W6XIS and KDYL

Attempting to settle when a TV station first went on the air can be a challenge. There are test transmissions. Then there is a regular schedule of test transmissions. Then there are transmissions containing programming. And that’s if the information is recorded somewhere.

This brings us to W6XIS. Well, actually it brings us to KDYL.

KDYL was a radio station in Salt Lake City that decided it wanted to broadcast pictures, too. So it did. Here’s what the Salt Lake Tribune of Sept. 16, 1939 had to say:

S. L. Will See Television Tests Tonight
KDYL, NBC Invite Public to Demonstration
Arrangements for the first in a series of television demonstrations to be given during the next two weeks, beginning Saturday evening at the Park company, 28 East Broadway, were completed by television and radio engineers Friday night [15].
One of the first public demonstrations of its kind in the United States, the television show will formally signalize completion of an extensive renovation program at the Paris company, officials stated Friday.
Many thousand dollars have been spent in remodeling the store's interior and exterior. An entire new facade has been completed after several weeks' work.
In cooperation with KDYL and the National Broadcasting company, the first demonstration will be given Saturday from 7:30 p. m. until 10 p. m. on the second-floor studio especially constructed in the store.
Will Explain Method
City, state, church and other dignitaries will participate on the program, in addition to a variety show including dancing, musical numbers and an explanation of the revolutionary radio development by John M. Baldwin, chief engineer for KDYL.
Among those scheduled to speak on the program are the Most Rev. Duane G. Hunt, bishop of the Catholic diocese of Salt Lake; President Heber J. Grant of the L. D. S. church; Rabbi Samuel H. Gordon of Temple Israel; The Very Rev. Franklin L. Gibson,-dean of St. Mark's Episcopal cathedral; The Rev. Jacob Trapp, minister, First Untarian [sic] church; Herbert A. Snow, president of the Salt Lake chamber of commerce; Major John T. Zellers of Fort Douglas; City Judge Reva Beck Bosone; S. O. Bennion, Hamilton G. Park, LeRoy D. Simmons, Earl J. Glade, S. S. Fox, E. F. Dreyfous, Frank C. Carman and Mrs. Elizabeth M. Felt, only surviving member of the original company of the old Salt Lake theater. David N. Simmons will be master of ceremonies.
First Time in S. L.
The program will originate in a special studio on the second floor. From there, television sets will transmit by direct wire to six portable receivers scattered in various parts of the store, affording visitors an opportunity to see the radio image for the first time.
At 9:30 p. m., the sound program will also be broadcast over KDYL. President Grant will speak, and a series of dramatic sketches depicting various periods in western history will be presented. By means of television sets in the store, visitors will see styles of each period modeled to the accompaniment of music typical of each period.
The public also will be able to witness the broadcast procedure through glass panels in the studio.
After the initial show Saturday night, a daily program for two weeks will be "telecast" from 11:30 a. m. until 4:30 p. m. in the store.

This wasn’t a true television broadcast with a signal being sent out over the air. The story makes it clear this was a closed-circuit affair; there were a number of these happening in various parts of the U.S.

However, the owner of KDYL, was serious about television and applied to the FCC for a license. The Deseret-News reported on Nov. 17, 1943:

Television Station Sought By KDYL
Application for permission to operate an experimental television station has been filed by the Intermountain Broadcasting Company—operators of KDYL—with the Federal Communications Commission, it was announced today. S. S. Fox, president and general manager of the corporation, said the station will begin the broadcasts as soon as permission is granted. Receiving sets will be placed in several downtown areas for daily one-hour broadcasts, he added. Range of the broadcasts will be about five miles.

This was at a time when almost all television had been curtailed as the war sucked away all the electronics the industry needed. The application seems to have sat there. Then the weekly NAB Reports reported on Sept. 29, 1944 about the following application:

NEW — Intermountain Broadcasting Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah — Construction permit for a new experimental television station to be operated on Channel #1 (50004-56000 kc., A5 and special emission. Amended to also request Channel #17 (282000-288000 kc.) with power of 50 watts (200 peak) for visual and 100 watts for aural.

“Experimental” wasn’t enough. A new application was revealed by NAB Reports of Oct. 27:

NEW — Intermountain Broadcasting Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah. — Construction permit for a new commercial television broadcast station to be operated on Channel #1 (50000-56000 kc.).

This gets confusing as Intermountain had two applications—one for a commercial station (KDYL-TV) and one for an experimental station (W6XIS). The Deseret-News of Dec. 30, 1944 reported:

S. L. To Have Television Testing Station
The Itnermountain [sic] Broadcasting Corp. of Salt Lake has been granted a permit by the Federal Communications Commission for construction of an experimental television broadcasting station, it was announced today. The permit to the Intermountain firm, which operates radio station KDYL, will provide for the first television broadcasting unit between Chicago and the Pacific coast.
"KDYL has been interested in television for five years and this license justifies our experimental work in what we feel will be the great postwar industry." said S. S. Fox, president and general manager of the corporation.
Mr. Fox explained that KDYL had bought a standard RCA boradcasting [sic] unit with a number of receiving sets in 1939 and has been making laboratory experiments since then preparatory to obtaining this license. The equipment originally produced a 441 line picture but KDYL's technical staff, under direction of John M. Baldwin, has converted it to the current standard of 525 lines.
Mr. Baldwin said the experiments so far had been conducted without radiated waves but that with the granting of this license the station expects to undertake transmission of television waves early in the spring.

The red tape gets a little confusing from here. The next development was an FCC Board decision on May 17, 1946 to grant a permit to build a commercial station to operate on Channel 2. But then on July 3, the FCC “re-instated” a construction permit for W6XIS to operate on either Channel 2 or Channel 9 and to move the proposed transmitter.

Here’s an update from the Dec. 14, 1946 edition of the Deseret News, with a description of the experimental programming.

TELEVISION: Utah Station Experiments With New Media
By King Durkee
Activities are now under way that will see the telecasting of commercial television programs in Utah in the not too distant future.
Experimental telecasts are already being transmitted by KDYL, the National Broadcasting Company affiliate. Operating as experimental television station W6XIS, the present telecasts are purely of a technical nature, according to S. S. Fox, president and general manager of KDYL. Operation consists mainly of tests patterns and live views of activities in downtown streets as picked up by the television camera from the KDYL Playhouse windows on First South St.
That possible projection of films over the air might be in store for Utahn's even as early as the first of the year was disclosed by Mr. Fox who said the New York City manufacturer of a 16-millimeter television film projector held out prospects of being able to make delivery to the Salt Lake station early in 1947.
"Station KDYL has already been granted a construction permit by the Federal Communications Commission to build a commercial television station under the call letters KDYL-TV," Mr. Fox said, but added that "such an undertaking must await completion of current experimental work."
Mr Fox declared that his station's work with experimental television is the only such actitity of its kind in the Intermountain West. The station's telecasts are also unique, he pointed out, in that transmission is accomplished from the heart of the city faced on two sides by towering mountains.
Mountain Influence
"In their experimental transmission," the station executive said, "KDYL engineers are seeking to determine the effect of signal reflections from these mountains.”
Technically, he explained, this means the engineers must develop a signal strong enough to cover the broadcast area without a reflection strong enough to confuse or distort the television picture.
"Because the signal traveling directly to the home receiver has less distance to cover," Mr Fox said, "it will reach the receiver a fraction of a second ahead of the reflection which travels to the mountains and 'bounces back.' "
If the reflection or "bounce" signal doesn't virtually dissipate itself, he added, it will overlap the direct signal and give a fuzziness or out-of-focus effect to the picture.
"The work of engineers on this problem is expected to produce findings helpful to the industry in meeting similar problems elsewhere," Mr. Fox declared.
Television Tower
KDYL's broadcast tower atop the 16-story Walker Bank and Trust Company Building, tallest structure in the city, places the antenna 330 feet above Salt Lake's Main St., and in full command of the Great Salt Lake Valley.
"The two-bay turnstile, constructed by KDYL engineers, is identical in principal to the one designed by Dr. George H. Brown of the Radio Corporation of America Laboratories for the National Broadcasting Company on the Empire State Building in New York City," Mr. Fox said.
The station official also declared that the tower is built to accommodate an FM (frequency modulation) antenna.
Transmitter equipment in the penthouse on the Walker Bank Building roof was constructed in the KDYL laboratories under the direction of John M. Baldwin, technical director. The work was completed under war-time difficulties including shortage of parts and materials.
"A coaxial cable has been installed between the KDYL Playhouse at 68 Regent St., to the transmitter, and Mr. Baldwin expects to develop the film projection facilities in the playhouse," Mr. Fox said.
Mr. Baldwin reported that he was recently advised that the first hundred thousand television receivers built by RCA will be distributed in the New York and Philadelphia area, where successful television is already under way.
Television Sets
"RCA's second hundred thousand receivers probably will go to the Los Angeles area," Mr. Baldwin continued, "and Salt Lakers should be able to draw from that allotment, possibly by the middle of next year."
When the receivers are available, it was pointed out, KDYL's immediate aim will be to provide service only for Salt Lake City. Eventually, it was added, in order to extend service to surrounding cities, it will be necessary to locate a powerful transmitter on one of the mountains in the area.

The Salt Lake papers had very little in 1947 about local television, though some test broadcasts were reported. Broadcasting of Feb. 2, 1948 announced “experimental broadcasts will start this month.” But definitive word was published in the Salt Lake papers on March 17 that W6XIS would officially begin regularly scheduled experimental telecasts on Monday, April 19 at 8 p.m.

This is the Tribune’s version of the story the following day:

PICTURES ON THE AIR
Utah Notables Praise First Scheduled Telecast Show
Television—long heralded as one of the 20th century's major scientific strides—came to Salt Lake City Monday night.
Still not perfect, but a good barometer of what is to come, station W6XIS, operated by KDYL, went on the air with the first scheduled telecast in the intermountain area.
And with the phrase "We're on the air," many notables of the city and state, tensed for their first appearance on the new medium. The "cameramen" and technicians tensed also as the first sound and pictures were telecast.
Welcome Station
Gov. Herbert B. Maw, Mayor Earl J. Glade, Frank S. Streator, Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce president, and Dr. A. Ray Olpin, University of Utah president, were among those to welcome the station and participate in the program.
Gov. Maw noted that Salt Lake City is the 13th city in the United States to have regularly scheduled television. Dr. Olpin, no newcomer to the field since he specialized in electronics and television pioneering more than 20 years ago, spoke briefly.
All went smoothly on the initial broadcast. But just in case, the cameramen had a sign ready for emergencies. It read: "Oops, sorry."
Free Demonstrations
Besides Salt Lakers with television sets in their homes, some free demonstration shows to interested patrons.
Station employes watched the televised, program on sets in adjoining studios. Besides the speakers, news reels, travel films and "live" singers and players were televised.
Programs will be broadcast regularly each Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8 p.m. Test telecasts will be conducted Monday through Friday at 3 p.m.


The papers don’t provide any programme listings, though the Apr. 21st Deseret News mentions a local broadcast on traffic safety called “Your Chance to Lose” at 8:30 p.m. However, Variety of May 12 reported the station had something other experimental stations did not: commercials. (That issue, it was mentioned W6XAO in Los Angeles had been given 90-day approval to air spots). W6XIS’s programming highlight was kinescope highlights, documentary films and background from the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia that began June 21 that were flown to Salt Lake City. Large newspaper ads touted the LIFE-NBC coverage that could be watched from 3 to 4 p.m. at several stores (coverage resumed from 8 to 9 p.m.).

There was a channel change. Broadcasting magazine of May 31, 1948 reported the FCC had authorised KDYL-TV to move from Channel 2 (54-60 mc) to Channel 4 (66-72 mc) and increase effective radiated power to 14.5 kw.

Nat Berlin in Variety of June 22 explained the problems the new station was dealing with.

