July-August 1929

There wasn’t an awful lot to see when W3XK got a new, improved transmitter in July 1929. More people could view the programming, but consisted mainly of silhouette drawings. No live bodies on camera.

W3XK was one of two Jenkins television stations on the air at the time. Frank Jenkins was spending much of his time in mid-1929 trying to transmit from an airplane (which crashed in August, leaving him with a cut over an eye), demostrating a new kind of TV set, and dealing with two lawsuits.

Meanwhile, in the mountains near Poughkeepsie, a television station signed on. You can read more about W2XBU in this post.

The Buffalo News published a roundup of active and semi-active stations from something called the Science Service. This is from July 3, 1929. Later editions added W2XBU, the increase in power of W2XK and put W9XR on the air, so it must have been current.

On Regular Schedule
CHICAGO—W9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts (approved for 1000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. standard scanning*. Time, daily except Sunday; movies, still pictures and living subjects.
JERSEY CITY—W2XCR, Jenkins Television corporation, 5000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. standard scanning*. 2 to 3 P. M., Eastern Standard Time Mon. Tuesday and Wednesday; 8 to 9 P. M., Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
LEXINGTON, Mass.—W1XAY, Lexington Air Station, 500 watts (construction permit granted for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. standard scanning*. Daily, 3 to 3 P. M. and Friday, 7:30 to 8 P. M.
NEW YORK—W2XBS, Radio Corporation of America, 250 watts (approved for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame, 72 elements wide, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. Announcement cards, views and living subjects. Daily, (including Sunday) 6 to 10 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
PITTSBURGH—W8XAV, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., 20,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. and 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame. Transmitting television programs, generally motion picture films, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 5:10 to 6:00 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
SCHENECTADY—W2XCW, General Electric company, 20,000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 145 m. 24 lines, 20 frames per second. Sunday 11:15 to 11:45 P. M., Tuesday, 12 to 12:30 P. M., Wednesday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P. M., Eastern Standard Time.
WASHINGTON—W3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts (construction permit granted for 5000 watts) 2000-2100 kc. or 15 m. and 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m. standard scanning*. 8 to 9 P. M., Eastern Standard Time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular Schedule
BROOKLYN—W2XCL, Pilot Electric company, 250 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m. Construction permit.
CHICAGO—W9XAG, Aeroproducts, Inc., 5000 watts, 2100-2200 kc. or 139 m. Construction permit.
CHICAGO—W9XR, Great Lakes Broadcasting company, 500 watts, 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m. 24 lines per frame, 18 frames per second, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. (Expect to begin operation about July 3.)
NEWARK—W2XBA, WAAM, Inc., 50 watts, 2750-2850 kc. or 107 m.
NEW YORK—W2XCP, Freed-Eisemann corporation, 2000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m. and 2850-2950 kc. or 103 m.
OAKLAND, Calif.—W6XN, General Electric company, 10,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.—W1XAE, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company, 20,000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
WINTER PARK, Fla.—W4XE, William Justis Lee, 2000 watts, 2000-2100 kc. or 145 m.
*Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers association. This is 48 lines per second, with scanning consecutive from left to right and top to bottom as one reads the page of a book.
All the above stations have been licensed by the Federal Radio commission. A number of others who have previously been broadcasting still have their applications pending.

W6XN had been testing for several months and had its grand opening in August. The available story is unclear about whether visuals were broadcast.

We’ll skip the Jenkins litigation as we look at highlights in TV in July and August 1929. There isn’t much. The Federal Radio Commission was asked to grant some licenses. RCA wanted a second permit, solely for specific experiments which it outlined to reporters. In San Francisco, Philo Farnsworth conducted another demonstration of his system that eliminated swirling discs in studios and television sets. A short version of the W2AX story appeared in one paper on July 26. Both have the wrong call letters.

MONDAY, JULY 1, 1929
Television Signals from Plane Goal of Washington Inventor
WASHINGTON, July 1 (AP)—Panoramic views flashed by radio from a speeding airplane to a ground station many miles away is the television goal sought by C. Francis Jenkins, Washington inventor.
Army officers are awaiting with interest experiments soon to be made by Mr. Jenkins with his "aerial eye." If television apparatus can be perfected, as the veteran radio engineer hopes, to send pictures of front line warfare, movements of enemy troops and maps of the battle grounds from scouting planes to general headquarters it will be of great military value.
Jenkins has bought a special plane to be used as a "flying television laboratory" and has been piloting it in practice flights. He plans to be at the controls part of the time when the experiments are made. The "laboratory" is a monoplane of special design, seating four passengers and providing space for television apparatus.
A section of the floor of the cabin will be cut away to serve as a scanning apparatus for the aerial eye. Tests will be made as the plane flies over Washington, views of the ground below being transmitted by radio to Jenkins' new television station north of the city.
The new station is known as W3XK, the same call letters assigned to his old laboratory station in the city. A new 5000-watt transmitter has been installed and two 28-foot towers have been erected. The new station will broadcast a daily program of radio movies In silhouette.



WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 1929
TELEVISION WAVE SOUGHT
WASHINGTON, July 3.—Formal application has been filed with the Federal Radio commission by Station WSVW, Buffalo, operated by the Seneca Vocational school, for authority to construct an experimental television transmitter to be used on 2150 kilocycles with 500 watts power. If the application is granted, it will represent the first opportunity Buffalonians have had to avail themselves of one of the latest developments of the radio art.
According to statements made to the Radio commission by representatives of WSVS, it is the hope of that station eventually to be able to project not only moving pictures in the home, but also the voice and music accompaniment. (Buffalo News)

SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1929
TELEVISION MOVIES NOW BEING MADE
NEW YORK,--A series of short motion pictures, which are being carried to radio fans by television, now is being produced by Visugraphic Pictures, Inc.
These pictures are being broadcast from station W2XCR, Jersey City, owned and operated by the Jenkins Television Corporation, and may be “tuned in” by radio listeners who have receiving sets equipped for television purposes.
Of Widespread Interest
It is interesting to note that the publicity department of Visugraphic received more than 150 newspaper clippings from every part of the United States and Canada bearing on the new television pictures. This indicates the tremendous news value in the science of broadcasting “movies” by television.
From the commercial advertising point of view, the televisual “movies” offers an unexcelled opportunity to manufacturers to popularize a product in a unique and interest-compelling way. (Calgary Herald)

