W2XX

The 1920s were an experimental age for television. Some TV stations were owned by companies and had a regular, though limited, schedule of crude programming. Then there were others that were operated by hobbyists and made occasional test transmissions.

That seems to be the case of W2XX in Ossining, New York.

The station was licensed to Robert Fellows Gowen, who worked for the De Forest Radio Company. It was actually a shortwave radio station, but the Federal Radio Commission allowed television broadcasts on shortwave. In Gowen’s case, he was licensed for television and W2XX is listed in radio directories in the late 1920s.

Unfortunately, we have been able to find little else about his TV experiments. A biographical feature story in the Yonkers Herald Statesman of July 14, 1961 mentions W2XX but nothing about television.

MADE RADIO HISTORY
Gowen Operated W2XX At Ossining In 1921
OSSINING—
In 1921 a large billboard near the intersection of the Albany Post Road and Revolutionary Road, proclaimed: "You are now leaving Ossining where Robert F. Gowen, engineer of the De Forest Radio Co. on Overton Road, experimenting (1921) with radiophone, has made his voice heard as far as South Carolina and Illinois."
Thus was radio history made through Mr. Gowen's operation of pioneer Station W2XX, located in the engineer's home, an extension of the laboratories of the late Dr. Lee De Forest, since the structures of Washington Bridge and High Bridge near the factory, prevented distant transmission.
The previous year, in February 1920, the Gowen home station had attained the world's record for broadcast on low power, having been heard in St. Mary's, Ohio; Chicago; Topeka. Kan.; Valley City, N.D.; and Jacksonville, Fla.
First Break Through
The first break-through in the ionosphere had come unexpectedly in the early hours on a winter morning, Jan. 4, 1920. Reaching Charles Chandler, a teacher and "ham" operator in the Ohio city at 12:40 a.m. on that date, Mr. Gowen was astounded to hear Mr. Chandler say in code, "We are dancing to your music in the living room. It's coming through loud and clear, although the (head-set) receiver is in the kitchen!"
Just four years before young Robert Gowen, Harvard '06, had joined the De Forest Laboratories as radio engineer and had been appointed chief engineer and plant manager on Jan. 1, 1921. The audion (receiving) tube, invented by the late Dr. De Forest, had been in use since 1914, being manufactured first by the McCandless Co., Park Place, New York City.
Joins Dr. De Forest
It was a coincidence that, the oscillion or transmitting tube was undergoing its first tests under the supervision of Dr. De Forest on the very day Mr. Gowen joined the company in November, 1916. In other words, he was present at the birth of the transmitting tube which made broadcasting and later, sound movies and television, possible. That the title to pioneer broadcasting belonged indisputably to the Gowen home station of the De Forest Labs was attested in the official proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers, vol. 13, no. 1, page 123, in February 1925. Although KDKA Pittsburgh (Westinghouse Electric Corp.) had received its call letters from the government in November 1920, a review of events showed without doubt that Mr. Gowen's work on Station W2XX took precedence even over the beginning of the Westinghouse station which had originated in an employe's (Conrad's) home.
On March 13, 1921, the Ossining engineer set another precedent. On that date the first radio vaudeville show was broadcast from Mr. Gowen's home with the Duncan sisters,. Rosetta and Vivian, of "Topsy and Eva" Broadway fame, as featured performers. The Duncan sisters lived in White Plains.
But Robert Gowen's interest in electronics and the infant broadcasting industry did not begin with his association with Dr. De Forest.
Experiment Fails
In the summer of 1902, just before going to college, young Robert had rigged up two plates, one on the roof of the family home on Maurice Avenue and one on the roof of the old Park School, both Ossining, in hope of transmitting messages. But nothing happened. This did not daunt the young inventor. He built a receiving set from directions given in an 1898 edition of the Scientific American and took it with him to Harvard.
There he formed the first radio club in the United States, learned Morse code and transmitted messages as a "ham" operator in Harvard Yard. He also enrolled in the first college radio course, taught by Dr. G. W. Pierce of the physics department, although he admits to "giving teacher a hand" at times with some of the instruction.
The inventor retired just three years ago from a long and action-packed career with many "firsts."
He left the De Forest Co. in 1921 to become chief engineer for a British-American concern in Canton, China, in charge of building 18 radio stations for the Chinese government. Mr. Gowen had built the equipment for these at the De Forest plant at High Bridge in New York City, the previous year.
The young engineer had exactly four days to acquire 11 trunks of necessary materials and supplies and more important, a bride, he married the former Miss Grace Chadeayne, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Chadeayne of Ossining, on Oct. 7, 1921 and, one hour after the ceremony, set out on the first leg of the journey to the Orient.
The couple remained in Canton for six months. Mr. Gowen completed four stations and before leaving, opened a school and through interpreters, taught the Chinese how to build, and maintain the radio stations.
"Who's Who" lists in detail the myriad accomplishments of this pioneer electronics engineer and they are further attested by a wealth of clippings and other memorabilia in several volumes of scrapbooks.
Thus a whole new industry was born.
Mr. and Mrs. Gowen still make their home on Overton Road.

Gowen came up with improvements to the vacuum tube, and got into a patent battle with two different groups. The courts ruled against him in both cases on January 27, 1930.

As for television and W2XX, judging by the Radio Service Bulletin issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Gowen’s five watt station with a license as an “experimental and technical and training school” station, operating on unassigned frequencies, was changed. In the Bulletin for January 31, 1929, the listing is now as a “special” station, operating between 2,000 and 2,100 kcs. (150-142.9 metres) with 100 watts. The word “television” is in brackets.

An Associated Press story datelined Schenectady, Sept. 22, 1929, said that W2XX transmitted on short waves. The story doesn’t say what was being broadcast, even if it was visual.

The Bulletin of June 30, 1931 reads “Strike out all particulars” next to W2XX. In the next edition of November 30, 1931, W2XX returned, but the call letters had been assigned to American Telephone and Telegraph in Ocean Gate, New Jersey, and licensed to broadcast experimental, relay and visual broadcasting at three frequencies with 20,000 watts.

Gowen had other interests. In 1928, he began making documentaries and educational films, and screened movies in the theatre in his home garden. Perhaps he showed some of his films on W2XX, but we may never know. Gowen died in a nursing home Ossining on June 2, 1966 at the age of 82. His obituary in the New York Times says nothing about television.

December 1928

Did someone once say the road to television is a boulevard of broken dreams?

Well, it certainly wasn’t Harry Warren and Al Dubin, who wrote the song of the same name for a 1933 movie musical. But I digress.

It may be trite, but true. Look no further than stories about television at the end of 1928.

In December, the Associated Press reported on several would-be television station owners. One was John Shepard, Boston radio station owner and dry goods retailer. He was on the verge of forming the Yankee Network, a small chain of radio stations. You’d think he had the credentials to get a television license. The answer, eventually, was “no.”

Then there was Frank L. Carter, the subject of a feature story in June 1928 in the New York Times. The Corsicana-born Carter was a ham operator starting in 1914. By mid-1928, he had been the service manager of the radio department of Ludwig Baumann and Company. His amateur call letters were 2AZ, but the Federal Radio Commission gave him a special call of 2XBN for “experimental picture broadcast work.” The Brooklyn Daily Times of June 10 revealed he was experimenting on 36.6 metres (8,195 kcs.) every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from his Long Island home using the Cooley system. In other words, he was sending what amounted to facsimile pictures.

Carter asked the Commission to turn W2XBN into a television station. The answer was “no” again. Carter moved on into community and political work. In 1930, he claimed a CBS employee tried to bribe him to end his opposition to the network’s proposed radio transmitter in Hempstead. In 1936 and 1937, he griped railroad power rails and transmission lines interfering with radio reception (within three years he was living in rural Ohio).

And then there’s the story of the Jenkins Television Corporation, tied in with the DeForest Radio Corporation. It announced in December it was getting into the television set manufacturing business and offered common stock. This is just before the start of 1929. We know what happened to stocks that year. Both Jenkins and DeForest opened television stations in New Jersey, with one moving to New York and the other burning down. The companies couldn’t stay afloat and went bankrupt while the New York station went off the air.

The Radio Commission tried to sort out problems with television transmissions bleeding over into radio programmes by ordering them off the a.m. frequencies. Even then, there was a bit of confusion. Some newspaper reports said the stations affected would have their licenses revoked on Jan. 1, 1929. Others said they had a broadcast window allowing them to continue operating. Oddly, the Radio Service Bulletin, which announces General Orders of the Commission does not contain anything in its December 1929 issue. The next ruling, modifying this decision, was published the following month.

The following are the TV highlights for December 1929.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1928
Station WNAC Asks Television Permit
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1—(AP)—Permanent television service will be given “lookers-in” by WNAC, Boston, if the Federal radio commission grants an application for a short wave band of frequencies.
John Shepard, president of the Shepard Norwell Company, which operates the station, has told the commission that the station proposes to synchronize visual and audible broadcasting. He says pictures of an orchestra leader directing his orchestra would be transmitted by short waves for reception by special televisor equipment while the loud speaker would bring in the music.
The station has applied for a band of frequencies kilocycles wide in the vicinity of 5,000 kilocycles. Later it is hoped to reduce the width to 10 kilocycles, the same sized channel now used for audible broadcasting. Power of 1,000 requested.
Frank L. Carter, radio amateur of Long Island City, N. Y., has asked the commission for permission to convert his amateur short wave station to an experimental television station.
Another applicant for an experimental license is A. E. Smith, chief of the technical laboratory of the Aero Products Company of Chicago. Mr. Smith told the commission that television has not reached the practicable stage and the object of his company is to experiment within the laboratory and if the results seem to warrant to put it in service operation.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1928
Another Television Complaint.
Last evening, Wednesday, 14, reception over my set of the story of the steward of the lost steamer Vestris was entirely ruined by the interference of a station announcing itself, as nearly as I could make it out, as W3XK.
The address of Mr. [Frederic] Wile came through beautifully, but at 8 o’clock this interference began and lasted, with occasional breaks, until nearly 9, when the announcer stated that they would be on the air again at 8 p. m. Friday next. The interference was as though a generator was running at high speed, accompanied at intervals by screeches and similar noises.
I called at the Radio Commission’s office today relative to this matter, and gather from what I was told there that this is an amateur station, experimenting with television, which has permission to operate at certain hours not included in those of the program of WRC. It would, therefore, seem that no attention is being paid to the restriction, much to the discomfort of listeners-in to such instructive addresses as those referred to above.
CAPTAIN X. (Washington Post)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1928
Will Make And Sell Home Movie Television Sets
NEW YORK, Dec. 4.—(AP)—Formation of a $10,000,000 corporation to manufacture and sell home movie television sets was announced today.
The company, to be known as the Jenkins Television Corporation, will have as officers James W. Garside, president of Deforest Radio Corporation, as president and A. J. Drexel Biddle, chairman of Deforest Board of Directors and Trustee of the Duke Endowment, as chairman of the board.
C. Francis Jenkins, inventor of a motion picture television device, will be vice president in charge of research and a director.
The device is a transmitter which works from an especially made film permitting reception of television signals from any broadcasting or short wave transmitter. This device is coupled with a receiver which it is claimed, will project animated pictures into the home.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1928
No newspaper story can be found to accompany this captioned photo. His obituary in the Aug. 30, 1991 edition of the Victoria, Tx., Advocate doesn't mention this accomplishment.
Dudeck was born Oct. 29, 1910, in Toledo, Ohio, to the late Paul Richard and Cornelia Schweibold Dudeck. He received a 5-year degree in electrical engineering from the University of Detroit, where he began his career in radio as an announcer with WMBC.
After graduation, he was employed by Western Electric for research and development of radar. During World War II, he was attached to the Navy, teaching top secret radar installations on submarines. After the war, he was employed by ABC radio and television stations WXYZ in Detroit, Mich. He worked with "Wide World of Sports" and, in 1964, he was in charge of engineering the first live picture transmitted from Innsbruck, Austria, via satellite to the United States. He moved to Houston in 1968 and continued his work with ABC station KXYZ.
He retired from ABC in 1975 and began doing radio and television consulting in the United States and other parts of the world. In 1984, he purchased KQRO radio station in Cuero and retired in June 1991. He died Aug. 28th.

