This was a common phrase on network radio in the 1930s. It only makes sense, then, that Chicago would have a big role in television in the same period.
TV in the Windy City dated to 1928 when the Federation of Labor put W9XAA on the air, with headlines across the U.S. The station went off the air, though the license remained active. W9XAO followed, but it was silenced when the Federal Radio Commission took away the license of the radio station that went with it, WIBO, to clear a frequency for a radio station in Gary, Indiana. There was also a television station attached to WENR radio. W9XR could not be received on sets which could pick up W9XAO, and the Federal Radio Commission was asked in April 1931 to let the license expire at month's end. (A license had also been granted on May 29, 1929 to Aero Products of Chicago to operate W9XAG. It was deleted June 30, 1930).
The next television station had a big backer: the Chicago Daily News, which owned radio station WMAQ. W9XAP was first listed in the update to the Radio Service Bulletin published by the U.S. government on November 30, 1929, licensed between 2,750 and 2,850 kcs. (109.1 to 105.3 meters) at 5,000 watts (W9XAQ was licensed to the Daily News to broadcast at a different frequency).
It’s truly unfortunate the Daily News isn’t on line because it should be full of information about the station, including programming schedules. Newspapers were loath to give publicity to a rival in the same city. However, W9XAP’s licensing was news enough that wire services serving papers in the nation reported on it.
Perhaps the Daily News was the source of this story in James W. H. Weir's “DX Highlights” column in the Pittsburgh Press of March 12, 1930:
“Reports reach us that WMAQ listeners will soon be able to see the artists who put on the studio programs for the simultaneous broadcasting of television and sound has just been announced by William S. Hedges, WMAQ’s president. So far as is known, The Daily News will be the first newspaper to own and operate its own television station. Television equipment, now being completed by Western Television Corp., is expected to be ready within 60 days. Television will be broadcast over station 9WXAP [sic], construction permit for which has just been granted by the Federal Radio Commission. The wavelength will be 6,040 kilocycles.”
By July, stories appeared (especially in the New York Herald Tribune and Times that the station had been testing its signal and was on the verge of regular programming. One of the things the news stories, such as the one below from the Associated Press, pointed out was W9XAP had technology that would allow more than just someone's head to be broadcast. It could show a full body. Even more than one!
WMAQ Will Soon Start Regular Schedule of Television and Broadcast Programs
CHICAGO, Aug. 5 (AP)—New devices, not unlike the bulging eyes of a deep sea fish, but far more sensitive, have taken up quarters in the studies of WMAQ.
They are photoelectric cells, the heart of the new television equipment installed by the station.
Television programs, the first to be given on a regular schedule by a broadcast station, are to become a part of WMAQ’s features this month, according to present plans. Installation of the equipment, largely an experimental venture, has been slow as all of it had to be especially made.
Television of studio scenes will be by means of the short wave station W9XAP operating on 2,800 kilocycles. It is planned to send out image programs morning, afternoon and evening, showing the most popular radio stars as they broadcast sound on the station's regular wave of 447.5 meters.
Full length images will be possible with the apparatus, engineers explained, which is arranged to provide instantaneous closeups. Views of several persons full length also will be possible.
Improved Pickup System
Part of the success of full length transmission is attributed to the use of an improved pickup system and to a triple spiral scanner. Much flicker is eliminated thereby.
The transmitting disk, like that in the receiver for this system, operates at 900 revolutions per minute. Synchronization between receiver and transmitter is accomplished through the 80-cycle house lighting current which supplies power for the scanning disk motors.
The disk has 45 tiny holes in three 120-degree spirals, giving 15 holes per spiral.
Scenes are picked up passing a beam of light through the scanner to the object. The beam, broken up by the whirling disk, is reflected to photoelectric cells, which turns it into electrical impulses for transmission.
Persons being televised may move freely as the pickup units enable the operator to follow them with the beam.
Great Amplification
In the studios are two photo cells, 16 inches in diameter, said to be the largest made. Engineers of the Western Television company installers of the system say there to an advantage in using such large cells as opposed to the multi-cell bank.
A ring-bank of eight cells beside the announcer will pick up his image as he introduces the programs. As his image fades, those of the performers will appear.
Each pickup unit has an amplifier which builds up the feeble television impulses for transmission to a ''mixer" and thence to the main amplifier in the operating room. This amplifier boosts the signal about 1,000,000 times before it goes to the transmitter.