SUNDAY, JULY 7, 1929
Compact Drum Scanner Advances Home Television
The latest television receiver for home use has just been demonstrated at the Jenkins television laboratories and is regarded as one of the simplest and most practical forms of receivers yet proposed. It is a development of the original “drum” type receiver invented by C. Francis Jenkins, a pioneer worker in this field and also in motion pictures.
The new televisor replaces the usual awkward scanning disc, measuring a yard in diameter, with the compact and highly efficient scanning drum. The complete televisor is incorporated in a walnut cabinet measuring approximately 18x18x24 inches, as shown in the illustration. The front end of the cabinet contains a recessed opening or shadow box leading to the large magnifying lens through which the radio-movies are viewed, together with three switches and a “framing” crank. The operation of the Jenkins televisor is simplicity itself. The first switch snaps on a neon glow lamp. A short wave radio set, employed in conjunction with the televisor, is tuned in the usual manner, until the characteristic note of the television signal is at maximum in the loud speaker. The second switch turns on the motor and also serves as a simple method of bringing the scanning drum in step with the picture. The crank is turned so as to frame the picture properly from left to right.
The interior mechanism of the televisor is compact, simple and rugged. The earlier laboratory set-up has been reduced to commercial production equipment for home use. The synchronous motor and scanning drum are mounted vertically and supported by a stanch angle-iron framework.
A special form of distributor serves to flash the four neon lamp plates in succession, illuminating the four quartets of the scanning drum in four successive revolutions. The operation is exceedingly quiet. The framing crank serves to turn the motor and its scanning drum slightly, so as to bring the picture into step with the scanned image. The scanning drum holes are viewed through the magnifying lens, giving an apparent screen size of about six inches square, or sufficient for the simultaneous entertainment of six to eight persons.
As for the nature of the entertainment, only the simplest subjects are being broadcast at this time. Instead of attempting very crude half-tone pictures the engineers are endeavoring to transmit and receive silhouette or black-and-white movies with a fair degree of accuracy. The demonstration of a thrilling boxing contest in silhouette form can be readily followed on the televisor screen and if anything, is so unique as to be perhaps more fascinating than if it were shown to the usual full tone. Titles are included in the television pictures. (New York Herald Tribune)



WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1929
Bound Brook Likely to be Site Of Television Plant for RCA
Two developments in radio in the metropolitan area are awaiting decisions by the Federal Radio Commission, according to a representative of the Radio Corporation of America. An application has been filed for an experimental television station license for a transmitter to be located at Bound Brook, N. J., where Station WJZ’s transmitting plant is located. The application requests that the thirty kilowatt image broadcaster be permitted to operate on the frequency band of 2,850-2,950 kilocycles, equivalent to 105 to 101 meters.
No definite information relative to the plans of this television outfit will be released, according to the RCA representative, until the license is issued. He declined to say whether this television plant would supplant the one now in operation at 411 Fifth avenue, or whether its entry into the ether lanes would mark the beginning of regular television service for the home. (New York Times)

SUNDAY, JULY 14, 1929
Movies in Home by Radio Object of New Invention
WASHINGTON, July 14.—(Universal News Service)—A 23-year California inventor, E. L. Peterson of Los Angeles, has obtained patent rights on a new and revolutionary new television principal, it was revealed here today.
The Peterson invention solves the present great problem of synchronization between the sender and the receiver of visional broadcasting, according to the inventor and his attorney, Judge Jerome Lyman Richardson of Riverside, Cal., who claimed it will make radio-movies as available as the present vocal radio.
Judge Richardson went to New York today to confer with bidders for the patent rights and for production of the set. He declined to discuss technical details of the new invention, but said:
“It embodies a new and simplified principle, which entirely masters the question of synchronization between the broadcasting and receiving points, heretofore the great problem of televison. All synchronization obstacles of the past have been eliminated and the Peterson invention will make it possible for the average person to sit down in his home, turn a dial and receive the picture broadcast with the aid of no more technical knowledge than is necessary for the operation of the radio.”
The invention is known as ray-o-vision and a corporation has been formed under the laws of California to handle it. Peterson his attorney plan to leave shortly for Europe with a view to interesting foreign operators. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 15)

MONDAY, JULY 15, 1929
WOKO BROADCASTING TELEVISION PROGRAMS
Visual broadcasting, known popularly as television, is now part of the daily radio program of Station WOKO, located on the top of Mount Beacon, near Poughkeepsie, N. Y., according to the Hudson Valley Broadcasting Company, its operators. The images are sent out each after between 2 and 3 o’clock, Easter Daylight Time, on a wavelength of about 145 eters. The call letters are W-2XBU. Subjects used for the visual programs at present are persons, placards, letters and small objects. While images transmitters are said to be “not perfect,” it is expected that experiments will find their reception an interesting diversion and an aid in carrying on television work with home-made receiving equipment.
The apparatus required to intercept the visual programs is a shortwave receiving set equipped with resistance-type audio amplifier, scanning disk, driving motor and neon tube. (New York Times)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1929
TO TEST TELEVISION OUTSIDE OF CITIES A thorough study of the possibility of reliable television service for large suburban and rural areas will be made at Bound Brook, N. J., if the Federal Radio Commission grants an application now before it for a 30-kilowatt image transmitter, according to Dr. A. N. Goldsmith, chief broadcasting engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, who will direct the tests. The wave length proposed is 101 to 105 meters, or 2,950-2,850 kilocycles. It is expected that a comparatively short time will be required to prepare for the tests.
“Our plan,” said Dr. Goldsmith, “is to determine the limitations of visual broadcasts outside of cities just as we are now studying such problems within cities. We hope to ascertain the general transmission characteristics of rural television, how such signals will be affected by static and fading, and the power required for coverage of definite areas.
“Television signals have a less useful range than that obtained with a transmitter sending out audible programs. The short wave lengths assigned for television work are more highly absorbed between the transmitter and the receiver. The zone of fading on short waves is nearer the sending station, say within 100 to 150 miles. Television also requires very critical and difficult methods of transmission and reception, therefore we need unusually perfect signals for high quality service. All these characteristics and limitations are to be carefully studied, so the tests will be entirely experimental, leading later perhaps to a study of television over greater distances.
Dr. Goldsmith said the 30-kilowatt image broadcaster probably would give adequate image service in an area of 500 to 1,000 square miles. (New York Times)