SOUTH AFRICAN FAN BELIEVED TO HAVE TELEVISION RECORD
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Dec. 16.— (AP)—A local resident named Mac Cormick is believed to have established a new television record by receiving today images broadcast from station 2XAL New York. The images as received were fairly clear.
The radio amateur call book magazine lists 2XAL at the Experimenter Publishing Company, Villa Richard, Coyotesville, N. J. Hugo Gernsback, president of the station, was surprised last night [15] when informed that television images had been received at such a great distance. He said that though notices of such receptions by American stations were frequent, this was the first word that had been received of reception in foreign countries other than Canada, and is a record for all stations, as far as he knows.
Mr. Gernsback explained that television images have been broadcast three times a week simultaneously from the two stations since August 12, and that they are the only two in New York City that broadcast television images.

Stations on Regular Schedule
CHICAGO, ILL., 9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts, 4555-4565 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning. 2 to 3 P. M. daily, except Sunday. Owners also operate WCFL, 615-625 kc., or 484 m., through which irregular radiovision broadcasts are made in morning hours.
LEXINGTON, MASS., 1XAY, Donald R. Laffin, 300 watts, 4800-4900 kc. or 62 m. Standard scanning. 3 to 4 P. M. daily, and irregularly with WLEX for voice.
NEW YORK, N.Y., WRNY and 2XAL, Experimenter Publishing Co., 250 watts, 914-924 kc. or 416 m. and 250 watts, 9695-9705 kc. or 31 m. 48 lines per picture. 7 ½ frames per second. First five minutes each hour while on air.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y., WGY and 2XAF, 2XAD or 2XO, General Electric Co., 50,000 watts, 785-795 kc. or 38 m. in broadcast band. 13,655-13,665 kc. or 22 m. and 9545-9555 kc. or 31 m. at 25,000 or 40,000 watts on short wave. 24 lines, 20 frames per second. WGY broadcasts Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P. M., Sunday, 11:15 to 11:30 P. M. Sunday broadcasts also on 22 m. and Tuesday on 31 m. schedule effective until Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON, D. C., 3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts, 6415-6425 kc. or 47 m. and 1600-1610 kc. or 187 m. Standard scanning. 8 to 9 P. M., Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular, or Under Construction
BEACON, N. Y., 2XBU, H. E. Smith, 100 watts, 4560-4600 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning (Under construction).
CHICAGO, ILL., WIBO, WIBO Broadcasters, 5000 watts, 1475-1485 kc. or 203 m.
LOS ANGELES, CALIF., 6XC, Pacific Engineering Laboratory Co., 500 watts, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m.
MEMPHIS, TENN., 4XA, WREC, Inc., 500 watts, 2400-2500 kc. or 122 m.
NEW YORK, N. Y., 2XBW, Radio Corporation of America, 5000 watts, 15,000-15,200 kc. or 20 m. The corporation also has been granted construction permits for 2XBV, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. and for 2XBS, 4600-4700 or 64 m.
PITTSBURGH, PA., 8XAV, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., 2000 watts, 4700-4800 kc. or 63 m. and 15,100-15,200 kc. on 16 frames per second, 60 lines per frame.
WASHINGTON, D. C., C. Francis Jenkins, 5000 watts, 4900-5000 kc. or 61 m. (Under construction).
Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers Association—48 lines per picture, 15 frames per second.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1928
MOTION PICTURES ARE BROADCAST BY CHICAGO STATION
CHICAGO, Dec. 17. (AP)—Virgil A. Schoenberg, chief engineer of Radio Station WCFL, owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, announced today that the station which has been experimenting with television, has succeeded in televising motion pictures.
The movies that were broadcast, he said, were not black and white silhouette film but the same celluloid yardage used in the movie shows. More than $100,000 has been spent in experimental work and Schoenberg is using his own money to carry on and try to perfect his experiments.
Officials of the station said that talking movies, theatrical performances and musical programs might be broadcast and televised simultaneously on a large scale if the indicated results of the investigation and experimentation this far are borne out by later work. Representatives of the Television Corporation of America witnessed the demonstration.

Television Adds to Jam in Radio Wave Channels
WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 17—Serious problems on the highways of radio broadcasting as a result of the rapid strides made by television are forecast by the annual report of the Federal Radio commission made public today. The commission ventures the opinion that the problem must be faced soon and says it has not yet determined upon a policy with respect to television, although a few broadcasting stations are being allowed limited experimentation so conducted as not to cause interference with adjacent channels.
"It has been urged upon the commission," says the annual report, "that it should permit regular television service in the broadcast band (as well as in the high frequency band) because of the fact that a large audience is already at hand and in some cases the ordinary receiver can be adapted to receive television by the addition of certain apparatus. Television signals, however, will subject the broadcast listener to objectionable noises. The International radio convention limits the broadcasting band to telephonic signals." (Binghamton Press, Dec. 17)
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1928
PLANS TELEVISION STATION
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (AP)—Boyd Phelps, of Jamaica, N. Y., today applied to the radio commission for a permit to construct a television station in Jamaica.

GIVES TELEVISION EXHIBIT AT Y. M. C. A.
A television exhibit was given at Central Young Men’s Christian association dormitory last night [18], a receiving set made by Richard Ackerman and Harry Pearson of 128 Union street being used. The image [from WGY], which was projected through a magnifying glass, was about 2 ½ inches by 2 ½ inches in size. Mr. Ackerman has already given a number of demonstrations with his set which he declares is the best one in the city. Although his home is at Brockton, he is at present employed by the Sager Electric company.
Speaking of the success of television, Mr Ackerman said last night that on cloudy nights the reproduction is distorted, but on clear nights it is generally good. (Springfield, Mass., Republican, Dec. 19)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1928
Television Broadcast Restricted
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22—Transmission of television on the regular broadcast bands will end on January 1, it was announced to-day by the Federal Radio Commission. Thereafter picture and television transmission will be restricted to a special short-wave band which the commission engineers have not as yet decided on.
Among the few stations broadcasting television are WGY, the General Electric Company station, Schenectady, and WIBO, Desplaines, Ill. These stations have been asked by the commission to report the result of their experience. O. H. Caldwell, commissioner of the first zone, which includes New York, is not in agreement with other members of the commission. Mr. Caldwell, it is said, favors continuing the practice of permitting stations to use their regu1ar broadcast channels for this type of program, provided, of course, they adhere to the general order in this regard, now in effect.
This order permits stations which have an assigned frequency between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, upon authority from the commission, to broadcast television daily for periods of one hour, except between 6 and 11 p. m. (New York Herald Tribune)

Band Set Aside for Television Radio
Radio Commission Decides Interference Is Caused in Regular Channels.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22—(AP)—The Radio Commission decided today to set aside a special broadcast band for television experiments and development. The commission also decided it would not renew licenses of individuals or companies who have been conducting television experiments in the regular broadcast bands. These licenses expire Jan. 1.
Radio engineers have found that television experiments in the regular broadcast bands have caused interference. The frequencies to be set aside for television purposes have not been selected.

TO STOP TELEVISION IN BROADCAST BAND
Radio Board Acts on Complaints of Inteference by Experiments.
TWO STATIONS AFFECTED
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22.—That a special broadcast band will be set aside for television experiments and developments was indicated today by the Radio Board when it decided to revoke the licenses of two television stations which have been conducting experiments in the regular radio channels. The two stations affected are WGY of Schenectady and WIBO of Des Plains, Ill.
This action followed reports by radio engineers that the television experiments caused considerable interference in the regular channels.
The stations experimenting with television are working under an order by the commission which provided that picture and television transmission for general reception by the public would be permitted on frequencies above 1,500 kilocycles. This order, however, was to be in effect only from the time it was issued, on Oct. 31 to Jan. 1. (New York Times, Dec. 23) Note: there is no mention of WRNY, which also operated on regular radio channels.