The big day was getting closer. Here is another story with a bit more information.
First Regular Radio Television Program Will Be Inaugurated Next Week
Chicago Plant Will Be First To Try It Out
Sound Transmission as Well as Pictures Will Be Broadcast by Station WMAQ
By ROBERT MACK
Consolidated Press Association
Washington, Aug. 23 — Talking movies of the air—the last word in the realm of present-day television—make its bow next week in Chicago when the world's newest television station ventures on its maiden ethereal cruise.
Synchronized with sound accompaniment from broadcasting station WMAQ, in Chicago, the new visual station will inaugurate its service next Wednesday. Thereafter it will maintain operations on regular schedule for the host of radio "lookers" in Chicago and its environs, as well as the sizable group of television “DX” fans here and there throughout the Nation.
Latest Equipment
The new station, bearing the call letters W9XAP, is owned by the Chicago Dally News, which also operates Station WMAQ. The very latest in television apparatus has been installed, and specially appointed studios have been devised for the visual broadcasts.
These schedules a day will be maintained following the inaugural, at which times the co-ordinate voice and picture transmission will be broadcast. Within a few months it is the plan of the station to offer a news reel of the air, synchronized with sound from WMAQ.
William S. Hedges, president of WMAQ, Inc., subsidiary of the Daily News, and also president of the National Association of Broadcasters, declares that the new visual station, embracing as it does the latest television has to offer, will be devoted to development of the visual art. Only by placing actual television on the air can the industry learn of the public reaction, he asserts, and it is the public which must be satisfied in the final analysis.
Actual Television
Actual television and not shadowgraphs or the like, will be offered, according to Mr. Hedges. The “Sanabria system" of transmission being used makes possible the scanning and transmission of full-length images, rather than mere busts. With three 16 inch photo-electric cells or "electric eyes” used for the scanning process, the apparatus is capable of picking up and transmitting through space likeness of three characters at the same time.
Television receiving sets, ranging in price from $150 to $200 are being manufactured and marketed, especially calibrated for the type of transmitter installed at the new station. In addition, component parts of televisors also are on the market, so that the mechanically inclined fan may manufacture his own set. The apparatus uses the 45 hole, 3 spiral disc.
For the inaugural, it is expected that station W9XAP will have a “looking” audience of some 5,000 in Chicago alone. About 200 stores in Chicago are collaborating in the event, and all will have television receivers in operation and on display.
Operating on the five experimental television channels In the short wave band are some two dozen visual stations. The Chicago station, the newest member of this pioneering group, is licensed for 1,000 watts power on the channel ranging from 2,750 to 2,850 kilocycles. Its consistent service area should be Chicago and about 50 miles of surrounding territory.
The big day had arrived! The Associated Press told viewers what to expect:
TELEVISION ON THE AIR TONIGHT Station W9XAP And WMAQ Co-operate In New Sight And Sound Program
CHICAGO, Aug. 27 (AP)—The first scheduled television program from the newspaper-owned television station, W9XAP, will be on the air tonight. Both WMXAP and its parent station, WMAQ, are owned by the Daily News.
The televised program will go the air at 8 o'clock central daylight time. At the same time the images are on the air the sound portion of the act will be broadcast by WMAQ.
Bill Hay will announce the dual program. His image as well as those of Tubby Griffith, heaveweight boxer, and a sparring partner, Stanley Harris; Ken Murray, the vaudeville artist; the Whitney trio; Betty MacLean, a character actress; a saxophonist and Ed G. McDougal, president of Libby, McNeil and Libby, sponsors of the event, will be televised.
WMAQ, licensed by the federal commission, as a television experimenter, expects soon to present three television programs daily. As a check on tonight’s test, 200 television sets have been placed in Chicago and suburbs.
Although special equipment is required to pick up the images of performers, the station’s regular broadcasting studios will be used. Instead, however, of the single microphone to catch sound there are two huge photostatic cells, 16 inches in diameter, to pick up the image. Engineers of the Western Television company, installers of the station, claim they are the largest ever made.
Viewers of the WMAQ program may see full length images of several artists. An innovation in television equipment enables the station operator to shift from long shots to close-ups, exactly as is done in moving pictures.