Pioneering in Smallest Center Yet, TV Finds It Tough Going in Salt Lake
When W6XIS, KDYL’s video outlet, hit the air six weeks ago with the first of its regularly scheduled telecasts, it was pioneering in the smallest population center yet to have television broadcasts. The teeoff was accompanied by plenty of fanfare, amid the presence of the usual brass from the governor of the state down. Public interest was high, and dealers around town reported satisfactory buying of sets.
Since then, interest has dropped, and set buying has slumped along with it. Programs not up to the standards set by AM or pictures, are blamed. W6XIS is on the air three times a week for about an hour each. Programs consist of a mixture of local productions and film. The film is old stuff, considered without enough interest to keep a family’s attention, and the local programs are basically not television. They’re AM with pictures.
(Difficulties encountered by the Salt Lake City station are indicative of those found by other stations opening up throughout the country, who don’t have access to network shows originating in N. Y. Solution to the problem, according to tele officials, lies only in providing better programming fare to keep the public’s interest at the high pitch engendered by the prebroadcast ballyhoo. Otherwise they point out, the consistent dropoff in viewer interest may result in irreparable damage both to the station and to the industry in general.)
W6XIS claims it hasn’t as yet completed its setup. According to Harry Golub, director, mobile units should be available by the end of June, and when they arrive a heavier schedule of outside telecasts will be used.
Tele faces two main problems in the Salt Lake City area. Because the valley is completely surrounded by mountains, the maximum potential audience, considering present population figures, is in the neighborhood of 250,000. This limits the market. In addition this area is not known for its spending and with video sets running from about $750 up, not too many customers are going to beat a path to the dealers. Right now there are about 200 sets in operation.
With a nut of about $300,000, W6XIS will undoubtedly do something to make the current picture a lot brighter. S. S. Fox is owner and general manager.
W6XIS is operating with a small staff, headed by Golub, former theater operator and outdoor show producer. The production staff has Dan Rainger in the program slot, Keith Engar handling production, Emerson Smith announcing, and Gloria Clark taking care of scripts.

Finally, everything was in place to drop the “experimental” moniker. Broadcasting magazine reported:

KDYL-TV Salt Lake City Makes Commercial Start
COMMERCIAL operations were commenced July 7 by KDYL-TV Salt Lake City, owned and operated by The Intermountain Broadcasting Corp., on Channel 2 (54-60 mc) with an effective radiated power of 4 kw visual and 2 kw aural.
The NBC affiliate, which is said to be the first commercial video outlet between St. Louis and the Pacific Coast, has been on the air experimentally as W6XIS since last April 19. Studios are located in Television Playhouse, 68 Regent Street, and the transmitter is located atop the Walker Bank building in downtown Salt Lake City.
Personnel actively engaged in operation of KDYL-TV are S. S. Fox, president and general manager; John Baldwin, vice president and technical director; Harry Golub, television director; Allen Gunderson, chief television engineer: Dan Rainger and Keith Engar, programming and production, and Gloria Clark, film librarian.

What’s maddening today is either the station didn’t provide, or the newspapers decided not to publish, the daily programme schedule. Stories got out, however. In July, the Democratic National Convention, the Gene Autry rodeo, the Days of ’47 Parade and, on the 29th, the first baseball game from Derks Field was put on the air (for Petty Motor, your friendly Ford dealer).

It’s difficult to say when the station gave up the call-letters W6XIS. They could still be found in local newspaper stories and ads as late as April 1949. But the papers still didn’t have any listings.

April 1939

Television made a significant and large leap forward in April 1939 with the start of regular service over NBC television.

Any claims that April 30, 1939 marked the start of television are pure fiction or NBC propaganda. It wasn’t even the start of regular television programming; W6XAO had been on the air in Los Angeles continuously beginning in late 1931.

But the corporate movers and shakers at RCA got in bed with organisers of the 1939 New York World’s Fair and were able to reap huge mounds of publicity for the revival of New York experimental station W2XBS.

We’ll have a story below about the big broadcast, but you can read about it in this post.

There was other television news that month. CBS was working to get its TV studios in place. Du Mont was putting sets in stores in the W2XBS viewing area, while applying to a license to construct a station. Philco, which had a license for W3XE, was spending its time on tour, showing off its broadcasting abilities. There were other closed-circuit broadcasts, such as one in Cincinnati, which did not get regular TV programming until 1947.

In Los Angeles, W6XAO was preparing to build improved facilities while KFI applied for a license; the station got on the air in 1948.

And the television station at the University of Iowa simulcasted with WSUI radio, generally twice a week for 15 minutes. What was broadcast is unclear.

Here is a selection of newspaper stories for the month. We have finished 1939 and will now go back to 1937.

Saturday, April 1, 1939
Television Perfect Sought For L.A.
WASHINGTON, April 1—(UP)—The May Department Stores Co. today after the Federal Communications Commission for authority of construct a television station at Los Angeles.

BURKE CROTTY, photo editor of NBC's press department, on April 1 is being transferred to the network's television production staff to become head of production on the mobile unit, with which NBC is experimenting with outside video pickups under all conditions of light and weather. (Broadcasting, April 1)

Sunday, April 2, 1939
Public Gets First Glimpse Of New Wonder On April 30
"Video Salon" To Be Mecca For Those Wishing To See Laboratory Prodigy In Action
By Robert Gray
WIRELESS was a big attraction at the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. Now, 35 years later, a promising offspring of Marconi’s scientific brainchild is to be a featured presentation of the New York World's Fair. Four weeks from today television makes its formal debut with opening of the Flushing meadows spectacle and all the mysteries of this new laboratory prodigy will be unfolded before public view. Large scale activities are planned for television at the Fair, with the focal point to be the special exhibit of Radio Corporation or America and the National Broadcasting Company. This is to be a Mecca for those seeking television knowledge.
From best accounts, this exhibit will be in a building shaped like a large radio tube laying on its side. There will be a "video salon," new name for a studio where pictures sent through the air can be seen on the screen of receiving sets. Too, there will be a television laboratory, typical radio living rooms of today and tomorrow, a "telemobile” which is a unit on wheels for remote picture pickups, a television camera, a model transmitter, and various types of receivers.
The "video salon" will be a place of lively interest, for there visitors will be shown television as it is re-produced in the home. A dozen or more models are to be arranged in semicircle rows and on the varied sized screens or mirrors of the varied sized sets may be when the programs being televised from the transmitter atop the Empire State Building. Included in the laboratory display will be the latest projection receiver, which can throw pictures on a screen measuring six by 10 feet.
NBC already has begun preparing the programs that the Fair visitors, and others in the New York area with television sets, are to see when the regular public service is launched April 30. Rehearsals began last week so that the NBC production staff will be familiar with the greatly changed television facilities in Radio City.
Pictures Reported 50 Per Cent Better
To incorporate improvements made during three years of experimental broadcasting, NBC has completely rebuilt its television equipment in Radio City and has made extensive alterations on the Empire State transmitters. Recent broadcasts reportedly are 50 per cent clearer than those of early televising.
Work on installation of the CBS transmitter atop the Chrysler Building also is nearing completion. It will cost more than a million dollars. Opening date for picture program has not been set by CBS, but engineers hope to have everything ready for a May debut. Then, Fair visitors doubtlessly will be able to visit a television exhibit shown by the Columbia Broadcasting System.
NBC’s plan is to provide 10 hours of picture programs daily when the regular schedule begins in four weeks. There will be presentations from the studios in Radio City sent over the Empire State transmitter, outside pickups made by the “tele-mobiles,” and motion picture films.
Despite protests from some quarters of the industry that television is not ready to leave the laboratories, television sets are to go on the market simultaneous with opening of the Fair. To be sure, they will prove useless to owners other than those living within the limited 50 miles-or-so range of the New York transmitters and they will be comparatively expensive. But they will be on the market, nevertheless.
One rather radical announcement in connection with television receivers was made in New York the other day by one George Wald, who says he has developed on attachment that will enable regular radio sets to pick up television programs. Giving no details, Mr. Wald said that he also has patents which will enable construction of television sets without the expensive iconoscope tube now being used. He promised a demonstration at an un-announced future date.
Engineers Believe Anything Possible
Engineers received the announcement with scepticism, but admitted that “nothing is impossible in television these days.” If Mr. Wald is not spoofing, his devices will eliminate expensive problems which now are weights around television's figurative neck.
Whether television will take as long as its forebear wireless to become of general use to the listening and looking public is a question which only time and the progress of engineers ran answer. But O. B. Hanson, NBC chief engineer, does believe that with opening of the New York Fair telecasting will be regularly under way and thereafter new devices must be perfectedl before they are tried out in actual service.
Thus, if you are going to visit the New York World's Fair, make it a point to visit the television exhibition for no scientific discovery is more symbolic of the “world of tomorrow," and that’s what the Fair is to represent. The television exhibit will give an idea of the medium of entertainment you will be using in your home 15 years or 10 years or maybe two or three years from now. (Memphis Commercial Appeal, Apr. 2)



Tuesday, April 4, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Wednesday, April 5, 1939
Roosevelt Slated For Television Role
President's picture To Be Transmitted When He Speaks At World's Fair
New York, April 5 (AP)—A President of the United States will be televised for the first time at the opening of the New York World's Fair, the National Broadcasting Company announced today. Transmission will take place on April 30 as President Roosevelt delivers the address at the fairgrounds which will start the exposition.
Coupled with the picture broadcast is the first program of the first regular television service by N. B. C. from its transmitter in the Empire State Building.
Signals will be relayed from the fair by mobile equipment to the down town transmitter and thence put on the air.

Friday, April 7, 1939
Television Is Not Ready, Zenith Informs Dealers
COMDR. Eugene F. McDonald Jr., president of Zenith Radio Corp., on April 7 addressed a notice to 60,000 radio dealers throughout the country in which he reiterated his view that television is not ready for the public since "even Government television standards are not yet established".
Comdr. McDonald asserted that Zenith's visual station, W9XZV in Chicago, is already operating daily as the only FCC licensed television outlet in the Chicago area. "Today Zenith's television receivers are loaned, not sold," he added. "Zenith is ready-but television is not.
Zenith believes it is unfair to the public and knows it is unfair to the dealers to ask them to finance the television industry's experiments. Radio dealers have been penalized and punished by premature television publicity starting last fall. Prospects were led to believe that television would cover the country overnight. Zenith will not break faith with its dealers. When Zenith believes television is ready for general use in the store and the home, Zenith will supply you with television receivers and not before."

Saturday, April 8
DuMont Plans to Build New Television Stations In New York, Washington
WIDENING of its proposed television activities was indicated by Allen D. DuMont Laboratories, Inc., Passaic, N. J., in applications with the FCC April 8 asking for new stations in Manhattan and Washington. At the same time, DuMont asked that its W2XVT at Passaic be authorized to add the 60,000-86,000 band and increase both its sight and sound power to 5,000 watts.
The applications ask for 1,000 watts on 60,000-86,000 kc. for a transmitter at 515 Madison Ave., New York, and for 1,000 watts on 42,000-56,000 and 60,000-86,000 kc. at 14th & F Streets in Washington. In addition an application was filed for a portable mobile television transmitter of 50 watts power, using the 60,000-86,000 and 156,000-162,000 kc. bands.
The DuMont organization, hitherto primarily engaged in the manufacture of cathode ray tubes, has the capital backing of Paramount Pictures. (Broadcasting, April 15)

Television Station Due in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES, April 8.—(AP)—After nine years of experiments, a non-commercial television station will be erected on one of the highest hills overlooking Hollywood, Thomas S. Lee, president of the Don Lee broadcasting system, announced today.
The company has practically closed a deal for a 20-acre site on a 1700-foot hill on the Mack Sennett estate for the station. Television engineers recommended a high elevation for best results in reaching San Fernando, Los Angeles, Glendale and other Pacific Coast cities.
There are several hundred television receivers within a 30-mile radius of the present Don Lee station in downtown Los Angeles, which supplies programs six days a week.
The Lee cathode-ray unit W6XAO operates on an image cycle of 45 megacycles. It is the only television station operating west of Kansas City.
No commercial programs of any kind are used. Instead, there are plays, musical numbers and brief lectures and vaudeville acts.
Lee said Harry Lubcke, his director of television, has perfected in nine years several inventions which will be adapted for use in the new location.