First Television Station Being Built Near Washington
C. Francis Jenkins Gets Broadcasting Permit from Radio Commission.
By ROBERT HEINL.
WASHINGTON, December 22.—What is declared to be the first broadcasting station ever built strictly for the sending of television is now being erected about five miles north of the National Capital by C. Francis Jenkins, veteran radio and motion picture inventor.
The new station, which it is thought will be ready for operation shortly after the first of the new year, is only one of series that are to be constructed. Locations of the other stations have not yet been selected.
"It is our purpose to set up television broadcasting stations of adequate power for the territory said Mr. Jenkins discussing his future plans.
"To these stations motion picture stories will be distributed for broadcast over the territory served by each particular station," he continued. "Radio receivers for the home will be distributed in these territories for the reception of this new type of entertainment in the home. Receivers will reproduce pictures amply large enough to entertain the entire family, and friends of the family. Although the price of the instrument has not been definitely fixed, it is proposed to make it so reasonable as to insure a picture entertainment service to the greatest number.
Like Building Other Stations.
Jenkins stated that the erection of the new television station is very similar to the building of any other broadcasting station. The apparatus is almost identical. However, in sending out the pictures the station has to have a wave of 100 kilocycles, with which Jenkins states it is possible to do a good job, even at the present time. Later it is believed that this width can be narrowed.
The station which is now being erected near Washington will have from 2000 to 5000 watts power and it will be operated on from 4900 to 5000 kilocycles. At the present time Jenkins has a laboratory, and has had for a number of years, where he has been experimenting and using 46 meters for distance transmission of pictures and 186 meters within the City of Washington.
In addition to the television licenses that have been granted to Jenkins by the Federal Radio Commission, there are a number of others outstanding, including those to the General Electric Company, the Radio Corporation of America, the Westinghouse Electric and others. The commission also has on hand a number of other applications for television licenses.
In connection with the intensive work which is now being done by Jenkins, a new corporation has come into existence known as the Jenkins Television Corporation, which has purchased all of the sets of the Jenkins Laboratories, which in turn has controlled number of the Jenkins television patents.
Years of Experimenting.
For several years Jenkins, with a staff of assistants, has been experimenting with television and while there is some dispute as to who first actually transmitted pictures by radio, it is a known fact that Jenkins some years ago transmitted pictures radio from the Naval Research Laboratory to one of the local hotels, which was witnessed by government officials, including Secretary of the Navy Wilbur. This was followed by the transmission of motion pictures between the Jenkins laboratory in one part of the city to his home in another part of the city, which was also witnessed by government radio experts.
The Jenkins laboratories was formed in 1921, to develop and perfect the ideas and Inventions of Jenkins and his associates. For many years he has been a recognized authority, inventor and active worker in image transmission and television. He was also the inventor of the first practical motion picture projector.
During the past few years of television experimenting, Jenkins has gathered a vast fund of practical experience. Suitable television transmitting and receiving equipment have now been developed. It is as the result of this pioneering work, which is virtually completed, that the new corporation has been organized to manufacture and market the new machine.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1928
Cedar Rapids Youth Gets Foretaste Of Pleasures Which Television Promises To Bring To All In The Near Future
'Amateur Builds His Own Set And Sees Scenes 1,000 Miles Away.
BY ADELINE TAYLOR.
"I SEE YOU!"
And it isn't of hide a game and seek around the rocking chair for the “I” sits in Cedar Rapids, and the "you" in Washington, D. C. Across span of a thousand miles one holds the magic binoculars of television to his eyes and looks into the Jenkins station at Washington—3XY [sic].
This is what Leo Hruska, 2619 Bever avenue, is doing with the amateur television set he has constructed in his radio room.
Francis Jenkins, called the inventor of practical television, has asked to add this boy's name to the honor roll of pioneer workers in television. These pioneers are entitled to historical credit for their assistance development of this science, he says.
In this room papered with cards of radio stations with whom Leo Hruska has talked—cards from Canada, Chile, Brazil, France, Germany, Australia and innumerable others—he showed us the receiving set he has constructed to bring in these pictures. It must be such that it will amplify the entire range of sound waves transmitted. When music coming over the air sounds tinny it is because everything is not coming in. The lower notes are missing. Such a set will not work with television.
MARVELOUS DEVICE IS SIMPLICITY ITSELF.
With wonder—and with little doubt—we looked at this outfit which the operator claimed would show us what was happening hundreds of miles away. There was a pasteboard disc with forty-eight holes arranged in spiral form along the edge and attached to this circle of paper was a motor to rotate it. Back of the disc was a neon gas lamp. That was all.
A curtain was dropped on the inside works of this long distance telescope to confine the light and we sat down to look through the magnifying lens to the screen on which a picture would be projected with the space conquering machine. We know now how grandma felt when they told her men could fly.
The room was darkened. The switch was turned on. The motor started spinning the disc. A square of rose light formed on the screen and black clouds started moving swiftly across it. Accompanying the weird shadows came a peculiar sound—it was the picture which sends out different waves according to its shape before the transmitter. The trained ear can hear whether it is an inanimate object, a front view of a person or what not being transmitted.
As the operator turned the rheostat on trying to adjust the vision he murmured things about synchronism, fluctuations, distortions and interference and the doubting Thomas in us rose even closer to the surface.
BEHOLD! A SCENE A THOUSAND MILES AWAY
Then gradually the splashes of blackness stopped racing so quickly after one another in the rose light. And there it was. The patches and lines turned into the silhouette of a woman playing with a baby. She picked the child up and kissed her and then, putting her on the floor, continued to play with her.
True, the picture was small and the edges were jagged. One must strain his imagination a trifle just as he does when he watches the flapper neighbor entertain her davenport date in a lighted room behind a drawn window shade. But those adventurers in the land of science who used to tread on the clouds in 1920 after hearing a grunt and a squeal from the earphones would go into perfect rhapsody of delight at this silhouetted image in a home television receiver.
After seeing a picture that was sent through space, the operator showed us what sound looks like in this television set. As the saxophones and drums and horns sent out their syncopated music, the tunes made a fantastic array of changing designs in checkerboard and modernistic effects on the little screen.
Television "programs" differ—from Washington come radio movies of a child hanging up clothes or bouncing a ball; from Boston, Schenectady or Chicago come profiles of the technicians; or California sends the page from some magazine.
TRANSMISSION OF COLOR POSSIBLE.
The black and white television picture, yet in its infancy, has already spread itself to the field of color. The Baird laboratory in London has transmitted action in actual colors. Leo Hruska points out that three slides are used back of the revolving disc—a green, red and violet one.
The thing this sketchy half-tone, produced by motor-propelled disc and neon lamp, spells for the future seem unbelievable—a football game in progress in the Bowl of Roses watched in the front room an Iowa home; the Metropolitan opera not only heard but seen on a miniature stage in a Cedar Rapids drawing room; and business men will not have to rush home for board meetings—they will see and talk with each other electrically from whatever part of the world they may be in. All of these unbelievable things are not only possible but probable in the future of television.
While sound coming through the air is merely a succession of signals, one after the other, making it one-dimensional, the picture must be dimensional, having both length and width. Since a whole picture cannot be transmitted at once television works on the same principle of retentivity of vision that the moving pictures do. Because of this optical illusion, when several pictures are flashed before the eye in a second, each one different from the one it follows, we see movement.
The pictures are cut up into a large number of dots by a disc, the scanner, and sent through the air as straight line radio signals, then pieced before the eye in such a short time that they appear in one picture.
SYNCHRONISM IS PICTURE'S SECRET.
Synchronism is one of the worries of the amateur television operator. This means keeping the discs at the transmitting and receiving stations going at precisely the same speed. "It's like guiding a car with a faulty steering wheel down a crooked icy path," said Leo Hruska, as he adjusted the rheostat so that exact synchronism he could be reached and a clear image would stay on the screen.
Fluctuations of the electrical current make the picture blur. And distortion will occasionally swell a poor man's face quite out of shape on the screen. But there is one thing that does not trouble the looker-in—that is static. Occasionally static will take the form of a few dots on the screen but it does not noticeably bother the reception. Static to television is merely a snow flurry, not the grating howling screech with which the listener-in has had to contend.
The lamps that are used to receive cannot be the ordinary electric light globe variety because they must not glow for even the smallest fraction of a second when the current is off. For transmitting photoelectric cells are used which permit varying light waves vary, an electric current in accordance with their own intensity. Such globes are now also used to sort beans, count automobiles and measure sunburn as well as transmit vision over space.
Like most of these modern inventions which we proudly credit to the modern twentieth century but which belong to less recent years, television had its birth in 1884 with Paul Nipkow, a German experimenter. Fifty years ago a native Scotchman, Alexander Graham Bell, later an American citizen, showed the world how to hear by electricity. Today another of that nationality, John L. Baird, demonstrated to the world how to see by electricity.
In the clamor speed—for news while it was happening—word pictures of events beat the wheels of time by progressing from letters to telegraph to telephones to radio. But the ears were not enough while the eyes were functioning. As the Chinese say: "A picture is worth 10,000 words." Photographs, the moving pictures, then photo-telegraphy brought pictures of these happenings within minutes after their actual occurrence. Now the eyes of communication are keeping pace with Father Time. With television we see what is happening at a distance and while it is happening.
There are still three other senses to be satisfied. Raymond Y. Yates, former editor of Popular Radio, contends that touch transmitting is not impractical. He says in a recent article in a magazine: "Just as we now employ a scanning device at a television transmitter so we might devise some sort of an exploring 'feeler' that would, for instance, electrically register or impress equivalent impulses on an electromagnetic wave. At the receiver we simply need a membrane sensitive and pliable enough to be 'modulated' with the received impulses of varying intensity." When taste and smell are added, the cycle will be complete. (Cedar Rapids Sunday Gazette and Republican)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1928
Board Awards 506 Short Wave Channels
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26.—The shortwave channels between 1,500 and 6,000 kilocycles, which have been in great demand by commercial organizations, press associations, newspapers, amateurs and others, were allocated to-day by the Federal Radio Commission. These include 456 high-frequency and fifty low-frequency channels.
Of the 639 channels available 308 were allotted to fixed stations, 148 to mobile services, ninety-five were reserved for government uses and eighty-eight were unassigned at this time. [...]
In general, seventy-three channels are reserved for marine services, sixty-four for aviation, five for railroad purposes, six to portable stations, including geophysical and police. Amateurs were given 134 channels, visual broadcasting 100 telegraph channels, which is equivalent to five television or ten picture channels; four are reserved for experimental ststaions and seventy are set aside for commercial point-to-point services. [...]
“Visual broadcasting was considered entirely experimental at the time both as to its technique and its importance to the public, and the bands set aside for this are entirely in the nature of an experiment [the commission explained].” (New York News Herald, Dec. 27)

Television Case Hearing Put Off
Inability of Dudley R. Hooper, 269 Washington avenue, to attend a hearing of the Federal Radio Commission at Washington, D. C., last week, caused a postponement in decision of the commission on his application to establish a radio television station in Rutherford.
The application will be heard at a later date, Mr. Hooper said last night [25]. If granted it will permit the Rutherford man to establish television transmitting apparatus for experimental work which will be the first of its type in New Jersey. (Passaic Daily Herald, Dec. 26)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1928
SEE THEIR SON 900 MILES AWAY
First Indiana Couple to Have the Experience by Radio Television.
GARY, Ind., Dec. 26 (INS)—A Gary couple has the distinction of undoubtedly being the first couple in Indiana to see a son 900 miles from Indiana, by radio television in their Hoosier home.
Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Kell, of 448 Harrison street, Gary, sat at their home receiving set here and were able to see their son, Ray Davis Kell, first assistant to Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, who was in station WGY in Schenectady, N. Y.
Dr. Alexanderson is the pioneer television engineer of the General Electric Company.
The television program on which the Kells "looked in" is a regular Tuesday night feature broadcast by station WGY at Schenectady from 10:30 p. m. to 11 p. m.
A television set constructed by Mr. Kell and his son was hooked up with a high powered radio set.
The Kells said that the features of their son and of his wife as well as those of several other persons in the WGY laboratory were so distinct that a friend of theirs who also "looked in" and who had seen Ray Kell only once, at once recognized him when his picture appeared.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1928
Radio Service Bulletin
The Federal Radio Commission approved the following frequency revisions in December 1928:
Bound Brook, N.J. (W3XL, owned by RCA)—2,850 kcs. (105.3 metres) to 2,950 (101.7); 6,020 (49.83).
New York, N.Y. (W2XBS, RCA)—2,000 kcs. (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9).
Portland, Ore.—(W7XAO, William Jerman)—2,750 kcs. (109.1 metres) to 2,850 (105.3).
Rocky Point, N.Y.—(W2XR, RCA)—strike out all particulars. The call letters were reassigned to John Hogan’s television station in 1929.
The Commission approved the following special station:
Jersey City, N.J. (W2XCD, DeForest Radio Co.)—1,604 kcs. (187 metres), 1,704 (176); 3,214 (93.34); 4,324 (69.38); 6,420 (46.72); 8,650 (34.68), 12850 (23.35); 17,300 (17.341), 25,680 (11.682); 34,240 (8.762); 51,360 (5.841).

