Amateur TV By the Bay

San Francisco’s first television station was KPIX.

Well, not quite.

It was the first commercial station, authorised by the FCC in October 1946, but the Bay area had a number of ham radio operators who experimented with television. The first to get on the air was Clarence Navarre Wolfe, Jr.

Associated Broadcasters (KSFO), the American Broadcasting Company (KGO) and the San Francisco Chronicle all had construction permits in 1948 and hoped to begin broadcasting that year (KPIX succeeded, the others debuted in 1949). As the newspapers covered the race to get on the air, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin noted in its Dec. 18, 1948 edition there already was a TV station sending out a signal. It was under Wolfe’s amateur radio license, W6JDI.

Wolfe was a third-generation California, born in San Francisco on June 17, 1913. By 1920, the family had moved to Burlingame where his father ran a hardware store. The younger Wolfe was employed for a time by the police department, and built its first two-way radio system at age 21. During World War II he supervised the installation of the Fire Control Radar for the sixteen-inch coastal guns for the Harbor Defense of the U.S. Signal Corps., from the Canadian border to the Mexican border. He eventually opened his own radio shop and stayed in business for 52 years.

He was granted the W6JDI license at age 16.

Here’s the Call-Bulletin’s feature story, with photos.

An Amateur In Burlingame
By HUBERT J. BERNHARD
"Gwendolyn" has been pulsing through the skies over San Francisco since last May, but only during the past month has she been seen outside of a weather beaten backyard building in Burlingame.
For "Gwendolyn" is a television image—the broadcast "trademark" of Clarence Wolfe Jr. and amateur station W6JDI-TV — and only since early November have there been sets in the bay area geared to receive her.
"For a long time," Wolfe recalled today, "we were sending to the wind. There was no one to know about it, and no one to confirm how far our signals were going.
"But we were on the air—and doing what we'd hope to do from the start. W6JDI-TV was the first station to broadcast television in northern California."
First Televiser
The 35 year old Burlingame radio amateur and wartime Army radar instructor, did more than that with his home-engineered and self-built equipment. He was, so far as he knows, the first amateur in the nation to broadcast the standard television image as defined by the Radio Manufacturers of America.
"We put out the regular image of 525 interlacing lines per picture and 30 pictures per second," he explained. "That means we maintain a broadcast total of 15,750 lines per second and produce the same visual clarity as a commercial station."
Wolfe, who was aided during a large part of the project by Les Seabold, a United Air Lines employe of San Carlos, began receiving postcards a month ago from television owners who had seen Gwendolyn.
The first was from Bob Melvin, of 50 Halkin lane, Berkeley, and shortly afterward others came in from Vallejo and Oakland.
"We know we've been picked up at least 30 miles away, and there's no telling how much farther our signals are going," he reported.
Not everyone who owns a television set can see "Gwendolyn," Wolfe added, because she is broadcast in the 429 megacycle band reserved by the FCC for amateur experimental work.
Receivers geared for the commercial band between 75 and 200 megacycles must have a converter to receive Wolfe's broadcasts. That, however, is no problem to dyed-in-the-wool radio "hams."
"There are several ways to convert," Wolfe pointed out. "One of the simplest is to buy a radio altimeter from war surplus and hook it up to your set. That will do it."
Wolfe, who operates the Broadway Radio and Record Shop in Burlingame, built his transmitter largely with parts he had accumulated during 16 years as a short-wave radio amateur.
'Used' Image
Beginning from scratch, he estimated, the parts would cost about $2,000, although his expenses were considerably less.
The Burlingame amateur, whose station is behind his home at 1517 Howard avenue where an 80 foot tall multiple antenna transmits his signals, designed all of his own circuits.
"Gwendolyn," herself is the chief store-bought item in the setup. She is the head and shoulders image of a girl stamped inside a monoscope he bought third or fourth hand long ago. Wolfe doesn't know who she is, or who first put her in the "bottle" for experimental television purposes.
He plans to complete a camera—or iconoscope—within the next few weeks, so that he can transmit living images as well as the anonymous picture.
W6JDI—TV, on which Wolfe started work two years ago as a hobby, got the jump on commercial television broadcasting in the bay area by a wide margin—but the regular stations won't be far behind. KPIX, for instance, plans to start regular programming of television on Wednesday night, December 22, and to continue on a constant schedule of 14 hours a week, plus sports events, from that time on. . . .
KGO-TV, the second station to get on the air in the bay area, doesn’t plan to send “test pattern” images until January, but hopes to schedule regular program transmissions after that.

The Call-Bulletin doesn’t mention the Chronicle station. Fancy that.