W9XAP officially began on August 27, 1930. Here's one report:
Television Possibilities Shown To Chicago Radio Fans in Demonstration
By KENNETH HATHAWAY
Consolidated Press Association
Chicago, Aug. 28 (CPA).–Although television still is in the experimental stage, it was taken out of the laboratory Wednesday night when W9XAP, the experimental television station of The Chicago Daily News, went on the air with a half hour program of pictures synchronised with voice broadcast through Station WMAQ.
More than 300 television receivers placed in the hands of dealers throughout Chicago and its suburbs demonstrated to thousands of curious spectators that there is something to these talking pictures of the air.
Unfortunately the program did not go through as planned, due to failure of a filter condenser in the transmitter, and there was a break in the continuity as engineers placed the transmitter in service. Still, radio fans were shown the possibilities of this new addition to the air family.
Most obviously, the experiment showed, it remains for the layman to “get the hang” of his television receiver before he can be assured of good reception. The situation might be compared to the early days of radio when the owner of a crystal set would search diligently for the “hot spot" of his crystal in order that he might hear the low strains of music coming from a station miles distant. Today the owner of a television receiver must not only accurately tune his receiver so that he receives a good sharp signal, but he must watch the framing of the picture so that it is centered within the square of light made by the neon lamp that corresponds to the speaker connected to the radio voice received.
This fact was forcibly demonstrated when some of the dealers having their first receivers, found a lack of familiarity to their disadvantage. Not realising that there was station trouble when the picture first faded, they turned the dials and framing control on the receiver the result that when the station returned to the air they did not get the signal.
Subsequent to the regular program, with Bill Hay announcing, another half hour of pictures was transmitted without voice accompaniment as a further demonstration of the possibilities of television.
At this time a cartoonist worked before the microvisor to show that the lines of his drawing could be defined clearly on the receiver screens. With the first public test completed, engineers on The Daily News staff will work during the remainder of the week prior to inauguration of regular scheduled television broadcasts, to correct deficiencies found on the first night of the public program.
The demonstration has shown conclusively that the public is intensely interested in the air talkies, and those responsible for the activities of Station W9XAP are elated over results obtained.
The station had other problems, on camera and off. One was how the television camera picked up make-up. The other was how well some Chicgoans picked up the signal.
Television Picks Own Type Of BeautyChicago, Sept. 26. (AP).—Television hasn’t waited long to pick a type of beauty undeniably all its own.
Besides, it has frowned on the red of the lipstick and the white of the powder puff.
Assets of the young lady so fortunate as to be one of the first "television girls,”differ considerably from the generally accepted idea of beauty.
To reproduce well at the other end of the invisble broadcast television circuit the radio camera miss must have a broad face and big eyes.
Her lipstick must be green. There must be no siftings of powder on nose or face, nor the rosy hue of rouge on her cheek. Her eye must not be shaded.
Already television studio pioneers have found that special treatment must be applied. The grease paint is of a type that will best reflect light rays, and outside of the green lips the only other application is the moderate use of mascara on the eyelashes.
What the proper television makeup ultimately will be remains to be determined, but so far these are a few of the things learned by John Gihan, program director of W9XAP, the television station owned by WMAQ, The Chicago Dally News' broadcast unit.
As a particular type for television, Gihan has selected Miss Mildred Potter of The Daily News’ art staff, whose face seems to register particularly well over the air. He has found out, too, that profiles must be avoided, and that the closeups must be face to face.
Since going to the air with a reguIar schedule, W9AAP has broadcast seven times daily—four periods of "sound and sight" and three periods of television alone. The sound goes out over WMAQ, and is included in its regular program. Arrangement of television programs still is largely experimental. Gihan said that he was ready to “try everything." Girl boxers, acrobatic dancers, pantomime, puppet shows, dramatic sketches, chalk talks, and closeups, including visitors to the station, have been used.
A singing parrot was tried. The rapid movements of a xylophonist and a trap drummer made good tests, he discovered.
Because of the tieup with WMAQ, all "sound and sight" features have to be interesting enough, from the standpoint of sound alone, to satisfy the vast majority of fans who have no television receivers.
For that reason, a checkup on reception in the Chicago area, for the present, must depend upon a few "looking posts.” However, reports to the station indicate reception is good 13 miles away on the north and from 30 to 33 miles to the south of the city.