November 1928

U.S. government regulators tried to solve a problem with television at the end of 1928.

Radio stations were sending out TV shows, a few of them on a regular schedule. But there wasn’t enough bandwidth on medium wave frequencies (that is, today’s A.M. band) to accommodate pictures.

The Radio Commission decided to tell stations to get telecasts off A.M. by January 1, 1929, and erect short wave transmitters to broadcast television. Oh, they’d need a license to that.

This mainly affected WGY in Schenectady and WRNY near New York. The latter was drastically forced to curtail most of its telecasts to 15 minutes at 3 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, 2:45 p.m. Wednesdays and 12:45 a.m. Thursdays. It also wasn’t helped by radio frequencies being re-assigned on November 11, and WNYR being forced to share time with three other stations. The company filed for bankruptcy in February 1929.

Hugo Gernsback’s “Science Service” supplied newspapers with a list of television stations and their statuses. We have an image file of one for November 1928 below. It confirms W4XA in Memphis was on the air, at least occasionally, and W6XC in Los Angeles had a regular schedule. The latter was operated in tandem with KGFJ, the radio station credited with being the first to broadcast 24 hours a day. Jeff Falewicz has a found a link to the TV operations.

You’ll notice there is no mention at all of NBC’s W2XBS. RCA’s David Sarnoff also doesn’t mention the station in an interview published that month. Either the transmissions were super-secret, or the impression that W2XBS went on the air immediately after getting a license in July that year isn’t accurate.

TV stations were told to stay off the air on federal election night to allow radio stations to broadcast the returns without TV-caused interference. Nevertheless, WCFL did have a telecast, airing a photo of the President-Elect.

Highlights for the month are below.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928
BROADCAST BAND FOR TELEVISION TO BE LIMITED
Rigid Regulation Seen Until New Process Is Perfected
BY ROBERT MACK
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2.—Television and picture broadcasting will be permitted on the broadcast band until January 1, at least, but under strict limitation and rigid regulation.
To permit visual broadcasting to remain within the reach of the general radio public, the federal radio commission has decided—and shortly will announce—that such broadcasting will be authorized to a limited extent within the broadcast spectrum. Whether it will eventually go into the short wave band, where special equipment requiring some technical knowledge is necessary, remains to be decided. However, the commission has broken the deadlock of some months standing as to what to do about television because of its questionable public interest to listeners on the broadcast band, and its nuisance possibilities at this stage of development.
With the commission’s action there will be an immediate demand of stations for authority to broadcast pictures and television, supplementing the ten or so already operating experimentally. The order, it is learned, will make mandatory that formal applications be filed and formal authority obtained before stations may operate. Visual broadcasting will be conditioned upon specifications designed to prevent interference to regular reception, with the band of frequencies occupied by any television station not to exceed ten kilocycles.
One Hour Allowed
One hour during daylight will be the maximum time for both television and picture broadcasting. It must cease at 6 p. m. standard time and not begin again until after 11 p. m.
After January 1 the commission again will take up the problem, better enabled to cope with it by virtue of the experiments of the two months of trial in the broadcast band. The interference caused and the popularity of visual transmission with the radio public will be taken into consideration, along with an interpretation of the obligations of the United States under the International Radio Telegraph convention of 1927, regarding the presence on the broadcast band of anything other than telephonic transmissions.
The commission's action is of much significance in the development of television. It is almost certain that television must go into the short-wave spectrum eventually, because of the severe space limitations in the broadcast band, but experiments with the new radio art insist that to do this now would seriously impede Its development, because it would be out of the reach of practically all listeners and little would be gleaned in the way of public reaction. The commission has met the issue by a compromise.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928
McCULLA OPERATES TELEVISION DEVICE
Following Tuesday’s election [6], station WCFL, Chicago, transmitted Hoover’s picture by television and again on Wednesday.
As is well known to Waukegan radio fans, W. K. McCulla, of McCulla & Co., the Majestic dealers, has done considerable work with television and owns and operates an outfit which he designed and built at the McCulla store.
Wednesday afternoon while WCFL was broadcasting the picture of the president-elect, Mr. McCulla was receiving it on his machine at his place of business. (Waukegan Daily Sun, Nov. 10)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1928
Television Broadcast
WMAK will continue its television transmissions in conjunction with Station WGY at Schenectady on Tuesday night at 11:30 o’clock, the program to run for one-half hour. (Buffalo Courier Express, Nov. 11)

TELEVISION NOW REALITY TO DETROITER
Pictures From WGY Plainly Seen on Home Made Set.
In another column on the radio page is an article on television by David Sarnoff, who looks forward to “radio sight” within “three to five years.” However the amateur experimenter is already at work and Arthur West, 5065 Beaconsfield avenue, reports that his home-built receiver is getting the transmissions from WGY, Schenectady.
Mr. West had as credentials a letter from WGY confirming his reception on the evening of November 11, when he saw an American flag waving its salute on his screen. WGY transmits on its regular wave length of 790 kilocycles on Tuesdays at 11:30 o’clock and Sundays at 10:15 o’clock.
The Free Press has asked Mr. West to describe his apparatus which he assembled himself, and his article will appear on the radio page next Sunday. (Detroit Free Press, Nov. 25)

Predicts Television in 3 to 5 Years For The Radio Fans.
NEW YORK. (NEA)—With some radio stations already announcing "television broadcasting," with radio amateurs longing for "televisor sets" and the listening public anxious to feast the eye as well as the ear—how close are we to practical television? NEA Service popped this question at David Sarnoff, vice president and general manager of the Radio Corporation of America. His answer may be summarized as follows:
Sight transmission by radio is inevitable. Progress made thus far points to a new system of telegraphic service, when messages and pictures will be transmitted and received photographically through the air; to radio motion pictures, when one transmission may serve a million homes; to television; and even to the transmission of scenes by radio in their natural colors.
We may expect to witness such developments in a period of from three to five years, Sarnoff adds.
Present Difficulties
For the present, however, the fact remains that:
1. Television is still in an experimental stage;
2. Many improvements and some new engineering solutions are required to advance the art; and
3. The broad highway in the ether required for the establishment of an organized television service is still to be located.
Vast Improvements Needed
"More sensitive and photo-electric cells, more brilliant and flexible lighting devices and more perfect synchronization of light elements are among the problems now being studied by radio scientists.
"The clearing of a road through space to accommodate visual transmission is another major problem. While a wave 'side band' of 5,000 cycles can be used for sound transmission, a wave band of 20,000 to 100,000 cycles or even more is needed to make visual broadcasting effective."
The problem of radio television, Sarnoff suggests, is best visualized in considering the vast differences between the ear and the eye.
"With all that science, discovery and engineering have accomplished in equipping man for the struggle of life, the eye still looks out naked upon the aided to a limited extent by pieces of curved polished glass. A sensitive photographic apparatus, the eye demands that every scene be contracted to its limited field of vision. It tolerates but little interference.
"Shake a feather before the eye and you blot out the view of a mountain. Project two views simultaneously and you create confusion before the sight.
Ear Is Less Susceptible
"Contrast this to the ear. The ear receives sounds from all directions. It is able to recognize and interpret the slightest tonal differences. By an act of concentration we can almost eliminate from consciousness the poise of a room full of people and conduct a conversation with a single auditor.
"Radio broadcasting found a pliable and sympathetic organ of reception in the ear.
"But in attempting to serve the eye the radio stands squarely before the fundamental problems of electro-magnetic wave propagation through space. Engineering solutions alone will not suffice to life the bandage that has limited human vision.
"A sudden blur of interference, hardly noticeable in sound broadcasting, may for an instant blot out a distant scene projected by visual transmission. Static, now overridden in the broadcasting of sound, may vitiate entirely the broadcasting of sight.
What We May Expect
"Within three to five years, however, I believe we shall be well launched into the dawning age of sight by radio, involving among others the following developments: "Radio Motion Pictures: The transmission in rapid succession of a series of still pictures otherwise motion pictures is a logical element in the development of sight transmission. Thus an educational or other event might be broadcast by a single radio operation to 100,000 or to 1,000,000 homes in the country.
"Radio Television: The instantaneous projection through space of light images produced directly from the object in the studio or the scene brought to the broadcasting station through remote control involves many further problems. Special types of distribution networks, new forms of stagecraft and a development of studio equipment and technique are required.
Can't Repeat Scenes
"New problems would rain in upon the broadcasting station. New forms of artistry would have to be encouraged and developed. Variety, and more variety, would be the cry of the day.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1928
Television Delivers
Silhouettes of Cecil B. DeMille, Will Hays and other notables were used as demonstrations of the television given by the radio station KGFJ last night [13] at the Roosevelt Hotel at the dinner meeting of the Wampas. The demonstration was arranged through Ben McGloshan [sic] KGFJ. Mr. De Mille, Al Rockett of First National, Wesley Ruggles, Robert North and other well known directors were honour guests at the dinner. Frank Murray and James Loughborough were joint chairmen. (Hollywood Daily Citizen, Nov. 14)

