December 1929

In 1929, there were technical developments in the advancement of televisions, new stations were being granted licenses in the United States (at least in the Midwest and East), but it wasn’t like you could walk into an appliance or department store and buy a TV set. Hobbyists banged them together from parts at home.

However, in December the Jenkins Television Corporation, which was running W2XCR, decided the time was right to manufacture them. Jenkins’ sister station in Passaic ran tests of a sound system the same month. The two would later unite in broadcasting before splitting apart as the Jenkins operation moved into New York City and hooked up with WGBS.

At the same time, Philo T. Farnsworth hooked up with investors in San Francisco, who announced they would have a set on the market. Over the next number of months, the company made headlines by making the exact same announcement several times. The company never got out of the Depression.

And the people at Bell Telephone were working on a colour system.

Below is a summary of some television news in the final month of 1928. There were plenty of other stories which either said a) television is around the corner, or b) television is not just around the corner. We’ve skipped them in the highlights below.

The blog, incidentally, has chronicled television news from May 1928 to when CBS shut down its station in Feburary 1933. We pick up news from May 1939 right through to the end of 1947. There is so much news in 1948, it’s impossible to chronicle it except on a daily basis and the research would take too long, and I have lost one of my research sources anyway. We will post on the first four months of 1939 and a few other things that have been banked.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1929
TELEVISION WILL SOON BE MERCHANDIZED
Apparatus Is Being Made by Jenkins Television Corporation
From behind the closed doors of the research laboratories, television will step out before the general public. D. W. May, Inc., of Newark, N. J., has signed a contract with the Jenkins Television Corporation of Jersey City, whereby television receivers and kits will soon be merchandised in the extensive local territory covered by the television broadcasting station W2XCR, of Jersey City.
"The television equipment which we are about to demonstrate," states D. W. May, "will be unique in that present sight and sound together—synchronized pictures and sounds, complete, by means of the usual standard radio receiver and the special television receiver. There will be two broadcasting stations, one for the sight signals and the other for the sound signals, employed. The apparatus to be demonstrated will not be of a special laboratory character, as in demonstrations heretofore made by others, but, rather, will be of the simple, inexpensive type applicable to the usual home. In short, we feel that home television is just around the corner and we are pleased to pioneer in this field just as we have pioneered in broadcasting from its very inception." Announcement of the combination sight and sound broadcasting demonstration, to be held in Newark, will be made shortly. The demonstration will be open to the public. (Bayonne Evening News)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1929
KEMPER TO BUILD NEW INVENTION
Kemper Radio Corporation, Ltd., has completed negotiations with Television Laboratories, of San Francisco for the manufacture and sale of television sets which are said to have, been perfected to the point where they can be placed upon the market for practical use in the home within a moderate price range, according to a statement issued yesterday [7] by W. W. Charles, president of the Kemper company.
The instrument is described as one extremely simple which will reflect a picture in natural colors in an exact reproduction of the subject.
Philo T. Farnsworth of Provo, Utah, a youth still in his twenties, is the inventor. The Kemper company, which is the largest direct-selling radio organization In the United States, proposes to place the instrument on the national market in conjunction with its radio receiving sets through its own chain of factory branches.
A meeting of stockholders of the company will be called soon to authorize an increase in capital, according to Mr. Charles, who said that arrangements have been made with New York brokers to establish an over-the-counter market in the company’s stock. Present capitalization, which is to be increased to $1,000,000 under present plans, consists of 100,000 voting trust certificates and 200,000 shares of common stock, each of $1 par. The stock is now listed on the New York Curb Exchange. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 8)

Blonds Given Break In New Television
NEW YORK, Dec. 7.—(A.P.)—Blonds are coming into television in their natural colors in the latest step of the Bell Telephone laboratories toward producing pictures in color.
In earlier apparatus the blues showed well, but blond shades were darkened. This disadvantage applied particularly to persons of dark or tanned complexion.
The invention that gives truer values to yellow shades is described in a report to the Optical Society of America by H. E. Ives of the Bell laboratories. It is a new kind of photo-electric cell, which uses sodium instead of potassium as its active color registering coating.
In the new color apparatus the natural shades are picked up by a battery of 24 photo-electric eyes, two of them receiving through blue glass, eight through green and 14 through red. The numbers show the relative sensitiveness of the cells to colors. Blue still is the strongest.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1929
Station WGBS of New York has asked permission of the Radio Commission to engage in television transmission from 1 to 6 a. m. daily. (Hartford Courant)