The story sparked interest in publications catering to hams and electronics lovers. Edward P. Tilton, in the June 1950 issue of QST, provided an excellently-researched article entitled “Amateur Television—A Progress Report.” In it, he outlines the prohibitive cost for amateurs of buying an iconoscope tube until 1940, and then the war getting in the way of development. More importantly, Tilton reveals there were other local hams doing the same thing as Hap Wolfe. Here is that portion of his story. (Don’t ask me to translate the ham jargon. I am a radio announcer, not an engineer).

TV in the Bay Area
Perhaps the first amateur to put a standard RMA television image on the air was W6JDI, Burlingame, Calif., who was transmitting a monoscope test pattern as far back as May, 1948. In November of that year he was received successfully by Bob Melvin, W6VSV, Berkeley, a distance of 25 miles or so. The W6JDI transmitter was a pair of 8012s operating on about 423 Mc., modulated with the RMA standard 525-line picture, interlaced 2 to 1, making it receivable on a standard home television receiver with a 420-Mcs. converter.
The work of W6JDI was featured in the San Francisco Call-Bulletin of December 16, 1948, with the operator, Clarence Wolfe, jr., receiving attention as the first person to transmit television successfully in the Bay area. His work antedated the appearance of commercial television in that region by about 9 months.
He was followed in December, 1948, by W6WCD, San Francisco, who was also being received in Berkeley by W6VSV. W6WCD was transmitting a 26214-line noninterlaced signal, 60 frames per second. He started with a modulated-oscillator r.f. section, changing soon to crystal control.
The first live pictures were transmitted by W6VSV, in March, 1949, using an RCA 5527 iconoscope and an f 1.9 lens in the camera equipment. Bob also started with a 6J6 oscillator, changing to an 832 tripler, with crystal control, eventually followed by an 832 amplifier, on 423 Mc. He uses 262 1/2-line noninterlaced scanning, at 15,750 and 60 cycles. The picture is receivable on home TV sets equipped with 420-Mc. converters.
Pictures are clear and stable, despite the lack of a sync generator. Bob has built a sync generator, but he feels that this complex equipment (his has some 30 tubes) is not required in amateur work, the receiver locking nicely on the blanking pulses. Indoor shots are made easily using two No. 2 photoflood lights. Best DX for W6VSV-TV is W6GCG, San Mateo, who receives the picture over a path of some 25 miles.
A particularly interesting feature of W6VSV’s transmissions is the combination of sound and video on the same frequency. His transmitter oscillator is frequency-modulated slightly, to give an f.m. deviation of about 20 kc. at 420 Mc. The video is grid-modulated a.m. Using a standard TV receiver there is no ill effect on the picture quality from the frequency modulation for the sound. The audio is picked up by a separate 420 Mc. receiver having f.m. detection. A 923-A surplus job is used for receiving the sound, and no video modulation is present in any type of f.m. receiver that has a satisfactory limiter to remove the video a.m. Alternatively, the sound is transmitted separately on 144 Mc. The equipment of W6VSV has been used in a number of successful demonstrations at hamfests, schools, and public meetings of various kinds.
Another Berkeley TV enthusiast is Milton Cooper, W6QT. Milt also uses a camera with a 5527, using circuits provided with the tube, but with minor changes. His camera design is similar to that of W6VSV, except that the latter has his in several units, while the W6QT camera is a single assembly. The transmitter r.f. section is an SCR-522, with the output stage tripling to 432 Mc. This drives two additional 832s as cascaded amplifiers. The second 832 straight amplifier adds considerably to the output, and the stability is good. This is occasionally used to drive an APT-5 cavity oscillator which has been converted to amplifier service, running 100 watts input.
Other TV stations actually on the air in the Bay area include W6RXW, W6UOV, and W6VQV. W6MTJ, W6AQV, and W6WGM are working on TV gear, and others are expected soon. W6UOV is working on a tripler-amplifier using 4-X150-A tetrodes, with the hope of putting out a more powerful TV signal. Antenna systems used in the TV work are mostly 16-element jobs, with horizontal polarization.
W6JDI was profiled as well in a fine article by Andrew R. Boone in the August 1949 issue of Popular Science. Click on the link if you’re interested in the subject.

Whether Hap Wolfe broadcast live pictures isn’t mentioned in these articles. Nor can I tell you when he stopped televising, though he renewed his W6JDI license through the decades.

He had other interests, too. He was a president of the San Mateo Philatelic Society, a member of the San Francisco Architectural Heritage Society, and involved in local church work; a son-in-law was a Doctor of Divinity. Wolfe was 89 when he passed away in Burlingame on Sept 18, 2002.