Sunday, April 9
Merit of Television Devices to be Studied By U.S. Commission
Report of New York Trip May Decide Question of Equipment Sale
By WILLIAM J. WHEATLEY.
Development of television now has reached a point where the Federal Communications Commission has decided to take a hand to determine whether it is time for the general public to begin investments in expensive receiving apparatus.
A committee of the commission, composed of Commissioner T. A. M. Craven, chairman, and Commissioners Norman S. Case and Thad H. Brown will leave tomorrow night [10] to visit several experimental Laboratories in Philadelphia, New York and vicinity to examine the apparatus and confer with technicians and experts as to the results they have obtained.
The report of this committee, which now has before it several applications for television stations proposing public programs, is expected to have far-reaching effect on the question of general presentation of television for public use. All television stations now are on an experimental license.
The pushing ahead of television with public demonstrations this year has led the commission to act, in order to prevent being caught between two fires. On the one hand are the manufacturers who have spent millions of dollars in experiments and are seizing an opportunity to capitalize on this expenditure, while on the other hand is the general public, which might be led into large expenditures for sets, only to have them junked within a few months because of the rapid changes which are now apparent.
Bar to Monopoly.
According to experts, there are many problems yet to be solved before television can be considered a public reality. One of the more serious is the absolute prevention of any one of the several systems attaining a monopoly. What is said to be little understood by the general public is that a television set, at the present stage of development, cannot be tuned from one station to another to get a charge of programs, as is done with the present sound sets. That is one of the matters which the committee is determined to look into this week.
It proposes to find out if any of the laboratories are working on a receiving device which can receive the pictures from all stations, regardless of the method of scanning the pictures.
Another problem before the committee is location of stations. Under the present stage of development, they must be 300 miles apart. Some method must be found for limiting their interference so the very small number of frequencies available can be distributed in as many as possible. There are only 16 channels now available, each channel being 6,000 kilocycles apart.
Projection May Improve.
The picture projection now, according to commission experts, compares favorably only with home movies of about 1926, but it is believed this will be subject to rapid improvement. That is the chief reason the commission is anxious to determine whether it is time now to permit the public to invest in the receivers without having full knowledge of what they are facing in losses.
On the other hand, experimenters who have spent much money in development of television to its present stage are anxious to get it before the public to stimulate investments.
The commission's action, of course, will rest on the recommendations to be made by the Television Committee, and it was indicated it may be necessary to an into public hearings to air all phases of the problem, possibly on a requirement that the experimenters be ordered to show definite reasons why television should be put on the regular license schedule in the near future. (Washington Star, Apr. 9)

Tuesday, April 11, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Thursday, April 13, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Friday, April 14, 1939
Sending Fingerprints By Radio Faces Test
Criminal identification by television will be tested next Tuesday night.
Television Station W6XAO of the Don Lee Broadcasting System announced it would broadcast enlarged photostatic copies of fingerprints from its Seventh and Bixel Sts. transmitter to a receiver at the Royal Palms Hotel where a group of police identification experts will view the results. (Hollywood Citizen-News)

Saturday, April 15, 1939
THAT Kansas State College of Agriculture & Science, Manhattan, Kan., pioneer television experimenter, intends to abandon the lower shortwave visual band and turn to the ultra-high frequencies, was indicated in an application filed with the FCC to change its W9XAK from 2000-2100 kc. to 42000-56000 kc. and reduce power from 125 to 100 watts. The only other licensees of the 2000-2100 band are W9XK of the University of Iowa, which also operates on the ultra-highs, and W9XG of Purdue U. (Broadcasting, April 15)

Philco Video Tour
PHILCO'S mobile television unit, first demonstrated in Miami, New York and Washington [BROADCASTING, March 15, April 1] is now on tour in what Philco Radio & Television Corp., Philadelphia, describes as its "television caravan." The itinerary included Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh and Cleveland in latter March and early April, and is scheduled for Detroit, April 18-21; Chicago, April 25-28; Milwaukee, May 2; Minneapolis, May 5; St. Louis, May 9. Demonstrations are given in collaboration with local distributors under the direction of Albert F. Murray, Philco chief television engineer, assisted by Charles Stec, Norman Young and R. J. Bowley. (Broadcasting, April 15)

Sunday, April 16, 1939
REHEARSAL FOR TELEVISION
Times Writer Gains Entrance Into NBC Television Studio During Rehearsal
By WILL BALTIN
—Telecaster—
Crashing the gates of the NBC television studio was next to impossible a few months ago. Even today the casual visitor to Radio City hasn't a chance in a million of gaining entrance into the small studio on the third floor of the RCA building. Radio City, where the production staff of NBC is busy at work preparing a schedule of telecasts to be sprayed from the RCA transmitter in the Empire State building to television set owners in the New York-New Jersey area, beginning two weeks from today.
It was, therefore, a pleasant surprise when Thomas H. Hutchinson, capable young production chief of the NBC television department, permitted the writer to make a brief visit to the studios a few days ago. The television studio, like its motion picture counterpart, is pammed [sic] to the hilt with flood lights, cameras, scenery, props, microphones, equipment for technicians and an abundance of other items that are essential for proper transmission.
The bright lights are not blinding, but they do send off sufficient heat to make one uncomfortable.
Our stay in the studio itself was short, for the hustle and bustle of activity in preparation for a program rehearsal was in full swing and standing room was at a premium.
Ushered into a small control room, we were confronted with one of the experimental RCA television receivers with a screen about 7 by 10 inches in size. Hutchinson explained that he views all rehearsals on the television receiver so that he may judge the results as they would appear in the home. Seated with us in the control room was a representative of the RKO organization, NBC television technicians and other staff members.
With the start of the program the room was darkened to permit better vision. Familiar NBC chimes marked the start of the transmission.
The rehearsal for the day concerned itself with the presentation of an O. Henry story, "The Trimmed Lamp," adapted for television by Thomas Sellers. Titles for the production were flashed on the receiver screen much in the manner of a motion picture. Reception was exceptionally clear — better than home movies.
The story concerned itself with two young girls, one money struck and the other aching for happiness in life. How they achieve their objectives and the joys and sorrows that ensue make for diverting television fare.
The actresses and actors participating were "new faces," not having gained fame either as screen or stage performers. Yet, they played their respective roles with such sympathetic understanding, that it would not be difficult for them to achieve stardom in television when the field becomes a commercial rather than experimental industry.
The production itself, however, was not without flaws. Camera angles at times were woefully lacking in symmetry, and the continuity might have been stepped up by a few directorial touches. It is to be presumed these flaws will be remedied when the production is ready for public consumption.
During the midst of the program, an unannounced guest walked into the control room and seated himself next to us. He is also a television enthusiast— Arturo Toscanini. Other guests who viewed the program in another control room at NBC were Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, famous playwrights. (New Brunswick Sunday Times)

Tuesday, April 18, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI..

WEEKLY TELEVISION SCHEDULE OUTLINED BY NBC NETWORK
By C. E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, April 18. (AP)—The weekly schedule for public television broadcasts finally has been outlined at NBC.
Besides two hours of studio presentations from 8 to 9 on Wednesday and Friday nights, there will be one or more pickups of outdoor scenes on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday afternoons as well as 23 hours of film transmissions a week. The films will be sent five days a week in 10 minute periods at 15-minute intervals. These periods will cover the hours of 11 a. m. to 4 p. m. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays and from 4 to 8 p. m. on Wednesdays and Fridays.
The opening broadcast, as has been announced, will be on April 30, starting at 12:30 p. m., mainly from the New York World's fair. It will include the opening parade and the opening address by President Roosevelt. The first of the scheduled broadcasts thereafter will be on May 3.

TELEVISING fingerprints as a police aid in rounding up criminals was successfully tested April 18 on the Don Lee Broadcasting System, Los Angeles television transmitter W6XAO. Experiment was conducted by Harry R. Lubcke, Don Lee television director. Fingerprints were flashed from the downtown Los Angeles studios and picked up by Long Beach, Cal. police, 30 miles away. (Broadcasting, May 1)

Wednesday, April 19, 1939
MONROVIA YOUNG WOMAN ON RADIO
A Monrovia girl. Miss Ruth Elliott, will go on the air tonight [19] in a television radio broadcast over station KHJ [W6XAO] at 8:30 o'clock when the play "Cloisters," written by Leota Summerhays, is presented.
Invited to present a play for this broadcast the Dionysians of Los Angeles chose the play by one of their members and Miss Elliott is one of the cast.
Dress rehearsal of the play which has been directed by a studio director from KHJ was held last night. (Monrovia News-Post)



Thursday, April 20, 1939
Television Launched Commercially With Broadcast From Fair
Program Service And Receivers Are Available to Public
NEW YORK, April 20 (AP)—The advent of television, long heralded as the beginning of a new American industry, was announced today by David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corp. of America, in a television broadcast from the R. C. A. Exhibit Building at the New York World’s Fair grounds. "Today we are on the eve of launching a new industry,” Mr. Sarnoff said, "based on imagination, on scientific research and accomplishment.
“We are now ready to fulfill the promise made to the public last October when the Radio Corp. of America announced that television program service and commercial television receivers would be made available to the public with the opening of the New York World's Fair."
Audience Watches Miles Away.
The ceremonies at the fair grounds were attended by a group of business and professional men who inspected the new commercial television receivers which go on sale this week.
Eight miles away, in the R. C. A. Building at Rockefeller Center, an audience watched and heard the ceremonies.
"It is with a feeling of humbleness that I come to this moment of announcing the birth in this country of a new art so important in its implications that it is bound to affect all society," Sarnoff said. "It is an art which shines like a torch of hope in a troubled world. It is a creative force which we must learn to utilize for the benefit of all mankind."
Various Models Shown.
The television models on display ranged from an attachment which reproduces pictures only and which plugs into a radio set for sound, to a large console type combination television and sound radio receiver, employing a 12-inch kinescope tube.
The attachment model is the direct-viewing type, showing pictures 3 3/8 inches deep by 4 3/8 inches wide, and the largest model reproduces pictures 7 3/8 by 9 3/4 inches in size which are reflected from a mirror in the lid of the cabinet.
Price of the television attachment will be about $175. Complete sight and sound receivers will be priced from about $300 to $800.

Friday, April 21, 1939
NEW YORK, April 21— (AP)— Television had something of a field day in New York yesterday [20].
Fifty minutes of pictures through the air, viewed by newspapermen were used by RCA to announce its first line of tele-receivers, to dedicate its building at the New York World's Fair and to herald what was described as "a new American industry."
Announcement of the tele-sets put them in the price range from $200 to $600, depending upon the type and whether they provide for both sight and sound.
The telecast itself was looked upon by engineers as further evidence that television no longer is "in the laboratory," for it contained scenes at the world's fair eight miles from the receivers, studio pickups that featured a three-round amateur prize fight, and motion pictures.
Reception was unusually good.
Regular program service for the New York public begins April 30 with another world's fair program, the opening address by President Roosevelt. (C.E. Butterfield column, April 21)

W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

DEVELOP SILENT CAMERA FOR TALKING MOVIES
(By Science Service)
Hollywood, April 21.—For the first time since sound motion pictures came into use more than ten years ago the motion picture industry has a noiseless camera which can be used inside a sound studio without any sound-proofing box, or "blimp" as it is known in the industry.
The new silent camera, weighing only sixty pounds, was described at the meeting of the Society of Motion Picture Engineers here by G. Laube of the Twentieth Century-lux Film Corporation. The monitor view finder truly conforms to the image being photographed on the film so that the cameraman no longer has to make allowances for palallax. The camera turret mounts four lenses which are quickly changed, while the entire camera is sealed from the action of sand, dirt or water.
It takes about twenty hours of time of one or more members of a dramatic unit to stage a fifteen-minute television play, the society learned from H. R. Lubcke of the Don Lee Broadcasting System here, which is now showing a dramatic comedy serial, "Vine Street," in thirty-two weekly episodes.
Here is what it takes to turn out a fifteen-minute program:
"Preparation of script; construction or modification of props and scenery; cast memorization of lines; cast rehearsal; camera-sound, sound-effects, light rehearsal with production staff; make-up; the performance itself, including visual-aural introduction of the act; the performance proper with overall supervision of lighting, microphone, and television adjustments by a television-producer at a distant receiver; closing announcement; written and verbal report of errors or advances in technic made during the performance."

'Television Girl' New Acquisition
Television girl, so-called, has been captured for the movies. She's Jane Webb, American girl, who went to England, and broadcast in the visual medium. Paramount has signed her to appear with Albert Dekker in "Dr. Cyclops." The deal was made in this country.
Miss Webb is the daughter of Dr. Basil Webb, playwright, and Estelle Webb of the Metropolitan Opera.
Incidentlly [sic], there are a growing group of "television girls," as a result of telcasts [sic] both in this country and Europe. (Los Angeles Times)
** This is not the radio and cartoon Jane Webb, whose parents were James Howard and Sigrid C. Webb. This is likely (Alice) Jane Webb who was a Powers model and contract player in the 1930s who died in Santa Rosa in 1985.

