane conditions have been conducted successfully, he stated.
In order to assume personal charge of the operations in the air the inventor has been taking pilot lessons at an air field near Rockville preparatory to securing a Federal license. Mr. Jenkins is an experienced flyer and piloted a seaplane of his own prior to enactment of regulations governing private flying. He was not familiar with land planes until recently, however.
Plane a Laboratory.
The plane which Mr. Jenkins has ordered is termed by him a "flying laboratory.” It is a Curtiss Robin plane of the cabin type, with a special Challenger engine. A complete television broadcasting outfit will be installed in the cabin. The scanning “eye” will focus on the ground through an aperture in the bottom of the plane. Mr. Jenkins will pilot the plane while two assistants operate the television machinery. (Washington Star)

WAYNESBORO MAN BUILDS A TELEVISION SET
A. J. Gardenhour, who is now located in his new quarters in Waynesboro, has devised a machine to serve the purpose of receiving pictures over the air. The power of receiving pictures by means of this apparatus is known as television.
One station can be received with accuracy. From the C. F. Jenkins laboratories, in Washington, D. C., operating through W3XK, television pictures are sent out each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Mr. Gardenhour tuned in Friday [12] and reported having received several clear objects from W3XK. In the near future, he said, the Jenkins laboratories will start broadcasting every night.
Mr. Gardenhour with a circle of friends a few nights ago operated the radiovisor on which Mr. Jenkins holds a patent. On March 4, 1929, Mr. Gardenhour visited the Jenkins laboratories and had a long conversation with the inventor in which the following explanation of the operation of the television was given:
"Having tuned sharply on the station broadcasting pictures, to get the best signal strength possible, the operator throws over the switch to cut out the loudspeaker and cut in the radiovisor, i. e., the picture received."
Mr. Gardenhour's machine was made entirely by himself. The radiovisor is made from two victrola records clamped around a paper disc with forty-eight line pictures. It operates on 150 meters and fifteen picture frames per second. The explanation continues:
"Now with the rubber driving disc about one and a half to two inches from the scanning disc bearing block, one begins turning the adjusting screw to draw the motor outward. As the operator nears the synchronism, one will see the base line of the picture traveling rapidly upward.
"Continuing the adjustment the picture presently appears, probably obliquely, moving more and more slowly as the operator turns the screw, until it stops, upright, and there is the radio-movie in all its fascination.
"If the picture shows the upper half of the subject and the lower half above it, the operator touches the disc with the finger, once or twice, and the picture will move up until it is framed.
"The picture may be upside down as one looks at the lamp through the shining disc apertures; or it may be wrong right and left, like looking at a photograph in a mirror. However, except in reading titles, it is not often important wheather [sic] the picture is correct right and left or not; but it is very necessary to have the subject's head up. In any event, right and left correction is attained by reversing the motor, while if the picture is upside down one must take off the disc, turn it around and put the other side of the disc next to the lamp.
"The picture may again be negative or positive. To change from one to the other, the best way is to add another stage of amplification, although it can be done by substituting a “C” battery bias for the grid-leak and condenser on the grid of the detector. (Franklin Repository, Chambersburg, Pa., April 15)

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1929
Country Has 20,000 Sets for Television
Practically All Built by the Owners
Recently the Jenkins television transmitting station at Washington, D. C., with the call letters W3XK, was closed down for a period of 10 days. Ordinarily, this is on the air on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening of each week, from 8 to 9 p. m., E. S. T. on 46.72 meters (6,420 kilocycles). As a result, the Jenkins Television Corp. offices were virtually flooded with protesting letters from all parts of the United States, asking that the television services be resumed without delay.
"We estimate our own Jenkins Radiomovies audience at no less than 20,000," stated C. Francis Jenkins, the pioneer worker in the practical television field, when interviewed on this subject. “These 20,000 have built their own apparatus¸ which is therefore crude, to say the least. Nevertheless, they are enjoying antimated [sic] radio pictures three times a week, and getting a big thrill out of these pioneering efforts.
"With the early introduction of simplified television equipment for the home, I look forward to a rapid increase in the number of ‘looker[s]-in,’ particularly since the Iaity will then be in position to take part in television developments. Just as the first broadcast programs were received by some 65,000 listeners-in within range of Station KDKA, we have some 20,000 lookers-in tuned to our signals. I look forward to a rapid growth of this audience until we shall be catering to millions through a plurality of scattered television stations." (Washington Herald)