MONDAY, JULY 22, 1929
TELEVISION BROADCASTING IS INAUGURATED ON NIGHTLY WASHINGTON PROGRAMS
By KENNETH G. CRAWFORD
(United Press Staff Correspondent.)
WASHINGTON, July 22.—(UP)—Picture broadcasting was placed on a permanent nightly basis for the first time here tonight with the formal opening of a new studio by C. Francis Jenkins, pioneer in the development of television and president of the Jenkins Television company.
For more than a year the inventor has been broadcasting tri-weekly programs from a 50-watt station in his downtown studio and has gained an audience estimated at 20,000, most of its members amateur radio operators.
To serve this audience better and recruit new members, Jenkins established his new station in a converted farm house five miles north of the District of Columbia line. He was recently granted permission by the Federal Radio Commission to operate a station on a wave length of 2,900 kilocycles.
With this more powerful station, he hopes to send pictures regularly as far west as the Pacific coast and as far south as Porto Rico. Even from his old station a few amateurs were able to pick up his programs occasionally from those distances.
Opens New Studio.
Jenkins announced with the opening of the new studio that he will attempt to broadcast views of the national capital radioed from his airplane to the ground station. This will be done with the "aerial eye," on which the inventor has been experimenting almost every day for several years.
The inventor pilots his own plane. His first machine was damaged recently in a forced landing and he is now equipping a new one for the forthcoming tests of the panorama broadcasting device. The mechanical "eye" of the equipment will peer through a hole in the bottom of the ship.
The views it picks up will be sent to the new broadcasting station and retransmitted to the television audience. In order to reach remote receiving stations two 130-foot antenna towers have been erected near the country studio.
The opening program of the new station was a one-hour motion picture which Jenkins prefaced with a brief talk. Later he will broadcast scenes enacted by living images, but the room from which this is to be done is not yet completely equipped.
Jenkins has found that television fans prefer to see living objects rather than motion pictures. The change in power and frequency in the new station has made it necessary for members of Jenkins’ audience to reconstruct their sets somewhat. Most of the amateurs who receive television programs have assembled their own sets from parts made at home, or supplied by the Jenkins Company, the inventor said.
The same equipment required to pick up sound waves is used to receive television waves, but this must be supplements with the picture projection device.
The picture as it comes in is about six inches square and shows on an illuminated screen in black and white.
"We know how to broadcast colors," Jenkins said, "but it isn't practical because it would require too many wave lengths. We would ruin the air for everyone else by attempting it."
Jenkins will not use all the power granted by the radio commission in his initial programs, but plans to utilize it all eventually.

SATURSDAY, JULY 27, 1929
Seeks Television License.
WASHINGTON, July 27. (AP)—The Great Lakes Broadcasting Co. of Chicago has applied to the Federal Radio Commission for a new radio station license for a television transmitter.

MONDAY, JULY 29, 1929
Entire Show Is Broadcast By Television
Washington, D. C., July 31.—Television has turned the corner, according to eminent radio authorities after the encouraging results from the Jenkins television broadcast over station W2AX were made known recently.
For the first time in history, a complete picture story was televised. This "television drama" was on the air one hour. Reports of its satisfactory reception were received from points as far west as Chicago, and as far north as Lexington, Mass. Station attendants expect several days to elapse before all reports are received.
The program was the first of a series to be sent out regularly from 8 to 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, over the new power transmitter recently installed about five miles north of Washington, D. C. The series was inaugurated in the presence of radio commission officials.
Dr. Jenkins shared the enthusiasm of friends, radio engineers and television fans who witnessed or took part in this epoch-making event. From now on the public will take a keen interest in these broadcasts, and a big impetus will be given to the further development of television which will usher in a new era of opportunity for radio men and the general public. (Tampa Times)

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 7, 1929
'Talkies' in Home Promise of New Television Device
Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of a new television device, which he claims will soon permit owner of radio sets to receive motion "talkie" pictures in their homes, demonstrated his invention last night. A group of scientists witnessed the tests.
Photographs, the silhouettes of moving fingers and the curling upwards cigarette smoke were transmitted in his Green street laboratories, from one room to a receiving set in another, and were visible on a screen.
New Method Used
The scientists who witnessed the exhibition were members of the Board of Directors of the California Research Group of Science of Vision—Prof. R. S. Minor, University of California; Dr. T. A. Brombach, Dr. Van Simonton, Dr. J. R. Morris, Dr. Leland Carter and Al Reinke, lecturer at the University of California.
Professor Minor declared that the demonstration was "most interesting.” He said he was particularly impressed with the new method of “scanning”. The Farnsworth device does not use a "scanning wheel" or scanning disk, as is used in other television system. The picture is "torn down” at the transmitting end and "built up" at the receiving end by electricity.
Farnsworth stated that with his device families possessing radio sets will reasonably soon be able to hear and see in their living rooms musical comedies as they are being acted and sung in some distant city, that they will be able to watch some spectacular play occurring in a football stadium, hear the impact of men's bodies as they buck the line, see the fumbles and the passes and the roaring approval of the stadium crowds.
He promises that pictures of events taken in the sunlight will soon be transmitted clearly by his system.
The astonishing new instrument invented by Farnsworth is not a bulky affair. In a cabinet of ordinary size, it resembles the average home radio receiving set. Instead of a loud speaker there is an attachment on top of the cabinet with a round orifice for the "vision field."
He says that the experiments so far made have convinced him and his associates that the device can be placed in a still smaller cabinet and that plans are under way to put it into practical use on a large scale. (San Francisco Examiner)



TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 1929
KGO’s program tonight will be a memorable event; impressive from the number of dignitaries to be presented, absorbing from a dra¬matic and musical standpoint and spectacular for those who will witness the broadcast which will originate in the San Francisco Civic auditorium in conjunction with the Sixth Annual Pacific Radio show. KGO will be on the air from 7 to 11 o’clock.
For its night at the radio show KGO has delayed the opening of its 40,000-watt short wave station W6XN. State and civic officials have been invited to participate in this opening which will feature artists of many foreign countries wearing native costumes. This program will be rebroadcast by the New York stations of the General Electric and it is expected that a score of foreign stations also will relay the W6XN transmission.
Preceding the W6XN inaugura¬tion there will be half-hour program by the Rembrandt Trio. the Melodettes, and the Olympians. At 8:30 those celebrated musical no¬mads, the Pilgrims, who have been traversing the ether lanes for nearly four years, will make their appearance, with August Hinrichs directing. Vocal numbers will be sung by Eva Gruninger Atkinson, contralto, Grace LePage, soprano, and the Olympians. (Santa Ana Daily Register)

THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 1929
RCA STATION AT BOUND BROOK ASKS LICENSE RENEWAL
WASHINGTON, Aug. 22.—The Radio Corporation of America applied for a renewal of the television license for the portable station serving New York and New Jersey at Bound Brook, N. J. The call letters are W2XBV. Broadcasting station WJZ is located at Bound Brook. (Home News, New Brunswick, N.J.)

SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 1929
Chicago Station Give Television License
A television broadcasting license has been granted to WENR. The Chicago station has been allocated the visual broadcasting channel ranging from 2,850 to 2.950 kilocycles by the radio commission for television transmission on regular schedule with 5,000 watts power. There are now approximately a dozen stations licensed to broadcast television but all are on an experimental basis. (Chicago Triune

TELEVISION SETS NOW BEING MADE BY JENKINS CORPORATION
With the recent development of a novel combination scanning drum and selector shutter disk by its engineering staff, resulting in a simpler, more economical, and far more practical scanning system, the Jenkins Television Corporation of Jersey City, N. J., now announces the mass production of television apparatus.
“Although we have been in production on experimental television equipment for six months past,” states James W. Garside, President of the Jenkins Television Corporation, “we have withheld mass production of market models until we could be positive of our grounds. Our earlier models were too elaborate and costly for use in the average home, while the results left much to be desired. Therefore, our production until now consisted of sample televisors for use in checking up the efficiency of our television transmitters at Jersey City and Washington, under typical receiving conditions.
48-Line Reception.
“With out [our] latest development, we have evolved a remarkably simple, inexpensive, and highly practical televisor, which can be readily manufactured at a reasonable cost. The new Jenkins televisor will permit of receiving either plain black and-pink radio movies or full half tone pictures, with good detail and illumination within the limitations of our present 48-line system. Should we find it advisable to go to 60 or more lines, based on our present experiments and developments, the Jenkins televisors can be readily changed over to accommodate additional lines and finer detail.
“All in all, I am satisfied we now have a practical televisor with which we can inaugurate everyday television,” concludes Mr. Garside. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1929
Motion Picture Are Broadcast
Distinct Progress Being Made in Television Studios at Pittsburgh
[By ROBERT D. HEINL]
Distinctive progress is being made in the broadcasting of motion pictures at the Westinghouse plant at Pittsburgh. Motion and still pictures are being sent daily from the television studio in Homestead works, thence by wire four miles to the KDKA transmitting station and broadcast from there to the Farm, as the short wave receiving station is known about six miles northeast.
Ordinary moving picture films are used and such subjects being shown a Krazy Kat and Pathe current news events. It was explained that motion pictures were chosen because they are more difficult to than actual objects. However, at the Homestead television studios, scanning devices are also available for the broadcasting of living subjects. A television studio is indeed a curious looking place and with its bright lights not unlike a moving picture studio.
Formerly because of the makeshift apparatus, an observer was constantly reminded of the experimental nature of television, but there is little of this in evidence at Pittsburg. The transmitting apparatus is of a substantial character and finished in appearance. The reels whirl in the same businesslike way as for a regular motion picture and with countless operators the scene presented in the television studio is similar to one so frequently seen in the projection booth of an ordinary movie theater.
Looks Like Going Concern
Likewise there is the air of a going concern at the receiving end. Not a lot of loose junk wired together but the apparatus compactly assembled on a table and resembling a camera outfit about the size a professional photographer uses. Also a thing one rarely sees in an experimental laboratory—the floor was neatly swept. Viewing a television picture recalls vividly the way we used to look at old time motion pictures in a kinetoscope, excepting that here in a darkened room sees the picture by peering into a long cylinder sometimes standing as far as five feet back to get the right focus.
The moving pictures being broadcast at Pittsburgh are as yet small, about three by four inches in size but larger than the Bell telephone pictures being sent over wires in color which are only as big as a postage stamp. In both the Westinghouse and the Bell demonstrations, however, the details of the pictures are surprisingly sharp and distinct.
“If we make as much improvement in the next six months in broadcasting motion pictures as we have in the past six,” a Westinghouse official remarked, “we will really be able to report progress. As soon as we get one thing lacked we go after the next.”
Let not the reader gather from this that any definite time has been set when the last thing will be “licked” or when we may expect to receive regular television broadcasts into our homes. It may be just around the corner and again it may be years. At the moment research is being carried on along two lines. The first is perfecting quality of the transmitted picture and the second is the effort being made by radio manufacturers to design a receiver or an attachment to go on radio sets, capable of receiving broadcast pictures and selling at a price within reach of the general public. Quite tantalizing at Westinghouse is a peep at the new 100,000 watt tubes, said to be the world’s largest, which are in the making for the new KDKA and KYW stations, without being permitted to go into details regarding their construction or possibilities. They look to be about eight feet in length and are the first to have water-colored grids. So intricate is the process of manufacture that, though a new tube is started every week, the net result is only about two completed tubes a month. So it may be some time before the required six are completed for the new KYW station at Chicago and 12 for the new KDKA station near Pittsburgh. Although the Westinghouse people are as silent as clams regarding these great new tubes, it is believed when the facts are known about them they may prove a sensation in the radio world. Rumor hath it that instead of 100,000 watts, tests have shown that they are capable of 150,000 watts power (Tulsa World)

November 1928

U.S. government regulators tried to solve a problem with television at the end of 1928.