Walter Strong, publisher of The Daily News, said that he got good results on a set on his farm home in Oregon, III, more than 30 mile wests.
There's a post for television just as for sound. It's static—but without crashes and bangs. In the picture it is silent, a flashing black streak.
Lookers of W9XAP have discovered likewise that there is interference. A clash of signals has been noted in Chicago with W2XCR, Jersey City, N. J., which transmits on a wave-length close to that of W9XAP.
Accurate information about the station’s programming may appear on-line some day. At present, a search of newspapers reveals the Associated Press printed Monday through Saturday schedules of both W2XAO and W9XAP. So did a paper in Munster, Indiana from an unidentified source. The schedules were not the same. For example, here’s what the Munster Times published on Friday, Sept. 12, 1930:
9:00 to 9:30 a.m.—W9XAO.
10:00 to 10:30—W9XAO.
11:33 to 12:00 noon—W9XAP.
1:30 to 2:00—W9XAO.
4:30 to 5:00—W9XAO.
6:00 to 6:30—W9XAO.
7:30 to 7:45—W9XAO.
The Chicago Daily News published a radio directory and the 1931 edition very helpfully supplies readers with a schedule entitled “Television Broadcast in Chicago.” It’s far more elaborate than anything in papers I’ve found.
MORNING—Daily
9:00-9:30 WIBO-W9XAO Dawson’s Reading Room
10:00-10:30 WIBO-W9XAO Miss Smith’s Children’s Hour
11:33-12:00 WMAQ-W9XAP Woman’s Calendar
12:00-12:33 W9XAO Novelty Program
AFTERNOON-Daily12:33-12:45 WMAQ-W9XAP Daily News Summaries
12:45-1:30 W8XAO [sic] Novelty Program
1:30-2:00 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
2:15-2:55 W9XAP Variety Program
3:00-4:30 W9XAO Novelty Program
4:30-5:00 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
5:00-5:30 W9AXO Novelty Program
EVENING
Monday, Wednesday and Saturday
6:30-6:45 WMAQ-W9XAP Studio Program
6:45-7:00 W9XAP Novelty Program
7:30-8:00 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
8:00-8:30 W9XAO Television Cartoons
8:30-9:00 W9AXO Variety Program
9:00-9:30 W9XAP Novelty Program
Tuesday
6:30-6:45 WMAQ-W9XP Studio Program
6:30-6:45 WIBO-W9XAO Variety Program
6:45-7:00 W9XAP Novelty Program
7:00-8:00 W9XAP Novelty Program
8:00-8:30 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
8:30-9:00 W9XAO Television Cartoons
9:00-9:30 W9XAP Variety Program
Thursday
6:30-6:45 WMAQ-W9XAP Studio Program
6:45-7:00 W9XAP Novelty Program
7:00-7:45 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
7:45-9:00 W9XAO Television Cartoon
9:00-9:30 W9XAP Variety Program
Friday
6:00-6:30 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
6:30-6:45 WMAQ-W9XAP Studio Program
6:45-7:00 W9XAP Alpha Stalson’s Handcraft
7:00-7:30 W9XAO Variety Program
7:30-7:45 WIBO-W9XAO Studio Program
7:45-9:00 W9XAO Television Cartoons
9:00-9:30 W9XAP Novelty Program
Joseph H. Udelson’s fine book “The Great Television Race” explains: “W9XAP televised a rather unimaginative schedule of regular programs consisting primarily of silent cartoons drawn before the station’s scanner [by John Mattis] or portions of WMAQ’s local radio fare. However, these programs were telecast intermittently from about noon until approximately 9:00 p.m., allowing the audience more opportunity to “look in” than most other stations. This programming was further arranged to avoid schedule conflicts with W9XAO.”
However, obsolescence doomed the station. NBC bought the Daily News’ interest in WMAQ in November 1931, and with it the television station. NBC was inventing its own electronic TV system and had no need for the swirling mechanical disc of the Sanabria system used by W9XAP. The station went off the air, though NBC held onto the license. W9XAP was granted a one-year renewal for the period of May 1, 1936 to May 1, 1937, but NBC applied to the FCC on November 21, 1936 to turn the station into a fax transmitter.
Chicago wouldn’t have television again until February 1939 when Zenith’s W9XZV signed on.
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