Television's First Kiss

Looking back at television 90-plus years ago is looking back on confusion. There are a bewildering numbers of “first” broadcasts by stations that had already been on the air.

One “first” is by Jenkins television station W2XCR. Some publications of the early ‘30s talk about the station signing on in 1931, but it was around before that.

A wire story published in the Burlington Free Press of March 13, 1929 tells how the W2XCR’s transmitter (at 2150 kilocycles or about 140 meters) was being installed in the radio room of the Jenkins television plant in Jersey City and would be making preliminary tests on April 1st. The Pittsburgh Press of May 26 reported tests were taking place. The station changed to 2800 kcs. or 107 metres “because of interference with other television stations,” according to the Nov. 28, 1929 edition of the Rochester Democrat. The February 1930 edition of Radio magazine mentioned W2XCD, the De Forest Radio Company station in Passaic, New Jersey, was now on the air and rebroadcasting the Jenkins signals.

We’re not talking about spectacular programming here. The New York Herald Tribune of March 2, 1930 said “The ‘movies’ consist of half-tone pictures scanned in forty-eight lines at a speed of fifteen pictures each second.” But Jenkins wanted more than that, and that’s where our “first” comes in.

The date was April 7, 1930. W2XCR broadcast not from the Jersey City radio room, but some from a special “television theatre” in Lincoln Park. W2XCR could only transmit pictures; the sound went over the air from radio station WRNY (in De Forest’s case, it was W2XCD and WHOM).

The Herald Tribune covered the debut twice—once in its paper the following day and in its Sunday feature section on April 13. Here is the first story (the photo came from a radio magazine at the time).

Television Radio Broadcast Puts Speaker in View
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One Jersey City Station Sends Out Voice, Another Synchronizes the Image
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Arrange 3-Hour Programs
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Kiss Both Seen and Heard for First Time on Air
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Television broadcasting on a large scale was tried successfully last night from Jersey City. Mayor Frank Hague and a group or notables were pictured and their voices reproduced by stations W2XCR and WRNY.
The demonstration, arranged by the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce, was conducted from the Lincoln Lodge, Jersey City, where a studio with all the equipment of a broadcasting station and a motion picture studio had been installed. Sound and vision was received simultaneously and transmitted to separate stations, which put them on the air. The sound was received by the ordinary radio apparatus, while the new Jenkins’ radiovisor was used for the reception of the picture.
Radiovisers had been installed in different parts of Jersey City as well as in Lincoln Lodge. Precautions had been taken to handle a crowd of 20,000 spectators. Two hundred patrolmen with four sergeants, two captains and Inspector Philip Leonard were posted in Lincoln Park in the vicinity of the illuminated building where the experiment took place, but only about 200 persons witnessed the demonstration.
The image transmitted was picked up through the rotary disc in the receiving apparatus, sent out like sound waves over the air, and appeared on a screen about eight inches square in the radiovisor. Due to the small size of the screen, only the head of the person before the “camera” could be seen, appearing on the screen mostly as a silhouette. The distinctness changed frequently, according to the conditions in the air, and improved sometimes to such a degree that the features of the face could be clearly discerned. The image is reminiscent of the first motion pictures, with their impression of continuous rain, with the difference that the stripes run horizontally instead of vertically.
Mayor Hague congratulated Jersey City for having aided actively in the pioneer work which culminated in this performance. Dr. Lee DeForest, radio pioneer, predicted for television an equal perfection with radio. Others who extended their congratulations to Jersey City and the Jenkins Television Corporation were General William C. Heppenheimer, president of the Jersey City Chamber of Commerce; Edward B. Lord, vice-president of the Chamber of Commerce, and James W. Garside, president of the DeForest Radio Company. A congratulatory message from James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, who was unable to attend, was read and shown by television. The first televisionary kiss was performed by Earl Carroll and Miss Doris Lord. D. B. Replogle, chief engineer of the Jenkins Corporation, who has taken part in the development of the apparatus, spoke for the Jenkins Corporation.
Regular three-hour performances will be put in the air every day until April 12, inclusive, it was announced by Wendell McMahill, managing director of the Radio Television Theater in the Lincoln Lodge. The vision is being broadcast from the Jenkins Corporation Station W2XCR on 139 meters, the synchronized sound from Station WRNY in South Jersey City on 297 meters.
The new station W2XCD began operations last night on 187 meters, using 20,000 watts. Stage and screen stars and others are scheduled to broadcast over the television system during the next few days.
Good reception of the sound as well as vision was reported from different places, including Loew’s State Theater, the Carteret Club and the Arrow Electric Company, Jersey City.
Yesterday’s performance was the second of its kind in the world and the first to use the Jenkins television system. The first demonstration of broadcast television vas made a week ago in England where the G. L. Baird [sic] system was employed.

This is the feature story, with pictures accompanying it below the article (the photo with the article is from the Newspaper Enterprise Association).