Radio stations were sending out TV shows, a few of them on a regular schedule. But there wasn’t enough bandwidth on medium wave frequencies (that is, today’s A.M. band) to accommodate pictures.

The Radio Commission decided to tell stations to get telecasts off A.M. by January 1, 1929, and erect short wave transmitters to broadcast television. Oh, they’d need a license to that.

This mainly affected WGY in Schenectady and WRNY near New York. The latter was drastically forced to curtail most of its telecasts to 15 minutes at 3 p.m. Mondays and Fridays, 2:45 p.m. Wednesdays and 12:45 a.m. Thursdays. It also wasn’t helped by radio frequencies being re-assigned on November 11, and WNYR being forced to share time with three other stations. The company filed for bankruptcy in February 1929.

Hugo Gernsback’s “Science Service” supplied newspapers with a list of television stations and their statuses. We have an image file of one for November 1928 below. It confirms W4XA in Memphis was on the air, at least occasionally, and W6XC in Los Angeles had a regular schedule. The latter was operated in tandem with KGFJ, the radio station credited with being the first to broadcast 24 hours a day. Jeff Falewicz has a found a link to the TV operations.

You’ll notice there is no mention at all of NBC’s W2XBS. RCA’s David Sarnoff also doesn’t mention the station in an interview published that month. Either the transmissions were super-secret, or the impression that W2XBS went on the air immediately after getting a license in July that year isn’t accurate.

TV stations were told to stay off the air on federal election night to allow radio stations to broadcast the returns without TV-caused interference. Nevertheless, WCFL did have a telecast, airing a photo of the President-Elect.

Highlights for the month are below.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1928
BROADCAST BAND FOR TELEVISION TO BE LIMITED
Rigid Regulation Seen Until New Process Is Perfected
BY ROBERT MACK
WASHINGTON, Nov. 2.—Television and picture broadcasting will be permitted on the broadcast band until January 1, at least, but under strict limitation and rigid regulation.
To permit visual broadcasting to remain within the reach of the general radio public, the federal radio commission has decided—and shortly will announce—that such broadcasting will be authorized to a limited extent within the broadcast spectrum. Whether it will eventually go into the short wave band, where special equipment requiring some technical knowledge is necessary, remains to be decided. However, the commission has broken the deadlock of some months standing as to what to do about television because of its questionable public interest to listeners on the broadcast band, and its nuisance possibilities at this stage of development.
With the commission’s action there will be an immediate demand of stations for authority to broadcast pictures and television, supplementing the ten or so already operating experimentally. The order, it is learned, will make mandatory that formal applications be filed and formal authority obtained before stations may operate. Visual broadcasting will be conditioned upon specifications designed to prevent interference to regular reception, with the band of frequencies occupied by any television station not to exceed ten kilocycles.
One Hour Allowed
One hour during daylight will be the maximum time for both television and picture broadcasting. It must cease at 6 p. m. standard time and not begin again until after 11 p. m.
After January 1 the commission again will take up the problem, better enabled to cope with it by virtue of the experiments of the two months of trial in the broadcast band. The interference caused and the popularity of visual transmission with the radio public will be taken into consideration, along with an interpretation of the obligations of the United States under the International Radio Telegraph convention of 1927, regarding the presence on the broadcast band of anything other than telephonic transmissions.
The commission's action is of much significance in the development of television. It is almost certain that television must go into the short-wave spectrum eventually, because of the severe space limitations in the broadcast band, but experiments with the new radio art insist that to do this now would seriously impede Its development, because it would be out of the reach of practically all listeners and little would be gleaned in the way of public reaction. The commission has met the issue by a compromise.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1928
McCULLA OPERATES TELEVISION DEVICE
Following Tuesday’s election [6], station WCFL, Chicago, transmitted Hoover’s picture by television and again on Wednesday.
As is well known to Waukegan radio fans, W. K. McCulla, of McCulla & Co., the Majestic dealers, has done considerable work with television and owns and operates an outfit which he designed and built at the McCulla store.
Wednesday afternoon while WCFL was broadcasting the picture of the president-elect, Mr. McCulla was receiving it on his machine at his place of business. (Waukegan Daily Sun, Nov. 10)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1928
Television Broadcast
WMAK will continue its television transmissions in conjunction with Station WGY at Schenectady on Tuesday night at 11:30 o’clock, the program to run for one-half hour. (Buffalo Courier Express, Nov. 11)

TELEVISION NOW REALITY TO DETROITER
Pictures From WGY Plainly Seen on Home Made Set.
In another column on the radio page is an article on television by David Sarnoff, who looks forward to “radio sight” within “three to five years.” However the amateur experimenter is already at work and Arthur West, 5065 Beaconsfield avenue, reports that his home-built receiver is getting the transmissions from WGY, Schenectady.
Mr. West had as credentials a letter from WGY confirming his reception on the evening of November 11, when he saw an American flag waving its salute on his screen. WGY transmits on its regular wave length of 790 kilocycles on Tuesdays at 11:30 o’clock and Sundays at 10:15 o’clock.
The Free Press has asked Mr. West to describe his apparatus which he assembled himself, and his article will appear on the radio page next Sunday. (Detroit Free Press, Nov. 25)