Monday, April 24, 1939
Newsmen Witness Television Demonstration In Studio And Out For First Time
BY C. E. BUTTERFIELD
Associated Press Radio Editor
New York, April 24—Television, both in the studio and out, was demonstrated for the first time to an annual meeting of the Associated Press this afternoon by the RCA-NBC system. The specially arranged visual broadcast was titled "Looking at Tomorrow."
From the studio came a picturized review of world affairs since Munich by Dewitt MacKenzie, Associated Press foreign affairs writer.
From outside, mobile equipment picked up scenes of news on the move directly from the Associated Press headquarters in its Rockefeller Center building. It was the first time that television had been utilized to depict history in the making as if it were a single news event.
Likewise, it was the first time that a mobile televisor had been installed in the Associated Press office to show the every-day activity in keeping a nation informed of news through 1,400 member newspapers.
The program, arranged by members of the AP staff in cooperation with the television departments of the Radio Corporation of America and the National Broadcasting Company, was transmitted through the NBC station in the Empire State Building to 20 receivers installed in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel several blocks away.
In visualizing Europe's story since Munich, AP news photos and selected motion pictures were combined for the studio presentation. Mackenzie, as narrator, gave a graphic recital of a worried world as he told of the search for peace by "the man with the umbrella"—Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain of Great Britain.
Immediately after the program in the Radio City studios of NBC, a switch was made to the fourth floor of the AP Building. There the viewers saw teletypes in action as they brought in news from Europe to complete up to the minute the events outlined by Mackenzie; other teletypes relaying the same story over the country; portable wire photo equipment transmitting the latest news picture; editors at their posts and other activties of a great news organization. The tour of the office was conducted by Announcer George Hicks.
The broadcast was concluded with a view of a teletype sending out a story of the demonstration itself.
To introduce the program and explain some of the items that make television a reality, Miss Helen Lewis of the NBC staff, as mistress of ceremonies, took the viewers behind the scenes in the studio with the aid of the electric' camera.
Coupled with the other "firsts" in the broadcast was the special installation of receivers in the Waldorf-Astoria. Never before had such a large gathering, numbering more than 300 newspaper publishers from all over the country, been handled at one sitting for a television program sent and received by air. Numerous technical difficulties had to be overcome by NBC and RCA engineers to make the demonstration possible.
In addition, the test was another of the preliminaries to regular television programs for the public in the New York area, to start next Sunday with the televising of President Roosevelt as he delivers the address opening the New York World's Fair.

Tuesday, April 25, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Television News
NBC's television department announces that it will present March of Time reels as part of its regular program schedule this Summer. The reels proved themselves to be mighty popular film items in NBC's experimental transmissions over W2XBS.
Since the reels are carefully compiled news events with running interpretative commentary, the film has the continuity that is desired in television. In addition, the releases ordinarily have many of the closeups and intermediate shots that televise beat over an all-electronic system.
Under the new experimental agreement the NBC television program department plans to use back releases in daytime telecasts over its transmitter in the Empire State tower to receivers at the New York World's Fair. Special releases will be used during the regular evening telecasts. (Jo Ranson, Brooklyn Eagle)

Wednesday, April 26, 1939
Television Demonstrated By Crosley With Special Program For Newsmen
BY JOSEPH GARRETSON, JR.
Radio combed its hair and powdered its face yesterday [26] as radio voices became at once living pictures on a screen.
The occasion was the first demonstration in Cincinnati of modern television, when the Crosley Corporation gave a special showing of its experimental television broadcasting and receiving equipment to newspapermen on the top floor of the 574-foot Carew Tower.
As reporters, editors, and radio officials moved in front of the camera and spoke into a microphone their actions and words were projected simultaneously on a receiving set in an adjoining room. Similarly, the camera and microphone picked up sight and sound on the observation Tower of the skyscraper front where faces and voices were relayed to the receiving apparatus on the floor below.
Since Crosley application for an experimental license has not yet been approved, in yesterday's demonstration pictures and sound were transmitted by wire rather than by radio waves, but video and audio transmitters are ready to go into action when the license is approved.
Lewis M. Crosley, Vice President, said the company now could broadcast television programs over the air and provide receiving instruments through which such programs could be received in a radius of about 28 miles from the receiving point.
But neither Crosley, nor anyone else, knows when the sending and receiving of such programs will become a reality.
Although radio companies have spent millions in television research, neither top officials nor engineers know what it all is going to amount to eventually or when.
The pictures in yesterday's demonstration were clear, but not so clear as good newspaper or magazine reproductions. The sound reception, of course, was of the same quality as present broadcasting.
To the very unscientific mind of this reporter it seems that the answer must be found to two difficulties before television can become a commercial reality.
These difficulties lie in the fact that broadcasts can be made for only a short distance (except at prohibitive cost) and the problem of finding enough suitable and economically feasible programs to broadcast.
Television waves travel as light waves—on a straight line—and they cannot bend around objects as can radio sound waves. This means that the broadcast range is limited to the immediate horizon and explains why Crosley, or any other broadcaster, could send only over a radius of about 26 miles. These television waves can be carried over cables from one point to another, but the writer heard estimates of the cost of this cable ranging from $25,000 to $75,000 a mile. Obviously, at the present stage of development, this would prohibit network television as it is now known in radio.
Then, even if these other obstacles did not exist, there is the question of suitable programs. As long as the broadcasting range of television is so limited, no broadcaster can afford to produce programs of sufficient visual interest to compete with the lavish productions of the stage or motion pictures.
In justice to television, perhaps it should be pointed out that a doubting public envisioned many "insurmountable obstacles" to the development of the steamship, railroad, automobile, airplane, and radio itself.
Officially, the company had this to say of television:
“It is the opinion of the company that television is an unknown factor and, in order to be prepared for any eventuality, it is our intention to keep abreast of the new science by research and development in transmitting and receiving equipment and training personnel both in the engineering and programing branches of the new art. As yet no plans have been formulated for broadcasting television programs.
"While our factory has already constructed a number of television receivers in its laboratory, no schedules have been made for their production. Neither have approximate retail costs been determined, nor have any plans for marketing the receivers been decided upon."
The Federal Communications Commission is now considering Crosley’s application for a permit to construct video and audio transmitters of 1,000 watts power each to operate on the 50-56 megacycle frequency television band. (Cincinnati Enquirer, Apr. 27)

Television For Nova Workout
NEW YORK, April 27.—Television entered the boxing game today following Lou Nova's "transmission" of three two-minute rounds at Radio City yesterday [26]. The recording was made on the third floor and witnessed by a large gathering on the sixth floor. Mike Jacobs of the Twentieth Century Sporting club, promoter of Nova's June 1 bout with Max Baer, was among those witnessing the "show." (Holyoke Transcript and Telegram)

Thursday, April 27, 1939
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30—Television program with radio station WSUI.

Friday, April 28, 1939
Television Test Enterprise Plans Revealed
Experimental Station To Be Constructed By Earle C. Anthony
The dream of Hollywood as a television center moved a step closer to materialization today with the announcement of Earle C. Anthony, Inc., of plans for construction of an experimental virtual broadcasting station.
The operator of the KFI and KECA radio stations has leased the 14th floor of the Bekins Van and Storage Building at Santa Monica Blvd. and Highland Ave. for the proposed broadcasting operations, Harrison Holliway, general manager of the radio division of the Anthony company, disclosed.
The lease includes use of two towers already atop the building one for visual and the other for sound transmission.
Lee System Expanding
The entry of Earle C. Anthony into the television field follows announcement recently by the Don Lee Broadcasting System of plans for expansion of its own visual broadcasting operations through the erection of a new transmitter on a 20-acre site on the Mark Sennett estate on the Griffith Park boundary. The Lee system is broadcasting daily experimental television.
Earl C. Anthony, Inc., last March 25 filed application for an experimental visual broadcasting station with the Federal Communications Commission for operation with 1000 watts on 42,000-56,000 kilocycles.
The proposed television program will be put into operation upon issuance of the Federal license and receipt of data on television standards to be presented in the Craven report, which is expected within 30 days, Holliway said.
High Tower Planned
The new television station will include the highest visual transmitting tower in Southern California, according to the Anthony officials. The station’s experimental program will be devoted to the compiling of information on coverage and listener-reaction, rather than technical research work.
"Exhaustive research by our engineers has indicated that this site is the most desireable for a television station in the metropolitan area because at the present time television’s effective limits are bounded by the natural horizon, or a distance of approximately 40 miles,” Holliway said. (Hollywood Citizen-News)

Television Programs
Here, there, everywhere, you hear the question: “What will television programs consist of?"
Gilbert Seldes, C. B. S. director of television programs, who sailed for England this week to examine B. B. C. television technique, has been asked this question at least a hundred times in the last month.
Seldes says it is difficult to predict anything about television programs because television covers part of the field of each of the arts with which it will be allied—motion pictures, radio, newsreels, stage, animated cartoons and many others. The programs will be varied as life itself, says Seldes.
"Since we are going to do a job without precedent," he observes, "we will have endless opportunities for improvement and error. Television programs even in the beginning will be divided into several distinct classes. Drama will be only one of perhaps a dozen elements.
"Television will work hand in hand with other forms of art from which it is basically different. It differs chiefly from stage or radio in having a special immediacy for the audience. Television goes directly into the listener's home, and, more than that, into his living room.
• • •
Family Problems
This peculiar quality of television, according to Seldes, creates one of the major problems of sight and sound programs. Being part of the family entertainment, it has to contend with family problems as well, such as junior hammering at something on the back porch, or mama arguing with Suzy about that hat she is not going to wear to that date.
"Maybe long plays won't be suitable for television, until children go to bed—if then,” Seldes said. "As a matter of fact, a new type of play may eventually emerge, short enough and striking enough to rivet the listener's attention to his television receiver, no matter what distractions may be around at the time. Movies will be used in studio work, but whether we will be able to use the regular feature movie, we don't know. We shall see."
Seldes predicts that television will work out a new type of show, just as radio programs were built up after years of experiment. Ten minutes will probably be the limit for an "act" on a television program.
"The lady who wrote that classic letter in 1931 telling us not to spy on her in her bathtub has probably become reconciled to television now. That's fine—because all we have to do now is to give American audiences a complete well-rounded entertainment in an absolutely new medium. That's all—and it's going to be good fun."
• • •
N. B. C. Schedule
Meanwhile, N. B. C. is readying its television program schedule effective the week of April 30-May 6. Call letters of the station are W2XBS, video frequency, 45.25 mc.; audio frequency, 49.75 mc. The following sight and sound programs will be transmitted to those possessing television receivers in the metropolitan area:
APRIL 30 (Sunday), 12.30 pm. to 4.00 p.m.—President Roosevelt, Grover Whalen and others in opening ceremonies of World's Fair. Program, originating at the World's Fair grounds will be televised by NBC mobile unit and relayed to Manhattan for broadcast. Review of opening parade will be included in telecast.
MAY 3 (Wednesday), 8:00 to 9:00 p.m.—Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians and Richard Rodgers of song-writing team of Rodgers and Hart, featured in first studio program. Composer will be at piano to accompany Marcy Written, of “The Bova From Syracuse,” in songs from Rodgers and Hart production. Program also includes Marjorie Clark and Earl Larimore in "The Unexpected,” dramatic sketch by Aaron Hoffman; the Three Swifts, Jugglers; a relay from World's Fair and Disney cartoon comedy, "Donald's Cousin Gus."
MAY 5 (Friday), 8:00 to 9:00 p m.—Mitzi Green, comedienne, in program presented from Radio City television studios. Other items: Josephone Huston in 'The Choir Rehearsal," musical piece by Clare Kummer; Roy Post, inventor of “lie detector," in demonstration of device, and Novello Bothers, comedy whistlers. (Jo Ranson, Broolyn Daily Eagle)

Sunday, April 30, 1939
W2XBS, New York
12:30 to 4 P.M., President Roosevelt Speaking at World’s Fair and Other Opening Day Ceremonies. (Video Frequency, 45.25; Audio Frequency 49.75). Special film of “Gunga Din.”