LOCAL MAN BUILDS TELEVISION SET
He may have done it in preparation for the days after January 1 when his work as city commissioner will require his supervision over city employees. On the other hand he may have done it just for the fun of it.
At any rate, George B. Patterson, 909 Lake Adair circle, has completed a home-made television instrument, with which he “tele-saw” an acrobatic act broadcast from Station WGY, Schenectady, N. Y., Tuesday night [13].
All of the instrument was made by Mr. Patterson, with the exception of the lamp used, he said, the construction of the machine requiring only a few weeks.
He hopes to improve his machine later. (Orlando Morning Sentinel, Nov. 15)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1928
BROADCASTERS ASK TO SEND PICTURES
Shepard of Boston One of Applicants
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17—Growing interest in television on the part of broadcasting companies is indicated by applications now pending with the Federal Radio Commission for construction permits for television stations.
Hearings have been held on a number of those applications, including those of the Shepard Norwell Company, Boston; Frank L. Carter, Long Island City, N. Y.; Aero Products Company, Chicago, Ill.; Great Lakes broadcasting Company, Chicago; Brooklyn Broadcasting Company, Brooklyn; and Walter J. Allen, Salina, Kan.
The commission has already issued a number of licenses for experimental television broadcasting and is permitting the use for not exceeding one hour a day of wave lengths in the broadcasting band for television experiments. General transmission of television, however, has been confined to the short wave lengths, and the use of the broadcast band during the next few weeks is permitted in order that it may be determined whether it will be possible to use broadcasting wave lengths for television transmission without interference with other services. (Boston Globe, Nov. 18)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1929
“COOKOO” IS NOW TESTING TELEVISION
Tuinucu is tuning in on television, according to Grant Jones, the Cuban-American broadcaster, lyric writer and radio experimenter. Mr. Jones reported reception of WGY’s television transmission on the afternoon of November 20, and his report was confirmed by the log of the General Electric Company’s Schenectady station.
Mr. Jones began dabbling in radio several years ago. Within a few days after WGY went on the air in February 20, 1922, he reported by cable receiving dance music from the station. Not only did he hear the music, but he and his friends danced to the music. In 1922 that was a most unusual achievement.
Now Mr. Jones has outfitted himself television receiver and he is among the most distant to report reception of images from Schenectady. He was tuned to WGY’s short wave transmitter W2XAF. The image he saw was that of A. O. Coggeshall, one of the announcers of WGY. The voice of Mr. Coggeshall was very familiar to Tuinucu listeners and this was the first opportunity to view his face.
Mr. Jones interest in radio was not limited to reception. In the fall of 1922 he started his own broadcasting station 6KW on the sugar plantation and since that time he has received nearly half a million letters from listeners. A short-wave station, 6XJ, operating on 21.95 meters is also operated by Mr. Jones at Tuinucu, and if the experimenter is consistent, he will probably soon be sending images of himself and friends to the far corners of the United States. (Washington Herald, Jan. 5, 1929)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1928
Daily Television Programs on Air From Station W1XAY
By JOHN B. KNOX
Associated Press Features Editor
LEXINGTON, Mass., Nov. 22—(AP)—Regular daily television broadcasts have become a reality at station W1XAY at Lexington.
Every afternoon between 2 and 3 o'clock this station, operated in conjunction with station WLEX, puts on a program of visual radio entertainment for such fans and experimenters as are equipped to pick up the broadcasts. The broadcasts are being developed under the supervision of Alfred J. Pote, engineer in chief, and Carl S. Wheeler, owner of the stations.
Studio In Somber Colors.
The studio is a study in somber colors, dominated by a black background. The subject, whose image is to be broadcast, is placed several feet away from a machine resembling a motion picture projector and employing a high intensity arc light.
Just in front of the outermost lense [sic] of the projector is the edge of a steel disc about two feet in diameter. In a spiral arrangement within a narrow band next to the edge of the disc are cut forty forty-eight tiny square holes, When the disc is set in motion and the arc turned on, sharp lines of white light pass in continuous stream across the subject to be televised. The disc turns 900 revolutions per minute.
Photo electric cells, sensitive to every variation in light and shadow, pick up the form of the subject and his every movement. The differences in light-intensity are translated into electric impulses just as the radio microphone changes sound energy into electrical energy.
These electrical impulses pass directly to amplifiers employing eight vacuum tubes which build up the signal before it is put on the air. A forty-foot aerial of high efficiency is employed to send out the signals on a wavelength of 61.5 meters with 500 watts power.
Every amplifier tube heavily sheathed with lead. Extraordinary precautions been taken to prevent the slightest vibrations from reaching the tubes. The cabinets containing the tubes are thickly padded with felt. An area ten feet square may be covered by the broadcasting equipment, but in practice such large broadcasts are not owing to various limitations.
Reports of receipt of the programs have come from New York state and Connecticut. St. Joseph Gazette)
Magazine-Street Home Has Television Receiver
George A. Thurling, Radio Experimenter, Among Pioneers in This City to Realize Dream of Bringing Photo Broadcasts Into His Apartment—Pictures Not as Clear as Popularly Believed. But Experiment is Impressive Even to Layman
Television experimenting is latest thing with local radio fans, particularly those with sufficient knowledge and experience to be able to fashion their picture receivers in whole or in part. While reception among those who have such sets is not yet all that it should be they are hopeful that the day is not far off when the when the rewards of pioneering will be theirs.
Among the first to equip himself with such a set is George A. Thurling of 27 Magazine street. He is an enthusiast on television and there are few night picture-broadcasts which he passes by without tuning in. His favorite station, however, is WGY, Schenectady and he reports fairly successful reception from this point.
Laymen Attend “Séance”
Last Tuesday [20], the press was called in to attend the “séance,” for, to the uninitiated, that is just what it suggests. There were five guests present when the lights were turned off at 11:30 in anticipation of the ghostly figures that come by air, not in silence, but attended by a drumming staccato somewhat like the intermittent roar of an airplane motor heard some distance away. The performance began.
The first presentation was what might be taken for a curtain with the letters WGY printed diagonally across it from top to bottom. Because of the fine adjustment of the dial controling the motor rotating the disc, in front of the television tube and just behind the inch-square screen on which the radioed image appears, the picture at times traveled to the right or left of the line of vision. There were at times what appeared to be sparks flying across the picture—these, it was explained, correspond to static in tonal radio. The phenomena of fading was distinctly noticeable several times during the broadcast, the image losing its sharpness of tone and then regaining it with corresponding dimunition or increase in the buzzing noise attendant upon the reception.
“Pictures” Indistinct
The clearest picture seen during the evening was that of a man, the outline of his head being very clear at times, and his movements noticeable to the extent that it could be easily distinguished whether he was facing the televisor head on, or whether only his profile was being broadcast. There was no such thing as simultaneous transmission of light and sound as is imagined by those who talk lightly of television, but the results of the experiment were impressive and convincing enough even for the lay-observer. Television, as a practical medium of communication, is not yet “here,” but it is on the way.
Mr. Thurling is an experimenter of considerable experience, having operated some years ago an amateur station under license of the Canadian government. He has been experimenting with television several months and the results he obtains are noteworthy, when one considers that his apartment is on the fourth floor of an apartment house, the roof of which is cluttered with alien antennas. Had he the sweep of the country from a hilltop vantage point, he claims, the clarity of the televised photos and subjects would be much greater.
He recently took his set to North Adams, where he says, the results were far better than he has been able to obtain locally. The reasons are less interference, and closer proximity to the point of origin of the broadcast. (Springfield, Mass., Union and Republican, Nov. 25)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1928
Television Latest Fad For Screen Stars
Many Have Installed Apparatus In Their Homes Already
Television is the latest fad of the screen stars. With the new home television and projected general broadcasting of radio pictures, many screen celebrities are installing the apparatus in their homes.
Tod Browning, director; Lon Chaney and William Haines now have sets working. Buster Keaton is preparing to build his. So far broadcasting is hard to receive on the Pacific Coast, but when Western broadcasting stars many players plan to follow the new hobby. (Baltimore Sun)

Television Test Interferes With Radio Reception
Television tests from station WGY at Schenectady last night [25] caused no small trouble for Norfolk radio fans who believed WTAR was on the air or that some interference was being caused by the local broadcasting station.
Manager Jack Light of WTAR said that television tests are made every Sunday night from 11:15 to 11:30 o’clock, and that because the WGY frequency of 790 kilocycles is so near the 780 of WTAR, a good many persons thought the local station was causing the trouble. WTAR, however, went off the air at 9:10 p. m.
Television, said manager Light, causes a whining sound such as a low-flying airplane makes and that reception within certain channels virtually is impossible. (Virginia Pilot, Nov. 26)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928
HOOVER INAUGURATION MAY BE FIRST BIG TELEVISION ‘CAST
By ISRAEL KLEIN,
Science Editor, NEA Service.
When Herbert Hoover takes his oath of office next March 4 as president of the United States, he may be seen doing so as well as heard by radio!
For television may play an important part in his inaugural ceremonies.
Television is far from perfect. It is altogether experimental. It has its limitations in broadcasting. But considering what has been done with it heretofore, it is quite likely that a television transmitter will be working in front of the next president at his inauguration, alongside the battery of microphones which already has been, accepted as a public institution.
Broadcasting such an event by television will not be new by any means. It has already been done and found quite successful. When Governor Al Smith accepted the presidential nomination the party last August, he faced not only a battery of microphones but a set of television cameras which broadcast his movements as far off as Los Angeles.
Great Inventions on Job.
This was the work of E. F. W. Alexanderson and his staff of General Electric engineers at Schenectady. Alexanderson has since improved on his apparatus so that he can visualize a larger scene than a head and broadcast it with the aid of daylight.
In the Bell Telephone laboratories in New York, Dr. Herbert E. Ives, famous optical expert, has been developing a television apparatus that has broadcast scenes in daylight and transmitted them to large "screens" consisting of rows of neon tubes.
The receiver images, so far, have been rather vague and jumpy. But they show great promise toward perfection of as good reproduction as see today in the movies.
In Washington, C. Francis Jenkins, the inventor, comes forth with a more highly developed receiver for television. On the basis of the new principle he employs in transmitting and reception, he predicts that the coming inaugural ceremonies will be seen as well as heard by radio.
Jenkins' new apparatus demands the use of 2304 tiny lamps in the radio-vision receiving equipment whereby the light for producing the incoming picture is multiplied many thousand times.
In other words, that deception of the eye which makes for persistence of vision is displaced by the persistence of light in the novel radio-vision received which Jenkins is now building. Just as the illumination of the electric-llght bulb in our home or office lingers for moment after the switch has been snapped off, the exciting current employed in this radical principle of visual radio persists for an appreciable time—about one-tenth of a second.
At present, at least three methods of transmitting and receiving pictures by radio are in vogue—the scanning disk, first used in 1884; a lens-disk, in which tiny lenses are placed over the scanning, disk holes; and the so-called drum-scanner, recently developed by Jenkins.
The latter device, resembling the hub of a wheel with its tiny glass-rod spokes, is said to permit light to flow through these quartz rods like water rushing through a pipe. However, even with the use of this new drum-scanning device the elementary area of a picture being received by radio is illuminated only one 2304 part of the whole time—again calling for deception of the eye.
Reason for Dim Image.
"And let me remind you," asserts Jenkins, "that the apparent intensity of illumination of the whole picture is the intensity of the light coming to the eye from a single elementary area, divided by the elementary time fraction, which is also equal to the number of elementary areas, namely 2304. That is why the picture seems so dully lighted when the machine is running though the scanning spot is very bright when the machine stops.
"Multiplying this light reduction by the fractional inefficiency of the current, it will be seen that the total current-light efficiency on the eye in the scanning disk method is less than of one per cent."
Because of a similar light limitation in the drum-scanner, Jenkins is looking to a new principle for solving the immediate problem of television. At least seven other laboratories are attacking the problems of visual radio—each in their own way—and this would seem to justify the prediction that the inaugural ceremonies will be seen as well as heard by radio.
Broadcasters Interested.
The broadcasting stations now engaged in the experimental transmission of images are: WRNY, New York; WGY, Schenectady; KDKA, Pittsburgh; WOR, Newark, N. J.; WABC, New York; WLEX, Boston, and WCFL, Chicago.
It is rumored that at least 150 broadcasting stations are soon to install equipment for picture transmission—sending still photographs, sketches, telegrams, cartoons, motion pictures or other crude images.
Picture-receiving mechanism is now being manufactured on a large scale for introduction in the homes. This apparatus, however, is not to be confused with so-called television equipment—the sending and receiving by radio of animate objects or moving scenes from distant points—since television is in a crude, experimental stage.