Predicts Television in 3 to 5 Years For The Radio Fans.
NEW YORK. (NEA)—With some radio stations already announcing "television broadcasting," with radio amateurs longing for "televisor sets" and the listening public anxious to feast the eye as well as the ear—how close are we to practical television? NEA Service popped this question at David Sarnoff, vice president and general manager of the Radio Corporation of America. His answer may be summarized as follows:
Sight transmission by radio is inevitable. Progress made thus far points to a new system of telegraphic service, when messages and pictures will be transmitted and received photographically through the air; to radio motion pictures, when one transmission may serve a million homes; to television; and even to the transmission of scenes by radio in their natural colors.
We may expect to witness such developments in a period of from three to five years, Sarnoff adds.
Present Difficulties
For the present, however, the fact remains that:
1. Television is still in an experimental stage;
2. Many improvements and some new engineering solutions are required to advance the art; and
3. The broad highway in the ether required for the establishment of an organized television service is still to be located.
Vast Improvements Needed
"More sensitive and photo-electric cells, more brilliant and flexible lighting devices and more perfect synchronization of light elements are among the problems now being studied by radio scientists.
"The clearing of a road through space to accommodate visual transmission is another major problem. While a wave 'side band' of 5,000 cycles can be used for sound transmission, a wave band of 20,000 to 100,000 cycles or even more is needed to make visual broadcasting effective."
The problem of radio television, Sarnoff suggests, is best visualized in considering the vast differences between the ear and the eye.
"With all that science, discovery and engineering have accomplished in equipping man for the struggle of life, the eye still looks out naked upon the aided to a limited extent by pieces of curved polished glass. A sensitive photographic apparatus, the eye demands that every scene be contracted to its limited field of vision. It tolerates but little interference.
"Shake a feather before the eye and you blot out the view of a mountain. Project two views simultaneously and you create confusion before the sight.
Ear Is Less Susceptible
"Contrast this to the ear. The ear receives sounds from all directions. It is able to recognize and interpret the slightest tonal differences. By an act of concentration we can almost eliminate from consciousness the poise of a room full of people and conduct a conversation with a single auditor.
"Radio broadcasting found a pliable and sympathetic organ of reception in the ear.
"But in attempting to serve the eye the radio stands squarely before the fundamental problems of electro-magnetic wave propagation through space. Engineering solutions alone will not suffice to life the bandage that has limited human vision.
"A sudden blur of interference, hardly noticeable in sound broadcasting, may for an instant blot out a distant scene projected by visual transmission. Static, now overridden in the broadcasting of sound, may vitiate entirely the broadcasting of sight.
What We May Expect
"Within three to five years, however, I believe we shall be well launched into the dawning age of sight by radio, involving among others the following developments: "Radio Motion Pictures: The transmission in rapid succession of a series of still pictures otherwise motion pictures is a logical element in the development of sight transmission. Thus an educational or other event might be broadcast by a single radio operation to 100,000 or to 1,000,000 homes in the country.
"Radio Television: The instantaneous projection through space of light images produced directly from the object in the studio or the scene brought to the broadcasting station through remote control involves many further problems. Special types of distribution networks, new forms of stagecraft and a development of studio equipment and technique are required.
Can't Repeat Scenes
"New problems would rain in upon the broadcasting station. New forms of artistry would have to be encouraged and developed. Variety, and more variety, would be the cry of the day.

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1928
Television Delivers
Silhouettes of Cecil B. DeMille, Will Hays and other notables were used as demonstrations of the television given by the radio station KGFJ last night [13] at the Roosevelt Hotel at the dinner meeting of the Wampas. The demonstration was arranged through Ben McGloshan [sic] KGFJ. Mr. De Mille, Al Rockett of First National, Wesley Ruggles, Robert North and other well known directors were honour guests at the dinner. Frank Murray and James Loughborough were joint chairmen. (Hollywood Daily Citizen, Nov. 14)

LOCAL MAN BUILDS TELEVISION SET
He may have done it in preparation for the days after January 1 when his work as city commissioner will require his supervision over city employees. On the other hand he may have done it just for the fun of it.
At any rate, George B. Patterson, 909 Lake Adair circle, has completed a home-made television instrument, with which he “tele-saw” an acrobatic act broadcast from Station WGY, Schenectady, N. Y., Tuesday night [13].
All of the instrument was made by Mr. Patterson, with the exception of the lamp used, he said, the construction of the machine requiring only a few weeks.
He hopes to improve his machine later. (Orlando Morning Sentinel, Nov. 15)