Magic of Television Brings Moving Pictures Of Fair Opening Into East Port Chester Home
Television—that big question mark of radio for the past few years—is here at last, and by here, we mean right here in the Port Chester area.
It was a memorable and historic occasion for that small group which gathered yesterday afternoon [30] at the home of William Hoisington at 88 Henry Street, East Port Chester, to witness the first official television broadcast in history.
Comparable in significance to that day back in November, 1910, when the radio "craze" first started, the event left no doubt with even the most skeptical that television has at last.arrived and has opened up a new field with apparently boundless possibilities.
Long interested in radio, Mr. Hoisington was one of the first to recognize the fact that television was not just a myth—it some day was to become an actuality.
Builds Own Set
The fruits of his study and labor on the subject were rewarded yesterday when, through the medium of his home-made set, he presented the entire “telecast" of the opening of the New York World's Fair.
Flashed on a screen four inches wide and three inches deep, the pictures were amazingly clear and it was hard to realize that these were actually slight waves being broadcast much the same way sound has for many years.
Not only were sweeping panoramic scenes of the exposition grounds shown by the NBC television camera, but scenes at the speakers' stand, where President Roosevelt, Governor Lehman, Mayor LaGuardia and. other dignitaries helped open the fair, were presented also. It was easy to distinguish between the various speakers although the images were comparatively small because the camera was so far away.
To the thrilled group who crowded the radio room on the second floor of the Hoisington home, the broadcast was just about as much fun as actually going to the fair. As the camera was shifted about the Myriad of people, buildings and bunting stood out clearly, as did the trylon and penisphere.
Only 100 Sets Tuned In
It was estimated that from 100 to 200 receivers were in tune throughout the Metropolitan area and that possibly 1,000 persons looked on.
Mr. Hoisington did not complete assembling his set until yesterday morning but it worked perfectly throughout the day, the only hitch being occasional interference from the ignitions of passing cars, which blurred the pictures.
The East Port Chester radio enthusiast, who is associated with a radio dealer in Greenwich, revealed that his set cost about $200 to build. The parts arrived last Monday and he had the task of assembling scores of parts in order to tune in on yesterday's first telecast. Some idea of the detail may be gleaned from the fact that he had to hook up 58 resistors, 35 condensers and 11 volume controls.
The heart of the set is the picture tube, which costs $27.50 and which actually screens the pictures after 16 other tubes have picked up the sight and sound waves from an aerial on the roof and have ironed there out, so to speak.
The apparatus uses less current than an old-fashioned radio, although one of the tubes is a 2,000-volt rectifier. It is completely safe and sound, however, Mr. Hoisington pointed out.
"The aerial is all-important," he related. "It must be 10 feet long and horizontal and preferably should be of beam construction. Height is a very important element. That's why the aerial for the NBC transmitter is located on top of the Empire State building."
Not only did guests at the Hoisington home yesterday take in the fair's opening, but they also witnessed television broadcast of moving pictures from Radio City—"pictures through the air" as the announcer proclaimed them.
There was a reel on the "Gray Armada," showing the U. S. Navy in all its spectacular might and power at sea, and then there was a condensed version of the motion picture "Gunga Din," the first such telecast in history.
Beginning today, there will be 25 hours a week of telecasting, and Mr. Hoisington predicted after yesterday's successful demonstration that it's entirely possible that by next Fall radio fans will actually see the leading football games via radio's new medium, while still enjoying the comforts of home.
A native of Wayne, Pa., Mr. Hoisington and his wife have lived in East Port Chester for the past two years. He attended Brunswick School in Greenwich and studied television abroad. He has been in radio commercially for the past 18 years, the last 10 of which have been devoted to designing sets. He plans to introduce television to Greenwich High School students in the near future.
Mr. Hoisington operates his own 150-watt amateur station, W-ILAS, on six different wave bands, and intends to install television equipment soon, so that he can see as well at hear the various "hams" throughout the country with whom he talks—and they will get a chance also to see him.
Mrs. Hoisington admits she's a "radio widow," especially since the advent of television.
"He took my curtain rods to make that new antenna," she confided yesterday. "What next?" (Port Chester Daily Item, May 1)

Over 5,000 See Fair Opening On Television Receivers Here
Four local Radio Dealers Host Yesterday as RCA Launches New Medium of Entertainment; Public's Reception Is Enthusiastic; Showings Continue
More than 5,000 New Brunswickers saw President Roosevelt officially open the New York World's Fair yesterday afternoon [30], although they were miles away from the scene of the actual ceremonies.
Through the medium of television, the faces of the President, Governor Herbert H. Lehman of New York, Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia of New York City, Grover A. Whalen and others were brought to this city and produced on receiver screens ranging in size from 8 by 10 inches to 3 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches.
Enthusiasm for the new medium of entertainment, which was launched officially as an industry in the United States yesterday by Radio Corporation of America, ran high wherever a television receiving set was available.
Four local radio dealers opened their doors to the public from 12:30 to 4 o'clock so that the World's Fair ceremonies could be witnessed on television receivers.
At the Norman Van Heuvel radio store, 412 George street, about 1,000 persons filed into the specially built television reception room in the rear of the store at the rate of 25 at a time to see the World's Fair opening. Those who witnessed the program expressed amazement at the exceptional clarity of the presentation, Van Heuvel said. He exhibited one of the new RCA-Victor television consoles.
2,000 At Dunn’s
Great interest and excitement prevailed at the Dunn & Dunn radio store, 25 Livingston avenue, where a crowd, estimated by Everett Dunn to exceed 2,000, jammed the establishment to view the television program.
Dunn had a large curtain stretched across the front of the store to darken the place, and had a seating arrangement for 80 persons to witness the transmission. Dunn pointed out that Harry Wagner, manager of the Roger Smith Hotel, was so delighted with the reception that he personally extended an invitation to every hotel guest to visit the Dunn store.
The first purchaser of a television receiver in this city, as far as could be ascertained today, was Arthur McCallum, head of the Flako Products Corporation of this city, who placed his order with Dunn & Dunn after seeing yesterday's remarkable presentation.
The J. Schwartz Furniture Store at 289 Burnet street was a mecca for 1,200 persons who stood in line waiting to be admitted to a special room where the television show was received. Eighty persons at a time were admitted to the reception room.
Future Demonstrations
Eisler's, Inc., 124 French street, attracted nearly 1,000 persons during the television transmission. with 40 persons witnessing the program at a time.
Dunn and Eisler showed DuMont receivers, while Van Heuvel and Schwartz exhibited the RCA receivers. All dealers will demonstrate their sets whenever programs are available. Showings today, tomorrow and Thursday will take place from 11 a. m. to 4 p. m. and on Wednesdays and Fridays from 4 to 9 p. m.
What was believed to be the only factory-manufactured home receiver in operation at a local residence was viewed at the home of Will Baltin, radio-theater editor of The Daily Home News, by more than 50 persons yesterday afternoon. A large DuMont console, loaned by the Van Heuvel radio store, was in operation.
J. Adam Frisch, local radio dealer, built his own television receiver from an Andrea kit and displayed his handiwork to 10 relatives and guests at his home. (Daily Home News, New Brunswick, N.J., May 1)

Even Scoffers Now Excited By Possibility Of Television
They Work, Is Consensus As World's Fair Opening Is Shown At Two Stores Here
Like their parents and grandparents before them who were inclined to scoff when told radio and telephone would soon become commonplace instruments, thousands experienced the thrill of seeing a new field of entertainment unfold before their eyes when the first public television program was broadcast yesterday afternoon [30] from the World's Fair of Tomorrow.
ALREADY VISION FUTURE
"It's a miracle".
"It’s like a little talking movie".
"How soon can we have a program every day?"
These were the remarks that predominated as the curious crowded into the small backroom at Kuss Brothers store in Hackensack. They stood wide-eyed as they watched Grover Whalen introduce speakers at the World's Fair grounds, heard and saw President Roosevelt welcome its first visitors, and the United States Army band play the national anthem.
It was a newsreel made and shown the instant the event took plcae [sic] and it was enough to make those in atendance [sic] live in anticipation.
Kuss Brothers made possible the public broadcast by mounting a television receiving set on a platform in the rear of its store.
CLEARLY VISIBLE
Even at a distance of 10 feet, the small 8 by eight by 10-inch screen was clearly visible.
Nothing escaped the television eye focused on the speakers' stand at the fair grounds and spectators in Hackensack smiled approvingly as President Roosevelt greeted the crowd.
They laughed as unknown persons were caught by the television eye as it swept past the grandstand to the United States Army Band.
Sound waves distorted the picture at this point until it was properly focussed and then the band was clearly shown.
Press photographers made candid pictures themselves as they scurried around for places of advantage to take their news pictures.
AUDIENCE EXCITED
And when the 3 1/2 hour program was over, the audience talked excitedly about the marvels of television.
While Kuss Brothers entertained the public in Hackensack, Franklin Furniture Company, Inc ., of Englewood, also gave a first showing for its patrons and friends.
One of the most common remarks heard was:
"What will I do with my radio set?"
And this and other questions kept salesmen busy all afternoon as they explained television sets without the sound equipment could be purchased to go with radio transmitters.
The price of a television receiver ran slightly over $200 while the complete set costs more than $400. (Bergen Evening Record, May 1)

LARGE POTENTIAL CUSTOMER AUDIENCE AWAITING TELEVISION
By Institute of Public Opinion.
NEW YORK, April 29.—As the first commercial television "telecasts" go out over National Broadcasting Company transmitters in the New York area tomorrow, a nation-wide survey by the American Institute of Public Opinion shows that there is a large potential customer audience awaiting the new television industry.
While television is likely to be confined to the larger metropolitan areas for some time, the Institute estimates that approximately 4,000.000 families throughout the United States—or about one family in eight— consider themselves good prospects for home television sets.
Not all of these families will have the opportunity to operate sets in the near future, of course, but the Institute's survey points to a substantial market even in the limited areas where the telecasts will be available.
For the new television industry—celebrating its birthday today —the Institute's survey will be an auspicious sign. The survey shows that the idea of television has been well sold to the public even before it has been widely demonstrated.
For the present, television broadcasts will be limited to the New York City area, according to NBC officials, and will be extended to such cities as Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Detroit and other cities as soon as possible. Today's survey reveals that the sections most interested in television are New England, the East, the Chicago-Detroit area and the West Coast.
Typical Screen About 7 by 5 Inches
Much will depend on the way home television sets work in actual operation, and canny salesmen are warning customers in the New York area, where sets are now on sale, not to expect "too much." The typical home television set will have a screen about 7 inches by 5, and will not give the large, smooth images of some of the better home "movie" outfits—at least not at first.
While it is not yet possible to speak of "standard prices" in connection with television, it is expected that a large number of receivers will be available at about $200.
This is the kind of receiver on which the Institute's survey is based —one costing about $200 and providing a 7-by-5 screen.
The public has accepted the mechanical perfection of television as assured, the survey shows, and it is the cost which is the limiting factor at this time.
"I would buy a set in a jiffy—if I could use clam shells for money," is the way a Los Angeles clerk answered the question put by the interviewer.
Many others said they would be interested "when sets come down to $100 or $75." Some said that they would rather invest $200 in a new radio or toward the purchase of a new automobile. Only a few said they thought television "impractical" or the screen too small for pleasure.
Those interested in buying sets said (1) that television is "the next step" and that it will make radio more interesting, (2) that they want to be among the first to try it. (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Apr. 30)

January 1939

1939 was an historic year for television, as NBC went ahead with plans to begin TV programming on a regular basis.

That wouldn’t happen until April. In the meantime, there were more tests. And other would-be TV moguls in New York continued hurrying to get on the air. It took a while for CBS to get there, even longer for DuMont.

Below is a look at television news from the start of the month. A piece in Variety gives a good summary of the situation as it stood at the start of the year. W6XAO in Los Angeles was on the air regularly, and we can get a bit of an idea about its programming. The University of Iowa station was on a maximum of twice a week for 15 minutes.

The FCC decided to investigate transmission standards. This eventually resulted in a decision to ban commercial television until July 1, 1941.

There was talk of CBS television on the West Coast; the company didn’t have any stations on the air at the time. I’ve found nothing to show the experimental station ever transmitted anything. As it turned out, it was moved to a different frequency band which the FCC eliminated for television use in 1941.

Paramount and DuMont got together in a deal that was ultimately a bomb that went off as the FCC limited the number of stations a network could own and treated the two companies as one.

We will have posts taking us through April 1939. Elsewhere, this blog has highlights from May 1939 through to the end of 1947.