RADIO COMMISSION MADE PERMANENT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 (AP)—The Federal Radio Commission was given indefinite life as an independent government agency today by Congress.
A senate bill extending the commission's to administer the nation's facilities until other provisions are made by congress was passed by both houses and sent to the president.
There was no opposition to the proposal in the house. In the Senate, Senator McKellar (Dem., Tenn.) attempted to amend the bill by Senator Dill (Dem., Wash.) to restrict the life of the commission to May 1, 1931. The amendment was rejected by 42 to 33.
After Senator Watson the republican leader, explained to the Senate that President Hoover favored setting up of the commission permanently, the measure was passed without a record vote. Chairman White of the House Merchant Marine committee brought up his measure providing for the extension and before he had an opportunity to discuss it his colleagues gave their unanimous approval under suspension of rules.
Later, after the Dill bill was reported to the House and it was found that it provided for an engineer for the commission, to be paid $10,000 a year, with two assistant engineers at $7,500 a year each, White succeeded in obtaining unanimous action on it.
The measure then was sent to President Hoover.
Under the existing law the commission would have lost its administrative functions Dec. 31, 1929, and reverted to an advisory group under the Commerce Department. The commission was established as an administrative body in 1927. Its life has been extended twice, each time for a year, to take care the increased problems of radio transmission.
President Hoover recommended in his annual message to Congress the commission be made a permanent regulatory body. It has granted 21,000 transmitting licenses a and deals with increasing problems of power limitation and division of time among radio broadcasting stations, in addition to controlling the use of short waves of point-to-point communication, television and other points of radio transmission.

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1929
New Air ‘Talkie’ Station Now On Every Evening
Down it the very bottom of your dial, or below the 200-meter limit or the usual broadcast band, there is a new station to be tuned in. It is W2XCD, which turns out to be the experimental radio telephone station of the De Forest Radio Company at Passaic, N. J.
On Tuesday evening, Dec. 17, Station W2XCD first went on the air with a test program, using only 50 watts. Reception with good loud speaker volume and excellent tone quality was reported as far as Philadelphia. The power is to be increased until the full 5,000-watt rating granted in the license is attained.
Station W2XCD broadcasts on a wave length of 187 meters, or 1,604 kilocycles, from 8 to 10 o’clock every evening. In the near future this station is to be used to transmit the sound accompaniment for the Jenkins radiomovies or radiovision picture transmitted from W2[X]CR at Jersey City. The combined reception of sound and sight siqnals at the home end, by means of a standard broadcast receiver and the special radiovision equipment, will constitute synchronized sound pictures, or radio talkies. A demonstration of this complete radio entertainment is to be made in Newark, N. J. early in January. Both stations are now on the air every day, except Sunday, from 8 to 10 p.m.
It is interesting to note that 10 different makes of standard radio receivers have been capable of tuning in the signals of W2XCD on 187 meters. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 29)

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1929
Practical Use of Television Shown in a New York Test
By C. E. BUTTERFIELD
Radio Editor, Associated Press Feature Service
NEW YORK, Dec. 20.—(AP)—Some possibilities of television, including the transmitted reproduction of a newspaper, were demonstrated in a laboratory today.
A newspaper was held before the television “camera,” and a reproduction, faint but recognizable, was seen in the receiver. Large headlines could be read. Printed pictures lost much of their detail, but retained enough so that men and women could be distinguished.
The demonstration, conducted in the New York laboratories of the Baird Television Corporation, included the transmission of a closeup of Mayor James J. Walker, June Collier, actress, and two entertainers, Manuel Compinksi, violinist. and Lucille Keeling, soprano. Prhotographs of President Hoover, Col. Charles A. Lindbergh, former Governor Alfred E. Smith and Ambassador Charles G. Dawes, held before the transmitting machine, were reproduced in the receiver.
Another device, a "telereader,” with words printed on a wide tape, also was run before the transmitter enough so that it could be read at the receiving end.
Capt. O. G. Hutchinson, representative in this country of the John L. Baird interests of England, said the demonstration was given to show the progress Baird, pioneer British inventor, has made toward practical television.
The pictures today were not sent by radio. Wires connected receiver and transmitter. However, Captain Hutchinson said that the same success has been obtained in radio transmission in England and Germany; that plans were under way to go on the air in Ireland, France, Australia, Africa and Japan.
He said application had been made to the federal radio commission for permission to conduct television experiments on the broadcast channels in America during the evening hours. At present television is restricted to the hours between 1 and 6 o'clock in the mornings, except on short waves.
The experiments, he added, were to be made to demonstrate that television had reached the stage where it could be considered a factor in radio entertainment.



SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1929
SHORT WAVE TELEVISION RECEIVER USING A. G. POWER ANN
A special short-wave radio receiver employing a non-regenerative detector, has been developed by the engineering staff of the Jenkins television Corporation of Jersey City, with a view to securing the best possible radiovision results, it was announced Saturday [21]. The receiver is of the A. C. or socket-power type, and includes its own power pack with a 280-type rectifier. It makes use of one stage of tuned screengrid r. f. amplification, followed by a special band pass filer. This feeds a 227 type non-regenerative power detector, which in turn feeds a two-stage resistance-coupled amplifier employing 224 screen-grid tubes. The final or power stage is a 245-type power tube.
The Jenkins short-wave receiver, has a single tuning control, volume control and coupling control. Its range is from 100 to 150 meters, or covering the present television wave length assignments. Due to a special resistance network in the audio-frequency amplifier, it amplifies uniformly over a range of from 15 to 30,000 cycles, as against the best broadcast receiver which amplifies from 100 to 5,000 cyc1es.
The receiver is intentionally less sensitive than is usually the case, so as to reduce the background level to a minimum.
Woman Enters Field.
Whatever doubts may yet persist with regards to the advent of practical radiovision, or radio television in the house, are now dispelled by the appearance of the first television program director. Miss Irma Lembke bears that proud distinction.
Miss Lembke will have charge of the Jenkins radiovision programs flashed from our two stations, W2XCR in Jersey City, and W3XK just outside of Washington.
She is a graduate of the Emerson School of Oratory of Boston, and is exceptionally well fitted for the important assignment of building up the showmanship end of the new art. Miss Lembke is studying the possibilities as the limitations of our present technique with a view to planning and directing the most interesting radiovision programs.
She is the first radio worker to have the combined facilities of sight and sound in her presentations, for sound is available to the radiovision programs, both for the announcements and also for simultaneous sound effects if necessary. As radiovision develops rapidly into a national interest paralleling sound broadcasting, there will be many television program directors, but Miss Lembke must always enjoy the honour of being the first in her craft.
New Kit Announced.
For those interested in radiovision more from the experimental and technical end than the program end, yet nevertheless anxious to start out with good pictures rather than lose precious time in dabbling, a solution is promised in the form of the Jenkins radiovision kit.
According to D. E. Replogle, treasurer of the Jenkins corporation, a simple, practical and inexpensive radiovision kit is about to be placed in production. In marked contrast with the Jenkins home radiovisor, in its self-contained cabinet, the kit comprises an exposed assembly of components mounted on an aluminum chassis, fully exposed to view. The assembly comprises a scanning disk, a special form of synchronous drive, a neon lamp, an enlarging lens, framing devices, and motor regulator. The scanning disk is mounted on a ball-bearing steel shaft, so that little power is required to drive it. The power is furnished by unique form of Faradayeddy current motor, so that automatic synchronization is obtained when working on the same power system as the transmitter. The scanning disk and motor are said to be silent in operation.
The Jenkins kit is to be offered at a popular price. Its open construction permits any kind of mounting the may be preferred. Also it permits of whatever variations and alterations the experimented may desire, while insuring a sound foundation from the start. (Atlanta Constitution, Dec. 22)

Broadcasting Studio Plans For Television
Television broadcasting facilities will form part of the new broadcasting studios which will be erected atop the new Littmann seven-story building at Broadway near 39th st., in New York City, it was announced yesterday [21]. Several modern studios outfitted with acoustic walls and ceilings and provided with proper wiring and lighting for both television and radio broadcasting, will be utilized for future Littman presentations over the air.
Preliminary experimentation to determine the proper setting for televising the Mountainville True Life Sketches, now broadcast from WABC each Monday at 7:30 o’clock have begun in the main studios of that station. There a miniature theater has been erected with all real stage settings including a pit for the orchestra. The players are outfitted in full costume. Thus the stage is completely set for television. At the present time invited visible audiences are permitted to view the production as it goes on the air. The “Tiny Tots Theater of the Air,” as the miniature theater has appropriately been termed, accommodates well over 300 people.
The new Littmann studios will be modern in every respect. They will be equipped with power control panels and latest designed microphones. Central lines will terminate in the control room, enabling the sponsor to route his programs via any New York local station he desires.
Under present arrangements 14 programs each week will emanate from the new studios. One of these being the Mountainville True Life Sketch while the other 12 will comprise programs of the latest dance hits as portrayed by “Milt” Shaw and his “Detroiters” Orchestra assisted by Byron Holiday, tenor, and Helen Richards, contralto, as well as other outstanding novelties.
Another innovation at the new studios at the Littmann store will be the provision made for large visible audiences to witness the broadcasting. Seats similar to those in a modern playhouse, will be installed upon graded flooring, giving all a complete view of the broadcasting stage.
The building in which the new Littmann studios will be located is now under construction in the block between 30th and 40th sts., on Broadway, on the easterly side. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 22)

MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1929
The first public demonstration of radio talkies or talking motion pictures flashed through space, and made available for the average home, will be given today and tomorrow at the Lauter Piano company’s store in Newark. The set to be used is a Jenkins radiovisor. Demonstration programs are being broadcast daily from the Jenkins television station, W2XCR, in Jersey City, and the DeForest experimental radio telephone station in Passaic. The programs originate in the Jenkins studio using synchronized films and sound recordings. (Nick Kenny, New York Daily News)