PROFESSSOR BUILDS TELEVISION SET
A radio television set, in Physics laboratory at the Stephenson hall of Science, Lawrence college, was recently built by Dr. A. D. Power, professor of physics and Lloyd Root, Appleton, a senior in college. They have been conducting experiments dally in a darkened room and two weeks ago received pictures from WCFL, Chicago, as a clear as newspaper illustrations.
Because the broadcasting stations recently decreased their wave lengths, their receiving set is useless and the experimenters are building a short wave receiver to pick up some 40-meter wave length stations in the east, 3XK, WGY, 2XAD.
The experimental television set is based on the Nipkow scanning disk which dates back to 1883. It is a rotating plate with tiny holes placed in a spiral near the edge and its speed is determined by the number of images transmitted per second. The speed of the disk at the receiver must be the same as that of the transmitter. This is obtained by synchronization.
The present need of television is automatic synchronization instead of hand control, which was used by the Lawrence experimenters. The number of holes in the disk is equal to the number of lines in the image. There are 48 holes in the disk used in the experiment but the larger the number, the better the picture. (Appleton Post-Crescent)

October 1928

Sometimes, a first isn’t a first.

Take, for example, a nationally-publicized “first” television wedding that capped the Chicago Radio Show in October 1928. There had been another wedding on TV, only a month before and in connection with the New York Radio Fair.

There weren’t many other firsts in television that month, unless you count that for the first, and only, time, television was banned from broadcasting results of the 1928 U.S. election. In fact, it was banned from the airwaves altogether that night. The Federal Radio Commission felt TV signals would cause all kinds of interference with radio stations nearby on the A.M. dial that were providing listeners with the returns.

WRNY re-announced a regular schedule. The only difference, it seems, was in the transmitting equipment.

Re-announcing his electronic television system without a mechanical scanning disc was Philo T. Farnsworth.

There was loads of speculation about television’s future after R.C.A.—the owner of NBC—became part of a consolidated company, the R-K-O Corporation. There was talk of NBC putting programming into R-K-O theatres, but the network was nowhere close to providing any kind of TV broadcasting. You’ll see claims NBC had put W2XBS on the air once it got its license in July 1928. If so, there’s no mention of it in the press at the time. Below, you will see a programming roundup of what was on the air on a regular basis that October.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1928
SPOKANE STATION SENDS PICTURES BY TELEVISION
Local Radio Fan "Listens In" On the Transmission.
The transmission of pictures by the television process is being accomplished by a broadcasting station located as close to Missoula as Spokane, it was learned here yesterday [3] by a local radio fan.
When A. F. Peterson tuned in on his radio about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, he heard announcer at station KFPY, Spokane stating that pictures were about to be transmitted by television. Mr. Peterson said this morning that the transmission could be received on the broadcasting wave, and that the sound produced was a high whistle which came with slight changes in pitch.
Although there are probably no picture receiving sets in Missoula now, it will not be long before some of the radio amateurs will be making them with success, he prophesied. That there are many such sets now in use is evident, or the Spokane station would not make the picture transmission by the television process a part of its program. "Of course the pictures are as yet only a simple outline, but the thing is extremely interesting," Mr. Peterson said. (Missoula Sentinel, Oct. 4)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1928
Chicago Fans to See Television at Work
Chicago, Oct. 5.—(AP)—Fans of Chicago, eager for a glimpse at television, will be given the opportunity at the seventh annual radio show here October 8 to 14.
The show, like the Radio World's fair just concluded in New York, is sponsored by the Radio Manufacturers' association, and it provides manufacturers an opportunity for the display of the latest in receivers, speakers and radio necessities.
The television layout will be similar to that shown to the public for the first time in New York. It will include transmitters and reproducers which will be connected by wire rather than radio. A part of the display will be a picture transmitter built for WMAQ.
Dr. R. E. Harris, head of the department of physics at Lake Forest college, has been named technical consultant of the show. He will be in charge of the television display and exhibits from the country's foremost scientific laboratories.
A broadcast studio is being fitted up, and radio stars will present their programs in view of the show visitors. Included in the local stations to broadcast these features will be KYW, WGN, WLS, WENR and WMAQ. Artists to appear will include Amos and Andy, Uncle Bob, Mike and Herman and the Salerno brothers. Jack Nelson, pioneer Chicago announcer and director, will be in charge of the programs.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1928
KSTP PURCHASES FIRST RADIO TELEVISION RECEIVER
Keeping abreast of the scientific! development in radio, KSTP, the National Battery station of St. Paul has purchased and assembled the first television receiving set in this section of the country.
The television set is entirely different from the picture receiver previously installed by KSTP to test results of its picture broadcasts, inaugurated three weeks ago. The new apparatus reflects images about one inch square like on a motion picture screen.
The basic mechanical unit of television is the Nipkow disc resembling a large phonograph record on edge and behind this is the Neon receiving lamp. A speed regulator and an image recorder with a frosted glass and lense completes the equipment. The magnifying lense through which the image of the picture is enlarged is arranged so that a group of people can see the result.
The KSTP set is not being used to pick "sights" out of the air as yet, due to the distance from Washington and Schenectady stations so sending out such signals, but as soon as [possible the] receiver will be used to test the results.
The National Battery station transmitter at Westcott, Minnesota, was so built as to permit the insallation [sic] of television transmitting equipment immediately following the development of this step in radio to the point where there are a reasonable number of receiving sets in listeners' homes.
(Marion, Ind., Daily Chronicle, Oct. 10)

PHOTO BY AIR IS FASTER THAN IS TELEVISION
The present status of television and picture broadcasting is well summarized in the survey made by Edgar H. Felix, New York expert for the Federal Radio Commission.
"Picture broadcasting differs from television," Felix reported to the commission. "No recording is attempted with television. The observer looks directly at light impulses controlled by the radiosignal. A complete image is reconstructed by the effect of persistence of vision. The entire image must therefore be repeated each sixteenth of a second. This fundamental limitation accounts for the crudeness of television and the vast ether space required to send an image having more than mere curiosity value.
"The use of sensitive paper for collecting images employed in picture reception overcomes all of the problems of television and accounts for the fact that television is limited to laboratory demonstrations conducted principally as a means for releasing blatant publicity while picture is spreading quietly from city to city and into the homes of countless experimenters.
"Several television or radio motion picture transmissions are in progress or projected on the broadcast band. This meritorious development work should be encouraged, but, when regulation is considered from the standpoint of the average listener, the respective stages of development of the two arts must be considered. It might be a service on the one hand to restrict the hours that television broadcasting is permitted and to permit unlimited broadcasting of still pictures. It is therefore worth while to consider the position of the two respective arts.
COMPARISON OF DEVELOPMENTS
"Picture broadcasting is already developed in practical commercial form; television is still an experiment offering an uncertain result. The parts for making picture receivers are on the market at reasonable cost, about that of a five or six tube home-built receiver. Any experimenter who was able to build his own set (more than 2,000,000 have done so in the United States in the last five years) can build up the simple three-tube outfit which constitutes a picture recorder.
"The improvement in clarity and detail of still picture transmission is about two thousandfold and accounts for the fact that a useful picture may be transmitted by Rayfoto while television is still limited to silhouettes of outlines, where the most that can be hoped for is a recognizable close-up of a single face.
Picture broadcasting may be received with an ordinary radio receiver. The listener requires no re-equipment of a substantial nature. He has most of the devices necessary to receive picture broadcasting. For the reception of television of the limited 24-line type special studio amplifiers must be built which will respond readily to the rapid frequency changes involved. If more than 24-line pictures are attempted the listener must purchase a new shortwave receiver and the Federal Radio Commission must establish a television band of considerable magnitude on short waves. (Evansville Courier)

Ayres, Malinoff and Rasche, now dancing in “Luckee Girl,” at the Casino Theatre, will perform before the television broadcasting camera tonight. It is expected that several hundred television receivers now in operation will tune in. They are among the first stage artists to test the invention. (Yonkers Herald)

Television Machine C-J Show Feature
You no doubt heard of television. You have probably read about this revolutionary advance in the field of radio. But you have never seen the remarkable machine which permits you both to see and hear the performer and performance? Not in Evansville.
The management of The Courier and Journal Radio Show which opens Wednesday evening [10] for three nights of radio demonstration and entertainment holds the distinction of securing the first television machine ever to be exhibited here.
So you may inspect this marvel at close quarters and carry away a better mipression [impression] of the very latest development in radio when you have visited the show.
As Evansville is too far away from any station broadcasting television, the radio show announces it will not be posible [sic] to demonstrate the television machine in action. However it will be possible to tune in on station WGBF and what music looks like in pictures (Evansville Courier)