Monday, January 2
TRANSATLANTIC TELEVISION
Seen in New York
PROGRAMME FROM LONDON
A "Freak" Occasion?
From our Wireless Correspondent
LONDON, MONDAY.
The B.B.C. has been officially notified that television transmissions from Alexandra Palace have been picked up in New York.
This is, of course, easily a record in long-distance reception of television. The pictures were seen on one of the television sets of the United States Radio Corporation, at the Riverhead Receiving Station, New York, 3,000 miles away from their source.
The feat was made possible only by extraordinarily favourable atmosphere conditions and must at present be regarded as freakish.
A B.B.C. official explained that the uncertainty of transatlantic reception may be illustrated by the fact that on the day these pictures were seen the accompanying sound, which is broadcast on a different wavelength, could not be heard, whereas six days later sound came over well but the pictures did not appear at all. The sound part of television broadcasts has also been known to reach South Africa, but not the vision.
PREVIOUS RECORDS
The official range of the Alexandra Palace television programmes is put at thirty miles, but there have been many instances of good reception over much greater distances, though not approaching the latest figure.
One of the best was reported in June, when pictures transmitted from Alexandra Palace were perfectly recorded on the screen of a £100 set at Ormesby, near Middlesbrough. Success was said to be due principally to the erection of the apparatus on the Cleveland moors, 700 feet above sea level.
Last month the television from Alexandra Palace was seen clearly in Guernsey, 180 miles away, and this was described as “one of the few occasions on which television has been well received across the sea." A B.B.C. official said at the time, "We consider such reception as startling and certainly very significant."
INCREASING RANGE
These figures show that the range of television broadcasting is steadily, if slowly, increasing, and there are hopes that this fact may hasten the day when it will be possible to send out programmes from other centres besides London.
Post Office experts are experimenting with a scheme submitted by Electric and Musical Industries, Ltd., to feed various centres by radio link from Alexandra Palace. The theory is that this would be cheaper than relays by the Post Office co-axial cable, though would entail the erection of a number of receiving and broadcasting stations a certain distance apart. Meanwhile recent weeks have seen an increase in the sale of television sets, and a trade campaign to stimulate public interest still farther will open in a week or two. (Manchester Guardian, Jan. 3)

Tuesday, January 3
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

Milwaukee Seeking Television License
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3. (AP) —The communications commission designated Commissioner T. A. M. Craven, Thad H. Brown and Norman Case today to study television transmission standards.
Proposed standards were recommended to the commission recently by the Radio Manufacturers' association, but no action has been taken.
The Milwaukee Journal company has filed the first application for permission to inaugurate public television service. Licenses issued so far have been for technical experimentation.

Radio Industry Records Gains In All Fields
Sarnoff Says Television Start Here in April Will Launch New U. S. Trade
Although progress in the first six months of 1938 was impeded by the business slump which began in the previous year, general business conditions began to pick up and the second six months witnessed substantial improvement in all branches of the radio industry, according to David Sarnoff, president of the Radio Corp. of America.
Mr. Sarnoff said that the broadcasting service of Radio Corp. of America, National Broadcasting Co., once again surpassed its best previous record, with sales of network time which were the largest in the company's history. The number of affiliated [radio] stations, he said, was increased to 165. The experimental short-wave program services to Europe and Latin America were greatly expanded, he declared, and would soon be augmented further by two additional frequencies.
RCA Communications, Inc., said Mr. Sarnoff, received more programs and radio photos from abroad than ever before in its history. During 1939 several new and important radio products would be introduced, including those related to television, declared Mr. Sarnoff.
Introduction of Television
"Field tests in television conducted by RCA research engineers during the past two and a half years," he continued, "have resulted in development of the new art to a point where its introduction to the public in the areas served by television stations has become practicable. Therefore, RCA announced on October 20 that NBC would begin regular program service, and the RCA Manufacturing Co. would place television receiving sets on the market in April, 1939, coincident with the opening of the New York World's Fair.
New Industry to Start
"Thus, after many years of laboratory development, a modest beginning will be made to launch a new American industry. The RCA television transmitter, at the top of the Empire State Building, will be operated in a limited service to the public by the National Broadcasting Co. Programs telecast by television transmitters can be viewed on home receivers in the metropolitan New York area within a radius of approximately forty to fifty miles from Radio City." (New York Herald Tribune)

Philco Head Looks Forward To Television Debut This Year
Larry E. Gubb, president, Philco Radio & Television Corp., in a year-end statement says that 1939 assumes added importance because of the "long awaited debut of television on a very, very limited scale, in the late spring."
Reviewing what he described as the tremendous obstacles of coverage, financing and engineering research which must be hurdled before television can achieve the general scale of excellence expected and demanded from radio entertainment today. Mr. Gubb declared that television will be in "its swaddling clothes" for years to come.
"Philco is as ready for television as anyone. Years of successful research have seen to that. But we do believe that during 1939, and even 1940 and 1941, people should not, for television's own sake, be led to expect too much." (Wall Street Journal)

CBS SETTING UP TELEVISION EQUIPMENT FOR WEST COAST
Experiments Start At Square Shortly
CBS will open the avenues for its entrance into television broadcasting on this coast early this year. Indicating the mover will be the installation and placing in operation of an ultra-high-frequency transmitter at Columbia Square this month.
The Columbia move is seen as a natural outgrowth of its television activity on the east coast and extension here to meet the announced intention of NBC to telecast daily at the San Francisco world exposition. CBS spokesmen here, however, insisted that the new station will not be involved in television experimentation.
Notwithstanding, those technically informed construe the ultra-high-frequency broadcasting move as one tied undeniably with television activity and expansion.
According to Donald W. Thornburgh, CBS vice-president in charge here, the new transmitter will operate on a 40-hour weekly experimental schedule beginning this month. The transmitter, of 100-watt power, will be designated as W6XDA and operate on a 35.6 megacycle band. This is identified in the ultra-high slice indicated for television.
The new transmitter will be installed at Columbia Square and will be surmounted by a concentric antenna rising 40 feet above the plant. (Hollywood Reporter)

Wednesday, January 4
Television's Future—and When
By Bob Landry
There has been lots of television during 1938—if publicity statements, press showings and headlines are the measure. Separated from this battle of mimeograph the story is one of cautious stepping and obscure progress, if any. A reddish discoloring of the outer electronic epidermis during the year was pronounced a press agent's rash, but the threatened appearance of television receivers in New York department stores prompted a curtailment of RCA's regular schedule of programs which had been in progress for some months and which was obviously the one development encouraging indie set-makers to rush into the market with television receivers.
In a nutshell these are the broad facts about television:
1. Not only does the FCC still classify all television as 'experimental,' but in New York there is no television broadcasting whatever at the moment.
2. Only television activity in New York (latterly in 1938) has been some outside events by the NBC's tele-mobile unit which were monitored and studied by engineers but not put on the air. Indoor activity confined to improving equipment, etc.
3. Sometime in January or February, 1939, the NBC-RC transmitter in the Empire State Bldg. (where a new antenna is being installed) and the CBS transmitter atop the Chrysler Bldg., will begin operating intermittently. Each transmitter will be powered with 7,500 watts. CBS studios will be in Grand Central Terminal, RCA in Radio City and each transmitter will be linked to its studio by A. T. & T. coaxial cable.
4. According to his own announcement, Allen B. DuMont will launch a 50-watt television station in New Jersey sometime during 1939. Paramount Pictures has a 50% stock interest in this enterprise.
5. By April, 1939, when the New York World's Fair opens it is expected that NBC and CBS will have two hours a week of te1evision programs and that television receivers, of several brands, will probably be placed on the market. How good they will be, how much they will cost, whether the public will buy them in any great numbers, are open questions.
Costs
6. Size of image will determine the price of sets. It is probable that sets selling for $150 or thereabouts will throw an image of not over 3 x 4 inches. This is a 'chair-side' set. Around $350 is the estimated cost of sets with an 8 x 10-inch frame which is called 'comfortable' for 3-6 feet scrutiny by small groups.
7. Meanwhile Scophony of Great Britain has set out to invade America. It is now engaged in promoting American capital and to make arrangements for the manufacture of its sets over here. Scophony sets throwing an image 18 x 24 are retailed in England for around $1,200. They are described as producing 'good-looking images' from a mechanical type of television (RCA is electronic in principle).
8. First to apply for RCA television equipment is WTMJ, Milwaukee (owned by the Milwaukee Journal) and the prospective outlay of about $100,000 suggests the costliness of going into television in even a small way. WTMJ envisages a 1,000-watt transmitter. Studios, cameras, coaxial cable, channels, lighting, properties, sound equip-ment, etc., add up the initial investment. (Lubke-Don Lee visio in California is off-standard for America, using a 375-line image instead of the 441-line approved at present by the Radio Manufacturers Assn.) (Variety, Jan. 4)

Thursday, January 5
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

Television Program to War on Accidents
In a novel accident prevention appeal, scientists of the University of California and officials of the Department of Motor Vehicles will don black lip stick, blue and green eye shade and bronze grease paint to appear in a television program broadcast at 7:15 tonight over W6XAO. Coordination of the eyes and feet will be tested by Dr. Ned D. Warren of U.S.C. who will demonstrate a reaction machine on the program. The ability of subjects to react to traffic perils will be shown. Sam Bagby of the State Division of Drivers' Licenses states that it requires 45/100 of a second for persons to see danger and apply the brakes, which means that a person driving 60 miles an hour would travel 45 feet before he even began to stop. (Hollywood Citizen-Reporter)

Tuesday, January 10
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

Capital District to Have Powerful Television Plant
General Electric to Place Transmitter On Hill in Helderbergs in 30 Days
SCHENECTADY—The General Electric Company will operate a television transmitter in upstate New York more powerful than any now in use in this country, it was announced today.
Final arrangements for installation "within thirty days" for use in the Spring, was made after the Federal Communications Commission yesterday [9] authorized the company to construct two experimental television stations at Schenectady, one at Albany and one at Bridgeport, Conn.
The television transmitters will be designed to broadcast pictures with much improved "picture definition." One transmitter will be installed at Indian Ladder, in the Helderberg hills, twelve miles from Albany.
Built atop a 1,500-foot hill, with antennae on 100 foot towers, the Indian Ladder station will be at least 270 feet higher than one on the Empire State building in New York, with a power output of ten killo-watts [sic].
Its coverage will embrace the area of Albany, Schenectady, Troy and Saratoga known as the capital district with a combined population of 500,000.
The television studio will be located in Schenectady and programs will be sent by a directional transmitter to Indian Ladder. At such times as studio programs are not available, motion picture programs will be sent.
The second Schenectady station will be for experimental purposes only. The Bridgeport, Conn., station will also be for experimental purposes. It was explained that the Bridgeport plant manufacturers television receivers and the station there will be used to test the receivers. (Middletown Times Herald)

Paramount Buys Into Dumont As First Step Into Television
New York.—Wall street traders see Paramount's entrance into television through the Dumont Television Corp., in which Para has dumped $50,000, and stands ready to kick in with $200,000 more on a ten-year note. Since Paramount showed its hand in the deal, Class A stock has bounced from $12 to $27 a share in over the counter trading. The street regards as the tipoff the corporation's report that it is contemplating piping local news events and film features direct from local transmitters to theatres. Paramount's hand in the deal will be the production of film, using studio talent, and televising it into theatres with plenty of ballyhoo angles stressed for the exhibitor. Dumont's transmitter is located at Passaic, N. J., and goes on the air in ten days, sharing time with NBC's Empire State transmitter. Experimentation will be carried on, with Paramount execs being advised of all angles in order to mesh studio activity when the time is ready to spring out into the open on the deal.
Paramount's original investment was $50,000 for which it received a $36,000 ten-year note bearing three percent interest and $14,000, or all outstanding shares of B stock. In addition, Paramount has options to buy the remaining 42,000 shares of B stock at par value, which is $1 a share. In return for the option, Paramount has agreed to lend Dumont all, or any part, of $200,000 for ten years.
Dumont's capitalization consists of 2000 shares of $25 par value preferred 6 percent stock, of which 1200 shares are outstanding. 56,000 shares of Class A stock of $1 par value, all outstanding, and 56,000 Class B $1 par value of which 14,000 shares are outstanding. The funded debt consists of $16,000 in 6 percent debentures due 1945, a $17,000 secured 6 per-cent note payable in 1942, and the $36,000 Paramount note.
Class A and B stock shares alike in the company dividends, and each class elects three directors. Wall Street reports that the company is breaking even this year, which makes it probably the only television company able to show such results. (Hollywood Reporter)

