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).