MAY PUT TELEVISION IN SHORT WAVE CHANNELS
By ALEXANDER R. GEORGE
Associated Press Feature Writer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (AP)—The ultra-enthusiastic televisionist dream, of the day when a fan sitting in an easy chair before an open fire in his home or club will watch a world series or a football thriller reproduced on a screen by radio.
The radio scientist, reluctant to predict achievements greater than the current development of the art warrants, is usually more modest in his expectations for radio “sight.”
One of the biggest problems from the standpoint of the commission is the selection of wavelengths most suitable for picture transmission which will not greatly curtail other important radio services. Most radio men are of the opinion that the short waves are best adapted for television. With the increasing demand for these waves for aircraft, ships and other communication purposes, the assignment of bands 40, 50 and 100 kilocycles wide, such as is required for worthwhile television must be restricted, government engineers say.
For adequate television service of permanent interest to the public, channels 100 kilocycles wide are essential, Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, told the commission when he applied for 20 channels of that width. The commission now has about 20 applications for television channels.
Commissioner O. H. Caldwell, however, reports that he saw a demonstration in a New York laboratory of two men boxing, fencing and swimming, the transmission coming with “fair clarity” over a band only 40 kilocycles wide. Some stations have broadcast very small pictures on a channel 10 kilocycles wide in the broadcast hand.
The transmission of the pictures is accompanied by a series of buzzes and whistles in the aural receiving sets tuned to that wave. This interference of visual broadcasting with listeners presents another problem to the commission which believes serious encroachment on aural broadcasting should not be allowed.
To prevent interference with other services, the engineers of the commission plan to recommend the segregation of television to a special band of channels in the short wave spectrum. With the development of new devices and the perfection of equipment, the engineers hope that television service of value to the public can be given eventually on narrower channels.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1928
Simplicity of Operation Is Seen In Investigation Of Home-Built Set
PITTSFIELD, Oct. 11—The simplicity of television, in the face of its many problems before it can be put to popular use, is brought out in the following description of a home-built outfit that has been used for the reception of television plays broadcast from WGY at Schenectady.
The apparatus was built by G. Camilli, an engineer at the Pittsfield works of the General Electric company, and is described by a fellow engineer, A. Boyajian. It is very much like the apparatus designed by Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, inventor of television, and used at the recent television demonstration at Schenectady.
“The outfit looked like a small motor-driven grinding wheel, except that the wheel was a thin black disc,” says Boyajian. “The source of light was mounted in back of this disc and there was a large magnifying lens on the other flat side of the disc.
Tiny Spot of Light
“We were told to look through the magnifying lens. The screen was black except for a tiny spot of light. A switch was turned on, and the motor started spinning the disc. The tiny spot of light began to move across the black background and traced a bright line on it then another spot came and traced another bright line just below the preceding one; then another line and then another until it got to the bottom of the screen.
“As the disc spun faster and faster, these bright lines, instead of appearing successively, began to appear simultaneously, so that the entire screen was illuminated by a series of bright lines. As the disc gained greater speed, some patches like clouds appeared on the miniature screen, moving very fast and across the field.
“We are approaching synchronism now,” said Camilli. “As soon as we get exact synchronism, the picture will stay on the screen and be clear.
“Reaching a rheostat, he turned the knob gently. These patches began to move slower and slower across the screen when finally at exact sychronism they stayed on the screen.
"We craned our neck closer. There was the head of a person, fair forehead, black eyebrows, dark eyes, a little crooked nose and lots of cheeks, making faces at us, as real as though looking face to face.”
Trouble to Overcome
That’s all there is to television reception—outside of a few difficulties that may require years to iron out, says Boyajian. For instance, there's synchronization, which means keeping both the transmitting and receiving discs revolving at exactly the same speed.
Then there are fluctuations in the electric current which moves the image back and forth on the screen and tends to blur it. To this is to be added distortion introduced in transmission.
Yet television compares favorably in its simplicity with the complex apparatus Boyajian invented 17 years ago.
“It consisted of a multiplicity of selenium cells,” he recalls, located in the squares of a sending screen, a corresponding multiplicity of receiving lamps located at the squares of a receiving screen, a corresponding multiplicity of transmitting sets and wavelengths and a corresponding multiplicity of receiving sets, each square having its own sending and receiving station and frequency of transmission.” (R.J.A., Scranton Republican, Oct. 11)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1928
Can See Pastor
Miss Cora Dennison, 4157 Clarendon avenue and James Fowlkes of Kansas City, were principals last night [13] in what was heralded as the “first television marriage.” They were married by the Rev. Gustav A. Kienle of St. Luke’s Evangelical church, 62d and Green streets. The minister stood in a radio studio [WIBO] at Des Plaines, Ill., while the bride and groom murmured their responses before a crowd at the radio show in the Colesium.
Dr. Kienle, with the help of television, could see the couple and hear them. They, listening to the marriage service, could see the minister.
The bride was an employee of the Bismarck hotel which provided a huge wedding cake for the supper following the ceremony. (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 14)
NEW COMPANY ORGANIZED TO OPERATE STATION WKEN
Formation of the Great Lakes Broadcast System, Inc., to operate radio broadcasting and radio television was announced Saturday. The new corporation has been organized to take over the time of Station WKEN and has state charter rights for television broadcasting, according to Dr. John Richelen, Kenmore, one of the stockholders.
There has been no change in organization of WKEN by formation of the new company, majority of stock still being held by Louis P. A. Eberhardt of Kenmore. Louis K. Eberhardt is president of the radio station. Other stockholders in the new concern which has 800 capital shares of no par value are Mrs. Ethel Wyllie and James A. Elve, both of Kenmore. (Buffalo News)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1928
LIGHT AND POWER SHOW FOR 10 DAYS Annual Exhibition.
Will Be Opened In Grand Central Palace, Wednesday; Companies Show Wares
With a display of thousands of electrical appliances, including the very latest in labor saving and health making machines, the 21st annual Electrical and Industrial Exposition will open at the Grand Central Palace on Wednesday, October 17, for a 10-day exhibition, ending Saturday, visitors October 27. More than 200,000 visitors are expected to attend this year's show.
The first three days will be given exclusively to the trade as the first electrical trade show ever held anywhere. Contractors, wholesalers, retailers and others engaged in the electrical business throughout the United States will here have an opportunity to inspect the latest products of the manufacturers. The new show is an expansion on a national basis of the annual electrical show.
The show will be open to the general public beginning Saturday morning, October 20. Television will be demonstrated daily through the assistance of Radio Station WRNY and the courtesy of the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn. Visitors at the show will have an opportunity to be televised.
The apparatus will be the same as used in the first public demonstration of television, which drew crowds at the recent radio show.
The showings will be just the same as if the subject were being televised from a distant point, as in the case of the images now being broadcast regularly at Station WRNY.
A glass enclosed broadcasting studio will again be in operation on the third floor where the public can watch programs being broadcast by Station WRNY, and hear through amplifiers erected outside the studio. Each night from 6 to 7 o'clock a contest will be held for singers, speakers, musicians and others who have never gone on the air before. The best contestants will be selected to enter the final contest on the closing night, when judges will name four winners for $50, $25, $15 and $10 prizes. (Yonkers Herald)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1928
Television Limitations Are Emphasized in R.M.A. Report
By R.P. Clarkson
NEW YORK—There are now in the United States approximately 640 radiocasting stations, ranging in power from five watts up to a permitted maximum of 50,000 watts. These are only the stations in the so-called “broadcast band” which officially extends from 199.9 meters to 545.1 meters, but is commonly spoken of as the 200 to 600 meter band. Many of these stations have “short wave” associates, or companion stations which send out on wave-lengths below 100 meters the same programs, at least during certain hours.
Any television reception by the general public at the present time involves one of two things. Either the sending of images must take place within the 200 to 600 meter band or the public must buy special television receivers. If the sending of television images should be done in the radiocast band, it is admitted that most of the up-to-date receiving sets could be used for reception, and in place of the loudspeaker one would merely plug in a device to make the signal visible instead of audible. For the experimenter, this can be done.
However, the number of stations which are sending images is small, the results to date are crude and difficult to receive, the apparatus to create the image is cumbersome, and involves moving machinery which in turn requires electrical connections entirely apart from the set. Incessant attention is required for the instant to instant regulation of the device, while no one device can be used except for the particular station it matches, so that there can be no possible appeal to the general public.
The first step in any wide, general development of television will be for the establishment of sufficient transmitting stations so that a purchaser, wherever he may live, has at least one possible program he can tune to. And, of course, he would prefer a choice. Then, instead of the very few minutes occasionally given to a radiocast at present, there would be radiocasts of such length at to permit some degree of enjoyment. It is also obvious that there must be a standard adopted by the various stations which will permit a receiver to be used equally well on all of them. Otherwise, there can be no nation-wide use of sales of television receivers.
Transmission Widely Varied
At the present time, so far as the general public is concerned, there are only two stations attempting anything approaching consistent television radiocasting. These are WGY at Schenectady, on a wavelength of 379.5 meters, and WRNY in the New York area, on 326 meters. There are short waves carrying these programs also, as follows:
2XAL—New York, 30.9 meters.
2XAD—Schenectady, 21.96 meters.
2XAF—Schenectady, 31.4 meters.
In addition there is 3XK near Washington, D. C., operating on 46.7 meters, and carrying a program of dancing shadows or silhouettes, transmitted from a film, a sort of miniature moving picture in a rather simple form. There are several stations in the middle West contemplating this type of radiocast this winter.
At one time WLEX of Boston on 62.5 meters and 1XAY on the same wave had regular schedules, but they have been discontinued. Also WCFL, in Chicago on 61.5 meters has been radiocasting as has also 8XAV of Pittsburgh on 62.5 meters, and both continue.
In all cases the hours devoted to this type of radiocasting are few and the time subject to change. In the New York area, there are daily five-minute periods at various hours. The Schenectady radiocasts are of half hour or full hour duration several times a week.
Even aside from the widely different receivers necessary to get every one of these radiocasts, ranging as they do from 379.5 meters to 21.96 meters. it would be necessary also to have different television apparatus, for the different stations send their images at different speeds, and the images themselves are of different “screens” or numbers of lines corresponding to the screen of a half-tone production. At present the screens used are either 24 or 28, or approximately that. WRNY is using 14, and the Chicago station 25. The Schenectady radiocasts are 24 and the rest are 48, which bids fair to become the most popular. The speeds range from 450 R. P. M. at WRNY to 1260 at WGY. This means from about 8 pictures per second to 21. The usual “movie” is 16 per second.
In spite of those pioneering stations, most of whom are carrying on this work either to gain experience and knowledge against the time when television actually arrives, or to aid in the encouragement of experimentation, there is no general tendency for radiocasting stations to enter this field. In fact, it is a question whether the Radio Commission will permit the stations now indulging to continue, except as suggested by one of the commissioners, it be done after midnight.
Cause of Lack of Interest
It is the unsuitability of the radiocast band which is largely responsible for such lack of interest on the part of most of the television radiocasters and is largely responsible, also, for the poor results on the part of those who have taken up the matter. This arises from the legal separation of stations by only l0,000 cycles. The effect of this restriction is to limit the frequency transmitted from any station to 5000 cycles, because even Galli-Curci’s highest note will not reached 1500 cycles and the overtones of a violin of its harmonics will be of little power above 5000 cycles. For television purposes, however, a frequency limitation of 5000 cycles immediately makes impossible either quality or action. If 16 pictures per second are transmitted, no one picture can be made up of more than 312 impulses or dots. Assuming a square picture of even an ordinary newspaper cut, the maximum size possible would be about one-quarter of an inch square.
By using a single sideband, and thus utilizing the entire 10,000 cycles, the area would be doubled. By reducing the action to the flickering stage of the old movies, and being satisfied with a quality poorer than the crudest of the printer’s work, one can secure an image 1¼ inches square.
In one or two instances, for demonstrations only, the Radio Commission has granted permission to ignore the legal limitations and fair results have been obtained in an image about three inches square. It can be demonstrated that this size is about the limit that can ever be reached with a good image showing moderate action, using the rotating disk system without a multitude of receivers.
Ignoring any difficulties to be overcome, however, it is certain that even 20,000 or 40,000 cycles separation of stations will not ultimately suffice. That means television must go down to the short waves. (Christian Science Monitor)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1928
TELEVISION BROADCAST PROGRAMS NOW SENT OUT DAILY BY CHICAGO STATION
Technicians Fast Putting New Invention Into Home; Carter Company Making Parts for Set to Plug Into. Radio Receiver and Draw Power From Socket.
THE marvels of television are very much in the spotlight, from the eagerness with which re- [missing sentence] on the newest developments in this field are received. Scientists, radio engineers and laboratories are focusing their skill on television, seeking to simplify it for common use.
Not since the birth of radio broadcasting has any scientific development been greeted such flights of fancy and conjecture as television. Apparently our sense of romance in comforts and luxuries has not been dulled by the magic parade of electricity, movies, radio, automobiles, industrial chemistry and aviation. It is well to stop and take stock of the status of this budding new division of the radio industry.
Although as yet comparable in results with our experiences with radio eight or ten years ago, technicians are applying to television the experience they gained from the radio industry in the last ten years. They have accelerated the progress of this new art so rapidly that it will be placed in the home in less time than was music by radio.
Regular Wave Bands Used.
The vast field of opportunities television offers is indicated by the entrance into it of one of the largest and oldest radio parts manufacturers—the Carter Radio company of Chicago. Believing the first requisite in establishing television on a sound basis to be the development of the right kind of broadcasting equipment, the Carter company installed a unit of this apparatus in Chicago. Unlike most other systems, which are operated on short waves, the Carter transmitter broadcasts television over the regular wave bands that broadcast receiving sets tune to.
The trial test of television reception, as broadcast by Carter through the WCFL Chicago station, was received at a point three miles from the transmitter: Although the receiving apparatus was of the laboratory type—rather crude in appearance—the results were good. One could plainly see the facial expression of the subject who was standing before the photo-electric cells in the WCFL studio. The expression of his face, the movement of the lips and action in wiping his face with handkerchief plainly visible by looking at the little spot about two and one-half inches square on the receiving scanning disc. Radio parts manufacturers and distributors who attended the test were of the opinion that here was the advent of a vast new period of activity in radio and the art of home entertainment, according to Lloyd Edison Back in the September issue of the Chicago Commerce.
Another novel test was staged when a giant tri-motored Ford plane soaring 3000 feet above the Chicago television successfully, picked up the television broadcast from the WCFL transmitter.
The Carter company has just installed more advanced equipment in station WIBO, Chicago, whence television broadcast programs are sent out daily. Only a few nights ago, for the first time in television history, voice and pictures were broadcast simultaneously on one wave band.
The heart of the system is the magic photo-electric cell. Briefly, this is what takes place: An intense beam of light from an arc lamp passes from right to left through a whirling perforated disc, the successive beams falling on the subject's form. As the reflected light beams fall on the four large photo-electric cells, minute photoelectric currents are produced. These currents are then highly amplified, passed on to the transmitter, onto the antenna and into the air on a carrier wave.
Image Can Be Magnified.
This wave is then intercepted by the radio receiver very much as music is now received. This intercepted signal then amplified through a special amplifier or through the regular audio amplification department of some commercial receivers, and passed on to the Neon tube. This is the television receiving tube and is distinguished by two small plates on which the image is impressed. This tube is placed behind a receiving scanning disc, which is rotated at exactly the same speed as the transmitting disc by a synchronous motor.
The reproduced image is seen by looking through a diaphragm ni [in] front of the whirling disc at the spot where the Neon tube is located. The visible image is ordinarily about two and inches square, but can be magnified to larger dimensions by the use of lenses installed in front of the television receiver.
The Carter company is in the process of manufacturing parts for a receiver consisting of a Neon lamp, scanning disc and motor properly installed in an attractive cabinet. It is designed to plug into the average good radio receiver, socketing its power from the light socket. (The Sunday Oregonian)