FCC Skeptical on Television; Fingers Also Crossed on High Frequencies Despite Their Use
Washington, Jan. 10.
Rapid increase of interest in the medium and ultra high frequencies was cited last week in the annual report of the FCC but the government authorities kept their fingers crossed while discussing the prospect for early development of television into a mature commercial enterprise. Services other than those accommodated in the standard 550-1600 kc band—such as relay, international, visual, educational, et al—have grown materially, with a sharp increase during the 12 months ended June 30, 1938. During this period, new rules were promulgated blocking off the spectrum up to 300,000 kc to provide room for expansion and experimentation.
Inclination of newcomers to try out the shorter waves, due largely' to crowded situation in the regular frequency sector, was shown clearly in the statistical review of 1938 accomplishments. Experimenters in radio's upper story were more than half as numerous as the regular operators. From 418 on June 30, 1937, the number of experimental stations mounted to 510 at the end of fiscal 1938. Broken down as follows:
High-frequency broadcast, 48: experimental broadcast, 14; television, 19; international, 13; facsimile, 6; low-frequency relay, 143; high-frequency relay, 266; non-commercial educational, 1.
International
Reception conditions in the international broadcast field did not improve materially during the fiscal year, the report said, adding that experience supports other evidence that higher wattage and directional antennas are required to give reliable service to some foreign areas.
In discussing television, the Commish pointed to evidence that technical phases of visual operation are progressing satisfactorily but still was skeptical about the possibility of providing regular service to the Public. (Report was limited to last fiscal year, consequently not covering announced NBC plans to institute routine transmission this coming spring.)
Television
“Television has developed to the state where complete transmitting equipment is available on the mar-ket,” the report explained, “but such equipment is costly and, because of the experimental status of the art, may become obsolete at any time due to new developments.”
Possibility that new type of synchronized operation will help remedy present shortage of service in some areas was suggested in the discussion of technical progress. Research connected with operation of stations not linked by land lines was successfully completed, report mid, with evidence that theory is practicable. System may be utilized to improve coverage, regulators agreed, remarking that minimum-signal zones were comparatively small and not particularly objectionable.
Research into the high-frequency broadcast field, while encouraging, has not reached the point where certain important conclusions can be drawn. Data turned in by 37 experimenters is not sufficiently comprehensive to permit a conclusive determination of the propagation characteristics of the channels, but present studies give ground for hoping that enough info will be available to allow allocation of frequencies above 30 megacycles. Use of frequency-modulation suggests way to overcome static, particularly from thunderstorms, and holds out hope of good reception at relatively great distances from transmitters. (Variety, Jan. 11)

Thursday, January 12
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

L. A. Television Broadcast Future Eyed
Radio Executive Unable To Say When Service Here Will Be Available
Los Angeles—Hollywood will become one of the nation's principal television broadcasting centers when the growing see-hear medium emerges from its adolescence, Niles Trammell, executive vice-president of the National Broadcasting Co., predicted today.
But Trammell, no rose-colored glasses-wearing prophet, could not say whether that time would be a year or two or three years from now. In the coming year N.B.C. will spend $1,000,000 on television, which the radio executive said is out of the scientific laboratory stage, but is still a commercial experiment.
"It's an experiment and we're going to sink a lot of money in it," said Trammel, visiting at Radio City in Hollywood from New York.
N. Y. Plans Related
The company's television operations will be confined for the present to New York where two hours a week programs will be broadcast from atop the Empire State Building, beginning in April. Concurrently Radio Corporation of America will place on the market television receiving sets, retailing at from $250 to $500 each, Trammell said. The home-receiving sets will have a 9 by 11-inch screen.
Trammell does not gloss over the technical and commercial problems confronting telecasting. He observed:
"It cost 10 to 15 times more to produce television than it did radio in the latter's early days.
"To produce television programs one hour day will cost an estimated $1,000,000 a year.
"The broadcasting range at present is limited to the horizon—about 40 or 50 miles, it is figured—in the New York operations."
Big Problem Cited
Trammel also cited the as-yet-unsolved problem of nation-wide transmission of television broadcasting. He said an estimate of $5000-a-mile cost had been made for the laying of a coaxial cable across the continent for hooking up television stations. Experiments are under way on short-wave transmission, but are still inconclusive.
Because television now is limited to big cities, commercial sponsorship, requiring mass audiences, has not been developed.
The radio company official does not believe television is pointed toward competition with either motion pictures or radio.
"Equipment has not been developed to make theater television practical," he said, citing the necessity of a large-sized reception screen.
"It is my firm conviction that in the years to come television will only supplement radio. Sound broadcasting programs are on the air 18 hours a day. We don't visualize anything like that basis for television programs." (Hollywood Citizen-News)

Saturday, January 14
People Misunderstand Television Prospects
Only Three Cities In Nation Have The Facilities
By JOHN LEAR
NEW YORK, Jan. 14 (AP)—President Roosevelt doesn't have a television set, which makes more difference to you than you may think.
He could have one.
One was offered to him, free.
Arrangements were made, in fact, to install the set in the White House not so long ago. A little ceremony was prepared, and publicity on it was sent to the newspapers in advance by the manufacturer who offered the gilt. But everything was called off at the last minute.
The reason was that somebody explained to the White House that if the President did have a television set, he couldn't get any programs on it.
Misunderstanding Seen
That incident in the busy life of the first household in the nation is illustrative of the misunderstanding most of the nation has of television People have been told that television is here" and they expect to see pictures-by-radio any day.
But chances are that if you bought a television set now you couldn't get any programs on it, either.
The president couldn't receive any programs because there is television broadcasting station in Washington. Unless you live in New York or Los Angeles, your home town is in the same fix.
Television, like radio, has as yet no practical method of network broadcasting. Each station is "on its own," and the range of any station is the distance from the top of the transmitter to the horizon line at that point. This is true became television waves are like light waves and travel in straight lines.
The extent to which this limits the size of the television audience at the present time is indicated by the fact that the greatest range of any station now is a radius of 50 miles. The transmitter of that station is on top of the Empire State building in New York, the tallest structure in the world. Lower transmitters will cover smaller distances.
Only Three Cities
Add to that the fact that only three cities have broadcasting facilities. They are New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Only two of them are ready for anything comparable to the programs of radio. Philadelphia's output being limited to commercial testing.
In Los Angeles, Don Lee’s station now broadcasts programs regularly one hour a night six nights a week with two and a quarter hours Wednesday and Friday nights and an added midday hour on Wednesdays.
The National Broadcasting company station, which has been sending experimental pictures from the Empire State building for the last three years, will begin one-hour programs twice a week in April.
The Columbia Broadcasting company [sic] will start broadcasting from the Chrysler building in New York City "sometime in the spring.
Also “in the spring" the General Electric company will broadcast from a mountain top near Schenectady, N. Y., at least 250 feet higher than the top of the Empire state building. Its area will embrace Schenectady, Troy, Albany, Amsterdam and Saratoga—a total population of 500,000 persons.
First Short Wave.
This effect will mark the first experience at relaying pictures by short-wave radio—in this case from the studio at Schenectady to the main transmitter in the Helderberg hills 14 miles away. If the experiment works and can be applied to long distances, network broadcasting will have been achieved.
To date, the only network connection that has seemed possible to television engineers generally is the coaxial cable, a complex arrangement of telephone wires, Such a cable has been laid from Philadelphia to New York, but its use over long distances is at the present stage of development impractical because of expense. Engineers estimate its cost at $5,000 a wire.
The technicians expect to solve the network problem in time, but not before sales of receiving sets which are now being manufactured are well under way. Although some receivers are now on the market, the beginning of sales on any extensive scale can be expected to be delayed to coincide with the beginning of NBC program broadcasting, for NBC's parent company, the Radio Corporation of America, holds or controls most of the vital patents involved.
Build Your Own
If you like to tinker, you don't need to wait for the readymade sets. You can build one yourself with a kit of parts, which now sells for about $80.00. Otherwise you probably will pay from $125 up for sets which receive pictures without sound; $200 and up for sets which receive pictures and sound together. The better sets will show a picture 7 1/2 by 10 inches in size, reflected into a mirror so you don't need to stand up and peer into the apparatus. After the sale of sets is on, the growth of the television baby will depend on the enthusiasm the programs invoke among those who live in areas where they can "tune in."
From the standpoint spreading interest, the most important part of this initial audience will be at the world's fair in Flushing. Here thousands of visitors from all parts of the country will see a constant stream of special broadcasts. If they like what they see and go back home and talk about it, they may persuade hometown investors that a television station would be a good business proposition.
Some such investors already have made bids to the federal communications commission for licenses. The list of those now under license, under construction or in definite prospect if a license is granted includes New York city, Camden and Passaic, N. J., Albany and Schenectady, N. Y., Bridgeport, Conn., Boston, Philadelphia, Springfield (near Philadelphia), Milwaukee, Kansas City, Iowa City, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Transmitters Costly
For them and for others like them, transmitters are on sale or $60,000 and up. This does not cover the cost of a station site, the construction of studios or of installation of the apparatus.
Prospective broadcasters face other problems than money and licenses. They face the statement of television experts that because of the costs involved, about 20 rehearsals will be required for one actual performance in television, compared to 7 rehearsals to a performance in radio; television requires 10 times more engineers than radio; for every hour of picture broadcasting, 20 people are needed, not counting the entertainers, all of which adds up to a total cost of $2,750 an hour (in England) a station must reach an audience of 100,000 persons. Since the average height of a transmitter in other than major cities has been estimated at 400 feet, this audience must be encompassed within a radius of 25 to 30 miles from the transmitter. And there are only 96 of these 25-to-30 mile circles with that much population in the whole United States.
Even if transmitters were set up in each of the available 25-to-30 mile circles, all residents of those areas who happened to own television receivers might not be able to tune in the broadcasts.
Bouncing Pictures
If a tall building of concrete or steel intervenes between the transmitter and the receiver, the pictures will not penetrate in New York, for example. President Roosevelt's mother cannot receive pictures because skyscrapers stand between her home and the Empire State building. The pictures may also bounce off these buildings and enter receivers on the rebound. That happened here; an engineer picked up seven different images of the same picture at one time — each one bounced off a different building.
Trees do not interfere with the waves, however. No do sand or gravel. Pictures transmitted on the side of a hill made up of such material have been received in the other side. This leads some engineers to hope that the pictures will pass through the top layers of the earth's surface after they hit the horizon, and thus lengthen the broadcasting range.
Another hope of increased range lies in a study of the sun's rays. They can be seen after the sun is over the horizon. Since television rays are light rays, maybe they will do the same.

Sunday, January 15
First Television Broadcast From Night Club Takes Place in New York Sunday
NEW YORK. Jan. 16. (U.P.)—The first television broadcast from a night club took place Sunday [15] but more people saw the performers in the flesh than viewed them on the screen.
The broadcast, demonstrating the mobility of the National Broadcasting Co.'s television equipment, marked the first time in the United States that an entertainment bill was transmitted from a building other than one occupied by experimental studios, according to NBC officials.
They are investigating the feasibility of television broadcasts of entertainment in the city's night spots when the company begins its regular broadcasting service in the spring.
An iconoscope camera was rolled into the Cafe Francais, adjoining the Rockefeller Plaza skating pond, and a half hour variety program was broadcast. Then the camera was moved outside to pick up a figure skater swirling around the pond.
There are "several hundred" television receiving sets in the metropolitan area, officials said, but even if they were all turned on, more people saw the pickup being made than received the actual broadcast. Several thousand Sunday strollers surrounded the ice rink and nearly 100 crowded into the small cafe.
The broadcast got under way shortly after 3 o'clock when Phyllis Welsh, blonde actress known as the "Television Hostess," stepped in front of a microphone, and, as the camera whirled, announced the first act.
A tap dancing team beat out time on chairs and on the floor with a pair of drum sticks, and they finished the act with the man beating a cymbal on his girl partner's head.
Then Frank Gaby, a ventriloquist, exchanged banter with his wooden-headed dummy. Fats Waller sang and played the piano, and the show closed with Sheila Barrett reciting the misfortunes of the "Southern Girl."
The camera and the lights, two clusters of "birdseye" facusing lamps and a kleig, were rolled outside to pick up Vivi-Anne Hui-ten, youthful swedish figure-skating champion.
The program was produced by Warren Wade, who sat out of range of the camera, and listened to the program by telephone as it was received in the RCA building.