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1928
BROADCASTERS ASK TO SEND PICTURES
Shepard of Boston One of Applicants
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17—Growing interest in television on the part of broadcasting companies is indicated by applications now pending with the Federal Radio Commission for construction permits for television stations.
Hearings have been held on a number of those applications, including those of the Shepard Norwell Company, Boston; Frank L. Carter, Long Island City, N. Y.; Aero Products Company, Chicago, Ill.; Great Lakes broadcasting Company, Chicago; Brooklyn Broadcasting Company, Brooklyn; and Walter J. Allen, Salina, Kan.
The commission has already issued a number of licenses for experimental television broadcasting and is permitting the use for not exceeding one hour a day of wave lengths in the broadcasting band for television experiments. General transmission of television, however, has been confined to the short wave lengths, and the use of the broadcast band during the next few weeks is permitted in order that it may be determined whether it will be possible to use broadcasting wave lengths for television transmission without interference with other services. (Boston Globe, Nov. 18)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1929
“COOKOO” IS NOW TESTING TELEVISION
Tuinucu is tuning in on television, according to Grant Jones, the Cuban-American broadcaster, lyric writer and radio experimenter. Mr. Jones reported reception of WGY’s television transmission on the afternoon of November 20, and his report was confirmed by the log of the General Electric Company’s Schenectady station.
Mr. Jones began dabbling in radio several years ago. Within a few days after WGY went on the air in February 20, 1922, he reported by cable receiving dance music from the station. Not only did he hear the music, but he and his friends danced to the music. In 1922 that was a most unusual achievement.
Now Mr. Jones has outfitted himself television receiver and he is among the most distant to report reception of images from Schenectady. He was tuned to WGY’s short wave transmitter W2XAF. The image he saw was that of A. O. Coggeshall, one of the announcers of WGY. The voice of Mr. Coggeshall was very familiar to Tuinucu listeners and this was the first opportunity to view his face.
Mr. Jones interest in radio was not limited to reception. In the fall of 1922 he started his own broadcasting station 6KW on the sugar plantation and since that time he has received nearly half a million letters from listeners. A short-wave station, 6XJ, operating on 21.95 meters is also operated by Mr. Jones at Tuinucu, and if the experimenter is consistent, he will probably soon be sending images of himself and friends to the far corners of the United States. (Washington Herald, Jan. 5, 1929)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1928
Daily Television Programs on Air From Station W1XAY
By JOHN B. KNOX
Associated Press Features Editor
LEXINGTON, Mass., Nov. 22—(AP)—Regular daily television broadcasts have become a reality at station W1XAY at Lexington.
Every afternoon between 2 and 3 o'clock this station, operated in conjunction with station WLEX, puts on a program of visual radio entertainment for such fans and experimenters as are equipped to pick up the broadcasts. The broadcasts are being developed under the supervision of Alfred J. Pote, engineer in chief, and Carl S. Wheeler, owner of the stations.
Studio In Somber Colors.
The studio is a study in somber colors, dominated by a black background. The subject, whose image is to be broadcast, is placed several feet away from a machine resembling a motion picture projector and employing a high intensity arc light.
Just in front of the outermost lense [sic] of the projector is the edge of a steel disc about two feet in diameter. In a spiral arrangement within a narrow band next to the edge of the disc are cut forty forty-eight tiny square holes, When the disc is set in motion and the arc turned on, sharp lines of white light pass in continuous stream across the subject to be televised. The disc turns 900 revolutions per minute.
Photo electric cells, sensitive to every variation in light and shadow, pick up the form of the subject and his every movement. The differences in light-intensity are translated into electric impulses just as the radio microphone changes sound energy into electrical energy.
These electrical impulses pass directly to amplifiers employing eight vacuum tubes which build up the signal before it is put on the air. A forty-foot aerial of high efficiency is employed to send out the signals on a wavelength of 61.5 meters with 500 watts power.
Every amplifier tube heavily sheathed with lead. Extraordinary precautions been taken to prevent the slightest vibrations from reaching the tubes. The cabinets containing the tubes are thickly padded with felt. An area ten feet square may be covered by the broadcasting equipment, but in practice such large broadcasts are not owing to various limitations.
Reports of receipt of the programs have come from New York state and Connecticut. St. Joseph Gazette)
Magazine-Street Home Has Television Receiver
George A. Thurling, Radio Experimenter, Among Pioneers in This City to Realize Dream of Bringing Photo Broadcasts Into His Apartment—Pictures Not as Clear as Popularly Believed. But Experiment is Impressive Even to Layman
Television experimenting is latest thing with local radio fans, particularly those with sufficient knowledge and experience to be able to fashion their picture receivers in whole or in part. While reception among those who have such sets is not yet all that it should be they are hopeful that the day is not far off when the when the rewards of pioneering will be theirs.
Among the first to equip himself with such a set is George A. Thurling of 27 Magazine street. He is an enthusiast on television and there are few night picture-broadcasts which he passes by without tuning in. His favorite station, however, is WGY, Schenectady and he reports fairly successful reception from this point.
Laymen Attend “Séance”
Last Tuesday [20], the press was called in to attend the “séance,” for, to the uninitiated, that is just what it suggests. There were five guests present when the lights were turned off at 11:30 in anticipation of the ghostly figures that come by air, not in silence, but attended by a drumming staccato somewhat like the intermittent roar of an airplane motor heard some distance away. The performance began.
The first presentation was what might be taken for a curtain with the letters WGY printed diagonally across it from top to bottom. Because of the fine adjustment of the dial controling the motor rotating the disc, in front of the television tube and just behind the inch-square screen on which the radioed image appears, the picture at times traveled to the right or left of the line of vision. There were at times what appeared to be sparks flying across the picture—these, it was explained, correspond to static in tonal radio. The phenomena of fading was distinctly noticeable several times during the broadcast, the image losing its sharpness of tone and then regaining it with corresponding dimunition or increase in the buzzing noise attendant upon the reception.
“Pictures” Indistinct
The clearest picture seen during the evening was that of a man, the outline of his head being very clear at times, and his movements noticeable to the extent that it could be easily distinguished whether he was facing the televisor head on, or whether only his profile was being broadcast. There was no such thing as simultaneous transmission of light and sound as is imagined by those who talk lightly of television, but the results of the experiment were impressive and convincing enough even for the lay-observer. Television, as a practical medium of communication, is not yet “here,” but it is on the way.
Mr. Thurling is an experimenter of considerable experience, having operated some years ago an amateur station under license of the Canadian government. He has been experimenting with television several months and the results he obtains are noteworthy, when one considers that his apartment is on the fourth floor of an apartment house, the roof of which is cluttered with alien antennas. Had he the sweep of the country from a hilltop vantage point, he claims, the clarity of the televised photos and subjects would be much greater.
He recently took his set to North Adams, where he says, the results were far better than he has been able to obtain locally. The reasons are less interference, and closer proximity to the point of origin of the broadcast. (Springfield, Mass., Union and Republican, Nov. 25)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1928
Television Latest Fad For Screen Stars
Many Have Installed Apparatus In Their Homes Already
Television is the latest fad of the screen stars. With the new home television and projected general broadcasting of radio pictures, many screen celebrities are installing the apparatus in their homes.
Tod Browning, director; Lon Chaney and William Haines now have sets working. Buster Keaton is preparing to build his. So far broadcasting is hard to receive on the Pacific Coast, but when Western broadcasting stars many players plan to follow the new hobby. (Baltimore Sun)