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1929
KWJJ PREPARES FOR TELEVISION
Portland Station Sets Pace in Northwest for Latest Innovation in Radio.
That television is on the way is evidenced by the fact that station KWJJ of Portland, Ore., is now installing apparatus to broadcast television and will be in a position to do so within two weeks, according to M. L. Blakemore, sales manager for Lee Olney, distributor for Stewart Warner radios.
First in Northwest.
“This is important in that it is the first move by stations in the northwest to install television," Mr. Blakemore said, "although a number of stations in the east are now doing so. It is not probable the apparatus will be sufficiently powerful to reach Spokane, but it will at least be effective in Portland and it is probable that stations in Seattle and Spokane will soon follow them. They will broadcast on a wave length of 52 meters and their call letters will be W7XAO.
"Everything must have a beginning and those who argue against television are in a class with those who scoffed at the steam engine of Watt, the locomotive of Stevenson and crude airplane of the Wright brothers, all of which eventually became an integral part of our civilization as I believe soon will television.
"It is a salient fact that the engineers of the Stewart Warner corporation feel that television is sufficiently far advanced that they have equipped the company's new model radio so that a television receiving set can be plugged in to it. By fall, in my opinion, television will be broadcast in Spokane." (Spokane Spokesman-Review)

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1929
W2XCL, the television short-wave transmitter of the Pilot Electric Mfg. Co. of Brooklyn, will begin broadcasting tomorrow evening [19]. The unit will utilize 250 watts on a wave length of 142.5 meters and will be on the air every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening between 9 and 11 o’clock. A good chance for television fans to prepare to receive the proper signals, so that when television actually becomes a success, the sets will be ready to receive. (David Braton, Brooklyn Times-Union)

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 1929
Brooklyn Radio Company Tests Television Set
Pilot Plans Regular Schedule After Experiments Friday on Low Waves
Preliminary tests of a short-wave transmitter which will be employed for television were conducted at 9 o’clock Friday [19] by the Pilot Electric Company through its station recently licensed by the Federal Radio Commission. While last week’s tests consisted solely of announcements and musical broadcasts, for the purpose of testing the modulating characteristics of the apparatus, it is expected that television programs will be regular features. Time announced for future broadcasts is between 9 and 11 p. m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The Pilot company is one of the few metropolitan experimenters to obtain a license for television from the Radio Commission. The station, which has been assigned the call letters W2XCL, uses a power of 250 watts and operates on a wave length of 143.5 meters. The purpose of the tests, in addition to testing the modulation, it was disclosed, was to determine the ability of the apparatus to handle the wide frequency bands required for television and the field strength of the signals in the various parts of the metropolitan district.
Owners of short-wave receiving sets through New York and New Jersey who had been advised of the tests reported excellent reception of the station’s signals. General opinion was that the quality was sufficiently good to handle the wide range of tones necessary for television transmission and reception.
These tests, according to John Gelosi, chief engineer of the company, will not interfere with regular broadcasting. The wave length is sufficiently below the entertainment bands to completely eliminate any tendency of overlapping, even in the vicinity of the apparatus.
“This experimental work will in no way cause interference with regular broadcast programs,” he said, “as it will be done on a wave length completely beyond the range of ordinary broadcast receivers. Two highly developed ‘televisors’ are ready to be connected to the radio transmitter, but actual transmission will not be started until a sufficient number of listeners report the signals of W2XCL to be of sufficient volume and clarity to warrant radio telephotography.
Geloso explained that images of L1iving people and actual scenes would be transmitted over the station as soon as the television programs were under way. Photographic films will not be transmitted regularly, he said, calling this type of transmission “animated radio telephotography.”
The Pilot company is one of the few organizations licensed recently by the Radio Commission for experimental visual broadcasting, having been assigned bands between 2,000 and 2,100 kilocycles (143-150 meters) and 2,750 to 2,850 kilocycles (105-109 meters). Last summer it built the television apparatus used for a few months at Station WRNY. (New York herald Tribune, Apr. 21)

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1929
A EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION IS DAY'S FEATURE
Radio Amateurs on Hand for Outstanding Event of Relay League at Kimball.
Interest at the annual convention of the New England Division of the American Radio Relay League now in Session at the Hotel Kimball, centered this afternoon around a promised demonstration of television reception by C. N. Kraus of Brown University, president of the Radio Club of Rhode Island. Although the demonstration was promised for 1 o'clock, late arrival of his apparatus from Providence prevented Mr. Kraus from getting it assembled, and at 2 o'clock he had been unable to put it into operation.
The great interest in the demonstration brought many without connection with the Relay League to the Kimball ballroom, where they hoped to see small images transmitted from the Washington dance on the small ground glass screen set before a large black scanning disk. Following his television demonstration, Mr. Kraus was prepared to demonstrate his success with transmission and reception on the five-meter band at extremely high frequencies.
Among the interested spectators at the television demonstration was Hollis Baird of Boston, owner of station W1WX, himself a pioneer in the television field. Outside of station W1LEX a commercial station in Lexington, his is the only station in this section regularly transmitting television, and one of the very few amateur stations in the country so engaged. Mr. Baird’s transmitter is partly a standard vision transmitter, and in part an amplifying system of his own development for which he claims five stages of direct amplification of unusual efficiency. His broadcasts have been received 15 miles away with great clarity, and he has made arrangements for amateurs in the western part of the State to attempt to receive his signals. He does not use silhouet transmission as does Jenkins in Washington, whose transmission was to be picked up this afternoon, but transmits halftones which give full gradations of color. (Springfield Evening Union)

