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.