Sights Sound Flashed From Park Lodge
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WRNY Broadcasts Voice Simultaneously With Sending Image From Station
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Use Two-Wave Channels
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Experiments With Appartus Continue Two Months
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By Everett M. Walker
Feasibility of public television was demonstrated last week when the enterprising Chamber of Commerce of Jersey City, under the direction of Wendell McMahill, opened what is termed to be the first “television theater” in the United States. The demonstration, which was given each night last week to several hundred distinguished guests, but broadcast to several listening posts scattered throughout New Jersey, was marked with high enthusiasm.
The television theater, which comprises a specially constructed lodge in the center of Lincoln Park, was officially dedicated Monday night by Mayor Frank Hague. It is planned by officials of the city to use the building for the broadcasting of television signals simultaneously with sound broadcasting for several months.
WRNY Sends Sound
Sounds and entertainment accompanying the television signals are transmitted on regular broadcasting wave lengths over Aviation Radio Station WRNY. This part of the program is available to any one having a broadcasting receiving set. The wave length of this station is 26.6 meters.
Vision signals, it was revealed, are sent by wire to the television station of the Jenkins Television Corporation W2XCR at Jersey City, where they are broadcast on a wave length of 136 meters, and may be received by any one equipped with the necessary apparatus for recording television.
The theater served as the common studio for picking up both the sound and vision impulses for the broadcasting. In order to record both simultaneously, it was necessary to have a separate receiving set for both wave lengths and television reproducing apparatus connected to the vision receiver.
While the demonstration was said to be reasonably successful, the television transmission was only fair. Images picked up on receivers located in the television theater were inclined to be faint and ragged, falling in and out of the aperature [sic] of the receiver opening.
The experiments are to be continued for at least two months, it was revealed, with the hope of perfecting practical television for use in the home. Lincoln Park lodge serves as the common studio for both the television transmitting and sound broadcasting. The main room of the building has been constructed similar to a standard broadcasting studio, having been acoustically shielded to prevent sound reverberation. Six high powered lights similar to those employed in the making of motion pictures hare been installed for focusing on the artists appearing before the television “eye.”
Wires leading from the sound microphones are connected directly with the transmitting apparatus of Station WRNY at Coytesville, N. J. This station transmits the voice accompanyment [sic] to the vision transmission identically the same as broadcasting.
While the television theater was closed to the public, receiving stations were set up throughout the city by the Chamber of Commerce. These stations, which were located in theaters, radio stores and in several public buildings, and were opened to those interested in witnessing the demonstration.
Television Apparatus
Apparatus for picking up the artists and entertainers who appear before the television eye, consists of a huge camera lens which focuses on the subject. Light passing through the lens is focused on a revolving steel disk which has forty-eight sixteenth-inch holes spaced concentrically and equidistant about the outer edge of the disk. Each hole, in order, is drilled slightly below the adjacent hole, so that when the disk makes one revolution it will cover a focused area of two inches. As the disk revolves, each hole passes behind the lens and allows a narrow beam of light to flash through on the sensitive element of a photo-electric cell. As the disk makes ones revolution it records one complete image on the sensitive element of the photoelectric cell. In order to create the illusion of motion it is necessary to transmit at least sixteen such pictures a second, and this is accomplished by rotating the disk at a speed of sixteen revolutions a second.
In order to receive television signals it is necessary to have a disk similar to the one used for transmitting, so as the impulses are received they may be reconstructed into the likeness of the original image. Signals transmitted by the television station sound like a series of buzzes varying in tone. The output of the radio receiver is fed directly to the sensitive element of a neon tube, which has the ability of changing in brilliancy instantaneously. The disk at the receiver has the same number of holes and in order to obtain the picture must revolve in synchronism with the transmitting disk, that is, when a hole in the transmitting disk sweeps across the eye of the person being televised, the receiving disk must be in the same relative position in order to reconstruct the image. Light passing through the small holes in the receiving disk is reflected on a large magnifying glass in order to partially eliminate the disk motion and give the illusion of motion picture.

The Associated Press the following morning explained this was the first of six programmes. As for the picture quality, the agency opined:

Reception of the television signals was not all that had been hoped for by the engineers. Most of the time it was difficult to recognize the person facing the television camera, although occasionally fair pictures were reproduced. Once brought in, the picture held steady, with not a great amount of flicker.
At one of the reception points, a pronounced shadow was noticed, which engineers explained was due to the fact that the best type of lighting system was not employed at the transmitter.

Another story by A.P. radio columnist C.E. Butterfield added:

Only fair success attended the reception of the television part of the two-hour program. Pictures were picked up at numerous parts of Jersey City. Three of the looking posts reported that while it was easy to tune in the television signals, difficulty was experienced in recognizing the persons being televised.
Among those who appeared before the microphone and the television camera were Elsie Mae Gordon, member of the staff of the C. B. S. chain, and Miss Irene Ahlberg, who won the title of Miss America. The persons whose features were sent over the air stood by a microphone in front of the television camera and under a bank of lights producing 3,200 candle power. The television camera was a compact device, easily portable.

W2XCR wasn’t at the Lincoln Park Lodge all that long. In 1931, the whole operation moved to Manhattan. It was treated like a brand-new station by some of the press. The new W2XCR survived about a year. The De Forest Radio Company was authorised on March 11, 1932 to buy Jenkins’ assets, completing a merger than began about two years earlier. On April 16, Butterfield reported W2XCR “suspends its activities tonight ‘to install new apparatus so that television program development can continue,’” calling the station’s equipment “antiquated.”

I’ve found no evidence the station went back on the air, and De Forest was gone by in early 1933, with RCA taking over its assets for half a million dollars. RCA’s NBC had its own television station, W2XBS, which entertains people today as WNBC-TV.