WANTS TELEVISION STATIONS TO MAKE KNOWN LOCATION
"Looker" Would Be Able to Adjust His Televisor For Reception.
By Robert Mack
(Consolidated Press Association)
Washington, April 20.—Television tinkerers, and there are some 20,000 of them, who have suffered agonizing hours trying to identify some discordant visual broadcasting station and adjust their televisors to receive its picture-producing signals, may soon be relieved of their plight.
John V. L. Hogan, of New York, one of the foremost radio engineers and inventors and a television enthusiast, has suggested remedial measures to the Federal Radio Commission. In short his plan is to have 20 odd television stations, now operating experimentally, "announce" their call letters and location, along with the speed and character of their pictures before and they actually begin transmission. Thus the "looker" would be able to adjust his televisor for reception of that particular station, rather than grope blindly for the precise set adjustment.
Television peeped out of the laboratory too soon, in opinion of most engineers. But to make up for this error the industry is guarding its childhood very closely. Mr. Hogan's suggestion, which has the support of the commission's engineers, is to correct at the very beginning a shortcoming that might the progress of visual broadcasting.
Mr. Hogan proposed that the commission adopt a general order requiring all television stations to announce, either by radio-telephone or telegraph (code) or both, the essential details of the visual broadcast. The majority of the television fans are radio amateurs and understand code, and anybody who is equipped for television reception can tune in on the short waves with a sound receiver to pick up the "telephone" announcement.
At the present time the television stations do not "announce" their identity and the result is that unless a particular "looker" is adjusted for the reception of a particular station, he gets nothing. Television broadcasting has not been standardized to the extent that the same set adjustment is suitable for all transmissions.
The existing television stations transmit pictures of 24, 48 and 60 lines at speeds ranging from 7 ½ to 20 pictures per second. In order to receive, the televisor must be so adjusted as to synchronize with the speed and number of lines of the pictures transmitted.
By agreement with the North American nations, the radio commission has set aside five television waves in the continental short wave spectrum, one of which is allocated [to] Canada on a priority basis. These channels are one hundred kilocycles wide, or ten times the width of the broadcasting channel. They are set aside for experimental purposes and the development of the visual radio art. (Roanoke World-News)

TELEVISION ALL SET FOR BROADCAST ON THREE TIMES WEEK
Pioneer Says He Will Reach 20,000 From His 5,000 Watt Station in East
By RODNEY DUTCHER
NEA Service Writer
Washington, April 20—Radio movies, still in swaddling clothes, are being slowly but gradually developed by C. Francis Jenkins, the foremost pioneer in the field of television.
Within a few days, Jenkins hopes to be using his new frequencies to broadcast movies from a new 5000-watt station, with a radiovision audience which he already estimates at about 20,000.
Since last July he has been broadcasting only silhouette pictures from his laboratory here, but he now hopes to be able to send out half-tones which will have the same effect as movies in your favorite theater.
By use of a magnifying glass, the radiovision audience which tunes in on the Jenkins programs at 8 o’clock on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings is now able to see the subjects moving on what appears to be a six-inch screen, but the inventor has also developed two-foot screen outfits for home use and larger apparatus for theaters.
"When we get going on half-tones,” Jenkins says “we will be able to broadcast many regular movie films, but not all of them. Right now we can’t carry a great deal of detail and have to have pictures with only three or four subjects.”
His new station, which will continue to be called W3XK, has been set up in a two-story house at Wheaton, Md., some five miles from Washington and the apparatus resembles a regular sound broadcasting station almost identically. Announcements in the regular fashion, of course, accompany the picture broadcasting.
“We are now engaged in keeping up our regular broadcast schedule and at the same time improving transmission," Jenkins says. “Of course the big thing we're engaged on is trying to change from silhouettes to half-tones. That’s why we asked for wider bands.
“Previously we have made brief, simple varied subjects and one or two story pictures and have bought a few cartoon pictures. We have produced ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and 'Old King Cole’ in one reel features. We have had to content ourselves with subjects without many fine lines.
“But we’re going to do better than that. We are only passing through the novelty stage, just as the motion picture itself had to pass through it. We don't expect perfection at first but, fortunately, neither does the public. “We’ve invited the assistance of the amateurs of the country because they're clever fellows and can give us many ingenious and helpful suggestions. We can't afford to set up a lot of regular stations over the country at our own expense.
“In return, we help the amateurs find the material they need to receive our program. It only costs them about $2.50 and some time and work to set up a radiovision receiver. With a shortwave radio set, an amateur needs only to get the picture receiving set together and attach it."
While Jenkins plugs away here in his laboratory to improve the new science the Jenkins Television Corporation has been building a factory in Jersey City to produce radiovision receiving sets and has already turned out a few preliminary samples. (Times-Signal, Zaneville, Ohio, Apr. 21)

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1929
A. A. Goeddel went to St. Louis Monday [22] to see a demonstration of the television at the Bentwood-Linze Co. Goeddel states he heard and saw a stage production broadcast from some Canadian station. He compared it to the talking movies and said the vision was very clear except for some spots which appeared from time to time. (Waterloo Republican, Apr. 24)