Tuesday, January 17
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

Thursday, January 19
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.

Invented Television at 14, 'Farm Boy' Tells Probers
WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (AP)—The stranger-than-fiction story of how a 14-year-old high school boy invented the basis for modern television went into the records of the monopoly investigating committee today.
The narrator was Philo T. Farnsworth of Philadelphia, who conceived and patented the first means of television broadcasting without use of moving parts.
Now in his early 30's, the farm boy who had his idea "fairly well developed" when he was 13 told the committee that television service would be available "to the American home before very long" and would be superior to that now provided in England and Germany.
Mr. Farnsworth told how he obtained his first technical training at 12, when he was placed in charge of a farm lighting system in Idaho.
Within a year, he said, the rough idea for "electronic" television had taken shape in his mind. In 1922, with only a "modest high school library" and a static machine in the high school physique laboratory to work with, Mr. Farnsworth continued, his "day dream" first took shape as an actual invention.
A year later, the slight mild-mannered witness said, the Farnsworth family moved to Provo, Utah, where additional laboratory facilities enabled the inventor to complete what has become the present system of television.
In 1926 Mr. Farnsworth's father died and he was faced with the necessity of supporting his widowed mother and a newly-acquired bride. He found two California business men who "agreed to put up $8,000 to see if the invention was worth anything."
Within 18 months he had spent $60,000 advanced by other hackers. Total development cost today, Mr. Farnsworth testified, has been in excess of $1,000,000, and inventors have not yet received any returns.
In 1927 Mr. Farnsworth was able to give his first successful demonstration of transmitting an electronic image.
The first image sent, he told the committee with a smile, was a dollar sign, which "seemed to climax the work when we could see the sign of real money."

Saturday, January 21
Don Lee Web Seeks Regular Tele Sked
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 21.—Deal to aid television on the Coast was set this week by Lewis Allen Weiss, head of the Don Lee network. Only hitch in current plans is whether manufacturing plant contacted can turn out receivers to retail for $175. Don Lee net has reportedly made a deal with the American Television Corp. Present plans call for the manufacturing plant to have its engineers here in 30 days or less to study conditions.
If tests conducted at that time are satisfactory to Weiss and Harry Lubcke, televish engineer for the web, new service will be started and sets put on sale.
If deal goes thru as anticipated. American Television is to turn out 1,000 sets a month. There are now approximately 100 televish sets in this locality receiving regular Don Lee hear and see programs. Don Lee web will have to change its facilities for handling 441-line pictures. Station is now using 330-line images. Lubcke and his staff have been working converting the present equipment so that it will synchronize with the Videor sets.
It is reported that a Coast theater chain is interested in Don Lee television for its houses. Name of the chain was not disclosed. (Billboard, Jan. 28)

Junior Group Falcon Plan
The Falcon Junior Workshop, latest expansion of the Falcon School and the Edith Jane School of Dancing, will open its Spring term intensive theatrical training for children Monday [23]. The course will run daily until July 1. This Children's theater will be conducted in conformity with the Falcon policy of fine training by masters, with first regard to the best mental, moral and physical benefit to the child.
Regular dramatic and musical plays will be produced on the school's large stage and over the air, both by radio and television [W6XAO]. Franklin Bingham of the Television and Educational department at KHJ will personally conduct the television unit, and will collaborate with Lowell Cartwright, authority at the mime station. Diction, fencing, voice, piano and all forms of dancing are available.
The Falcon faculty includes Adolph Balm, Edith Jane, Ralph Faulkner, C. Montague Shaw, Madge Cleveland, Talbot Pearson, Wilda Williams, Betty Powers, Marshall Feimster, Monica Dunn and Paul Ballard. In addition to the stuff, celebrities of screen. radio and stage will give talks at various times. (Hollywood Citizen-News)

Sunday, January 22
Capital to Get Its First Glimpse of Television From Mobile Set
The most extensive demonstration of television with a mobile station ever undertaken, and the first to be conducted outside of New York City, yesterday [22] was promised Washington by Frank M. Russell, vice president of the National Broadcasting Co.
After preliminary test transmissions were successfully concluded here yesterday, Russell, on behalf of N. B. C. and the Radio Corporation of America, invited the press, Government officials, Diplomatic Corps and other groups to witness the demonstration.
The showing of high-definition pictures with associated sound will begin Friday and extend over five days. R. C. A. experimental receivers, installed at the National Press Club will reproduce the sight-and-sound programs.
The transmitting station, the N. B. C. mobile television units which arrived here last week, will be installed at the Agricultural Building, more than half a mile distant. The images will be sent over a radio beam by the units' ultra-high-frequency transmitter; sound will be relayed over a separate radio channel.
No elaborate programming is planned, because technical facilities adequate for such an attempt are not available in Washington, although N. B. C. will launch regular television service for the New York metropolitan area in April. R. C. A. plans to market its first commercial receivers at the same time.
“This showing of television," Russell warned, "should not be interpreted as an indication that a public program service in Washington is close at hand. The National Broadcasting Co. is only just now on the eve of regular television broadcasting from Radio City.
"Present indications are that reception will be limited to a service area extending not more than 55 miles from the Empire State tower transmitter. Washington will probably not have television until the problem of networking is solved. As yet, the engineering and economic problems involved in television networking lie beyond our powers of solution."
Tests Satsfactory [sic]
Decision to hold the television demonstrations was reached only after the N. B. C. television field group was satisfied that a satisfactory image could be transmitted by radio to the receiver location. The telemobile station, licensed as Station W2XBT, was not designed for broadcasting directly to the home receiver.
As used in New York City it constitutes a low power wireless extension of N. B. C.'s permanent television facilities at Radio City and the Empire Spite Building. Its function is to pick up and relay outside programs, such as parades, sports events, night-club shows and the like, over a narrow radio beam for broadcast by the main transmitter in the Empire State Tower.
The television methods and apparatus to be demonstrated here will be those developed by R. C. A. The system produces images in 441 scanning lines at the rate of 30 complete pictures a second. The moving image is bright and entirely free of flicker, which was eliminated by a complicated scanning method known as interlacing.
The system, built without a single moving mechanical part, is based primarily on two ingenious vacuum tubes. The iconoscope, an amazing "electric eye" invented by Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin, director of R. C. A.'s electronics research laboratory, registers and analyzes the image of a person or scene. Dr. Zworykin's reproducing device, a large funnel-shaped tube called the kinescope, converts received electrical impulses into light values and distributes these in their correct order on a fluorescent screen at the end of the tube. This synthetic process reproduces an exact, moving image of the televised person or scene. Action of the two tubes is synchronized to within one-millionth of a second. (Washington Post, Jan. 23)

‘Gunga Din’ Being Prepared For Television Broadcast
For the first time in motion picture history, a special film is being prepared expressly for television broadcast use through co-operation between RKO-Radio and the National Broadcasting company.
A special television version is being made of “Gunga Din,” starring Cary Grant, Victor McLeglan [sic] and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., directed by George Stevens, with Pandro S. Berman in charge of production.
The television condensation of “Gunga Din” will be approximately 1,000 in length, running about nine or ten minutes. It will be composed of close-ups and medium close-up scenes, and gaps in the action will be bridged by subtitles, and sound. The entire film will be dubbed with special sound to give a smooth-flowing continuity.
After conferring with National Broadcasting company television experts, plans were made to adapt “Gunga Din” as a vehicle perfectly suited to the new medium because of its preponderance of outdoor scenes. In addition to the high contrast of scenes photographed in sunlight, a special acid solution and optical printer is expected to give the print extreme clarity and fidelity.
The “Gunga Din” synoposis was specially edited by Henry Berman, who handled the picture itself, and will include only scenes specially suitable for television methods.
A special effort will be made to finish the picture this month for shipment to NBC television engineers in New York, where it will be put through exhaustive tests. It will be televised general when the NBC telecast schedule opens. (Santa Barbara News-Press)

Monday, January 23
Don Lee Telecasts Get School Outlets
Don Lee Broadcasting will expand its television activity beginning next Wednesday [25] with a special series of educational programs which it will release in four Southern California schools through the cooperation of the L. A. Board of Education. Television receivers will be installed at USC, Pomona College and the Poly-technic high schools at Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Thomas S. Lee, president, has authorized a series of both live and film programs to be telecast over W6XAO in the new program group. Hollywood Television Society is also associated with the educational series. (Hollywood Reporter)

Tuesday, January 24
Television Corner
NBC announces the appointment of television’s first woman program director. She is Miss Thelma A. Prescott, who will represent the feminine interest in this new art. She will look after fashion shows and other programs [that] will appeal primarily to women (Jo Ransom, Brooklyn Eagle)

Wednesday, January 25
Television Is Demonstrated at Poly High
The first public school demonstration of television was given last night [25] with radio and television classes in Hollywood, Los Angeles and Long Beach participating to receive the program broadcast by the Don Lee station W6XAO.
A member of the W6XAO staff was present for the local reception which was held at Polytechnic High School through co-operation of Roger Howell, local television research exponent, and Charles Farrand, instructor of the Poly High radio class. The local reception was declared to be superior in all ways to that at the television station W6XAO.
Five-inch tubes were used by the Hollywood and Los Angeles groups while Howell used his 9-inch tube, his personnal property, for the occasion. The program last night included a sport talk by Frank commentator, a reading, an address and a skit by the Vine Street Theater Players.
Another honor tame to Long Roth Wit night with the presentation of a citation and membership in the Hollywood Television Society to Roger Howell and A L. Lubke [sic] of the Don Lee station, for their research and development of television equipment. George Seward is the president of the Hollywood Television Society.
Station WIXAO is received on 45 megacycles and broadcasts its television programs daily at 7:30 to 8:30 P. M. on regular broadcast periods of fifteen minutes.
Mr. Farrand, radio instructor, announced that the radio club at Polytechnic High School will build its own television receiving equipment some time this year in readiness for next school year activities. (Long Beach Morning Sun, Jan. 26)

Friday, January 27
Television Is Shown Here For First Time
Speaker Bankhead Talks of Weather and Press Club Feels Cold
Washington yesterday [27] saw its first demonstration of television.
Representative William Bankhead, speaker of the House, was standing in front of the Agriculture Building, chatting with Bill Crago, N. B. C. announcer, about the cold. And a crowd of newspapermen, business executives, Government officers, were gazing at the Speaker's face as it appeared on the glass screens of the half dozen receiving sets in the National Press Building, watching his lips move, hearing his voice, seeing him shiver under his upturned coat collar and feeling that they, too, were standing on that windy street corner.
Every detail in the picture was clear. No blur, no confusion, no flicker, no distortion. The camera moved from one member of the little group to another; "panned" down the line of Government buildings along the Mall.
No sound was made by the spectators in the Press Club; the room was filled with the sounds of that street corner on the Mall. With all eyes glued to the screen, the spectators felt that they, too, were standing beside Representative Bankhead.
Representative Bankhead expressed his pleasure at being the first "guinea pig" of the demonstration. Asked if he thought the introduction of television cameras in Congress would have any effect on the government, he said, "it might make some of the members take their feet off the chairs, but I don't think it will have any appreciable effect on the patriotic work they are doing there."
Edith Rogers Speaks
Representative Edith Nourse Rogers, the next to be interviewed, congratulated N. B. C. and the Radio Corporation of America, and promised that Congress would do what it could about the weather. Representative Rayburn (Democrat), of Texas, and Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin, jr., added their congratulations. Representative Martin declared he "couldn't conceive what it would mean to the world." But Congress, he thought, "will readjust itself" if it has to deliberate under the eyes of televiewers.
The sight-and-sound broadcasts, which will take place at 10-minute intervals from 11 a. m. to 3:30 p. m. daily through Tuesday, are sent from the "telemobile station," designated as Station W2XBT, which consists of two specially built motor trucks containing a complete telecasting unit. Pictures and sounds are sent through the ether by special directional beam to the receiving sets in the National Press Building in the same manner as standard television broadcasts.
The telemobile unit, the first of its kind ever to be made, was designed for field work in connection with the N. B. C. television studio in Radio City, New York. Its original purpose was to relay outdoor scenes to the studio for rebroadcast, and it is now making its first appearance outside New York. (Washington Post, Jan. 28)

Tuesday, January 31
W9XK, University of Iowa
7:15 to 7:30 p.m.—Television Program with WSUI, 880 kcs.