Abey Owns Two Sets
The only two television receiving sets in Fort Worth belong to Bob Abey, radio dealer and service expert, an associate member of the Institute of Radio Engineers. He is frank in stating that his results in experimenting with the devices are very unsatisfactory and that since he purchased the receivers in June no satisfactory images have been received. He still is experimenting, however, and believes that in time better results will be obtained.
Abey says his chief troubles are short wave ''jumping" and scanning disk (screen) synchronization. Explaining “jumping," he said that this merely is keeping the receiver “tuned in" properly on the transmitting station. The matter of synchronization with the transmitting station lies in keeping the scanning disk, of 48 apertures (screen 48), revolving at the same rate of speed as the transmitting apparatus. In other words, if the disk ought to revolve 960 revolutions per minute, any quickening or slowing down of the electric motor driving it will cause distortion of the image. This necessitates, Ahey says, the use of a rheostat to control the speed of the motor. The operator must watch the image—a rheostat in his hand—and constantly correct faulty images. The tubes in the receiver are Neon gas filled.
Abey believes that it will be at least three years before television enters the realm of the practical. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram Oregonian)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1928
A NEW GIANT IS CREATED
R. C. A., K-A-O and Film Booking Office Join Forces
The amusement industry has a new giant to-day, a new consolidation, the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation, which brings one step nearer to actuality what was, a few years ago a wild dream—television entertainment.
The new combination places the powerful Radio Corporation of America and its two subsidiaries, R. C. A. Photophone, Inc. and the National Broadcasting Company, in a commanding position in the amusement world.
Keith-Albee Orpheum controls 700 theatres. The National Broadcasting Company offers the best available talent and experience for making programmes, and the third member of the new group, Film Booking Office Productions, provides facilities for producing films.
While talking pictures constitute the primary production aim, the alluring financial possibilities in broadcasting programmes, already held technically possible, are regarded as factors which will lead to immediate experiment with television.
Thus, within a few years, a single show may be shown simultaneously throughout this and in England, or even on the continent.
Heading the new group as chairman of the board of directors is David Sarnoff, vice-president and general manager of the Radio Corporation. (Brooklyn Times-Union)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1928
Board Clears Ether for Good Reception of Election Returns
FRIDAY, OCT. 26—(AP)—Because of the “widespread public interest in satisfactory reception of election returns,” the Federal Radio Commission today took steps to insure clear reception conditions from 8 p. m., Nove. 6 to 12 o’clock noon, Nov. 7.
Each amateur and experimental station, including television sets, was asked to cease operation during the period “if and to the extent that each station causes interference with reception from broadcasting stations.”
Broadcasting stations not entirely engaged in sending the returns were requested, so far as consistent with the carrying on of necessary communications, to conduct their stations with the minimum of interference.

Tube Takes Place of Disc in New Television Set Up
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26 (AP)—Transmission of 20 pictures a second, without moving mechanical elements, is accomplished by a new television process devised by Philo T. Farnsworth, 22 year old inventor of San Francisco.
The scanning discs at transmitter and receiver of other systems, which must be synchronised to revolve in unison, are done away with. Instead electron beams are produced by cross vibrations to form an image on a fluorescent screen at the receiver.
The entire picture or image of any object that is to be transmitted is reproduced almost instantaneously, with 8,000 elements or “pin points” of light in each picture to give detail. The number of elements can be increased indefinitely, but at the present stage of development the sharpest image is obtained with that degree of detail. It is equivalent to a newspaper half-tone with a 100 line screen.
The system is built around a special dissector cell. This is a vacuum tube containing a cathode coated with photoelectric material, preferably potassium or caesium hydride. The picture is focused on this plate which at every point gives off electrons to proportion to the light shining on it. These electrons form an electric counterpart of the image cast upon the plate.
The electric image is produced in the plane of a tiny aperture which collects at one instant only the electrons having a single emitting point on the cathode. Therefore when the electric image is stationary a current is produced in the output of this tube which varies in magnitude with the light incident on perhaps the center of the cathode plate.
This electric image may be moved magnetically over the collecting aperature, so that the aperature receives in succession and in regular order the electrons from each point on the cathode plate.
Synchronizing involves generating two currents at the receiver identical to those at the transmitter used for scanning or breaking the image into pin points of light. This synchronization is automatic.
The transmitting tube is about the size of an ordinary quart jar. The receiving tube containing the screen is no larger.
The inventor estimates that the receiving apparatus could easily be attached to an ordinary receiver and manufactured to retail at $100 or less.
For the last three years Farnsworth has been perfecting his system to the Crocker Research laboratory, his efforts being financed by two San Francisco businessmen, R. N. Bishop and W. W. Crocker.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1928
WRNY TELEVISION SCHEDULE OPENS
Immediately following the public demonstration at New York University, Aug. 21, of the television system developed by the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company, television transmitting, using this apparatus, was put on regular schedule over WRNY, the Coytesville (N. J.) station of Radio News. Television will be transmitted from this station during the first five minutes of every radiocasting hour.
The images transmitter by the Pilot system, according to the engineers present at the public demonstration, are remarkably clear and steady, faces being as easily recognizable as those of the average newspaper half-tone. The images have the pleasing quality of a fine wood cut, being made up of horizontal lines. (Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 27)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1928
Television Broadcasts
LEXINGTON, Mass., Oct. 30. (AP)—Radio station W1XAY announced today that it would start regular television broadcasts today at 3 p. m. Radio pictures will be broadcast daily from 3 to 4, excepting Saturdays and Sundays.
The broadcast will be sent out on a wave length of approximately 4850 kilocycles, or 62 meters. A 48-line picture will be used on a disc doing 900 revolutions a minute, the disc being driven by synchronous motors.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER, 31, 1928
GENERAL ORDERS OF THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION
Regulations governing picture and television transmission (General Order No. 50, October 31, 1928).—Picture and television transmission for general reception by the public will be referred to herein by the commission as picture broadcasting and television broadcasting.
Picture broadcasting and television broadcasting will be permitted (but only upon written application to, and formal authority from, the commission) on frequencies above 1,500 kilocycles, the exact frequencies, or bands of frequencies, to be determined by further order of the commission.
Between the date of this order and January 1, 1929, picture broadcasting and television broadcasting will be permitted to a limited extent (but only upon written application to, and formal authority from, the commission) in the broadcast band between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, subject, however, to rigid conditions designed to prevent interference with the reception from broadcasting stations. Among such conditions will be the following: (1) That the band of frequencies occupied by any such transmission shall be not wider than 10 kilocycles, and (2) that such picture broadcasting and television broadcasting be limited to period of not more than one hour per day at a time of the day other than between 6 and 11 p. m.
The extent to which picture broadcasting and television broadcasting in the broadcast band of frequencies will be permitted to take place after January 1, 1929, if at all, will be determined by later orders of the commission, which will depend on investigation by the commission of the results of permitting such operation with respect to interference and the popularity of such transmission with the general public, and will further depend upon the interpretation which the commission shall be advised is proper of the obligations of the United States under the International Radio Telegraph Convention of 1927, with respect to permitting anything other than telephonic transmission in the broadcast band.