Television Test Interferes With Radio Reception
Television tests from station WGY at Schenectady last night [25] caused no small trouble for Norfolk radio fans who believed WTAR was on the air or that some interference was being caused by the local broadcasting station.
Manager Jack Light of WTAR said that television tests are made every Sunday night from 11:15 to 11:30 o’clock, and that because the WGY frequency of 790 kilocycles is so near the 780 of WTAR, a good many persons thought the local station was causing the trouble. WTAR, however, went off the air at 9:10 p. m.
Television, said manager Light, causes a whining sound such as a low-flying airplane makes and that reception within certain channels virtually is impossible. (Virginia Pilot, Nov. 26)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1928
HOOVER INAUGURATION MAY BE FIRST BIG TELEVISION ‘CAST
By ISRAEL KLEIN,
Science Editor, NEA Service.
When Herbert Hoover takes his oath of office next March 4 as president of the United States, he may be seen doing so as well as heard by radio!
For television may play an important part in his inaugural ceremonies.
Television is far from perfect. It is altogether experimental. It has its limitations in broadcasting. But considering what has been done with it heretofore, it is quite likely that a television transmitter will be working in front of the next president at his inauguration, alongside the battery of microphones which already has been, accepted as a public institution.
Broadcasting such an event by television will not be new by any means. It has already been done and found quite successful. When Governor Al Smith accepted the presidential nomination the party last August, he faced not only a battery of microphones but a set of television cameras which broadcast his movements as far off as Los Angeles.
Great Inventions on Job.
This was the work of E. F. W. Alexanderson and his staff of General Electric engineers at Schenectady. Alexanderson has since improved on his apparatus so that he can visualize a larger scene than a head and broadcast it with the aid of daylight.
In the Bell Telephone laboratories in New York, Dr. Herbert E. Ives, famous optical expert, has been developing a television apparatus that has broadcast scenes in daylight and transmitted them to large "screens" consisting of rows of neon tubes.
The receiver images, so far, have been rather vague and jumpy. But they show great promise toward perfection of as good reproduction as see today in the movies.
In Washington, C. Francis Jenkins, the inventor, comes forth with a more highly developed receiver for television. On the basis of the new principle he employs in transmitting and reception, he predicts that the coming inaugural ceremonies will be seen as well as heard by radio.
Jenkins' new apparatus demands the use of 2304 tiny lamps in the radio-vision receiving equipment whereby the light for producing the incoming picture is multiplied many thousand times.
In other words, that deception of the eye which makes for persistence of vision is displaced by the persistence of light in the novel radio-vision received which Jenkins is now building. Just as the illumination of the electric-llght bulb in our home or office lingers for moment after the switch has been snapped off, the exciting current employed in this radical principle of visual radio persists for an appreciable time—about one-tenth of a second.
At present, at least three methods of transmitting and receiving pictures by radio are in vogue—the scanning disk, first used in 1884; a lens-disk, in which tiny lenses are placed over the scanning, disk holes; and the so-called drum-scanner, recently developed by Jenkins.
The latter device, resembling the hub of a wheel with its tiny glass-rod spokes, is said to permit light to flow through these quartz rods like water rushing through a pipe. However, even with the use of this new drum-scanning device the elementary area of a picture being received by radio is illuminated only one 2304 part of the whole time—again calling for deception of the eye.
Reason for Dim Image.
"And let me remind you," asserts Jenkins, "that the apparent intensity of illumination of the whole picture is the intensity of the light coming to the eye from a single elementary area, divided by the elementary time fraction, which is also equal to the number of elementary areas, namely 2304. That is why the picture seems so dully lighted when the machine is running though the scanning spot is very bright when the machine stops.
"Multiplying this light reduction by the fractional inefficiency of the current, it will be seen that the total current-light efficiency on the eye in the scanning disk method is less than of one per cent."
Because of a similar light limitation in the drum-scanner, Jenkins is looking to a new principle for solving the immediate problem of television. At least seven other laboratories are attacking the problems of visual radio—each in their own way—and this would seem to justify the prediction that the inaugural ceremonies will be seen as well as heard by radio.
Broadcasters Interested.
The broadcasting stations now engaged in the experimental transmission of images are: WRNY, New York; WGY, Schenectady; KDKA, Pittsburgh; WOR, Newark, N. J.; WABC, New York; WLEX, Boston, and WCFL, Chicago.
It is rumored that at least 150 broadcasting stations are soon to install equipment for picture transmission—sending still photographs, sketches, telegrams, cartoons, motion pictures or other crude images.
Picture-receiving mechanism is now being manufactured on a large scale for introduction in the homes. This apparatus, however, is not to be confused with so-called television equipment—the sending and receiving by radio of animate objects or moving scenes from distant points—since television is in a crude, experimental stage.

PROFESSSOR BUILDS TELEVISION SET
A radio television set, in Physics laboratory at the Stephenson hall of Science, Lawrence college, was recently built by Dr. A. D. Power, professor of physics and Lloyd Root, Appleton, a senior in college. They have been conducting experiments dally in a darkened room and two weeks ago received pictures from WCFL, Chicago, as a clear as newspaper illustrations.
Because the broadcasting stations recently decreased their wave lengths, their receiving set is useless and the experimenters are building a short wave receiver to pick up some 40-meter wave length stations in the east, 3XK, WGY, 2XAD.
The experimental television set is based on the Nipkow scanning disk which dates back to 1883. It is a rotating plate with tiny holes placed in a spiral near the edge and its speed is determined by the number of images transmitted per second. The speed of the disk at the receiver must be the same as that of the transmitter. This is obtained by synchronization.
The present need of television is automatic synchronization instead of hand control, which was used by the Lawrence experimenters. The number of holes in the disk is equal to the number of lines in the image. There are 48 holes in the disk used in the experiment but the larger the number, the better the picture. (Appleton Post-Crescent)

October 1928

Sometimes, a first isn’t a first.

Take, for example, a nationally-publicized “first” television wedding that capped the Chicago Radio Show in October 1928. There had been another wedding on TV, only a month before and in connection with the New York Radio Fair.

There weren’t many other firsts in television that month, unless you count that for the first, and only, time, television was banned from broadcasting results of the 1928 U.S. election. In fact, it was banned from the airwaves altogether that night. The Federal Radio Commission felt TV signals would cause all kinds of interference with radio stations nearby on the A.M. dial that were providing listeners with the returns.

WRNY re-announced a regular schedule. The only difference, it seems, was in the transmitting equipment.

Re-announcing his electronic television system without a mechanical scanning disc was Philo T. Farnsworth.

There was loads of speculation about television’s future after R.C.A.—the owner of NBC—became part of a consolidated company, the R-K-O Corporation. There was talk of NBC putting programming into R-K-O theatres, but the network was nowhere close to providing any kind of TV broadcasting. You’ll see claims NBC had put W2XBS on the air once it got its license in July 1928. If so, there’s no mention of it in the press at the time. Below, you will see a programming roundup of what was on the air on a regular basis that October.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1928
SPOKANE STATION SENDS PICTURES BY TELEVISION
Local Radio Fan "Listens In" On the Transmission.
The transmission of pictures by the television process is being accomplished by a broadcasting station located as close to Missoula as Spokane, it was learned here yesterday [3] by a local radio fan.
When A. F. Peterson tuned in on his radio about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, he heard announcer at station KFPY, Spokane stating that pictures were about to be transmitted by television. Mr. Peterson said this morning that the transmission could be received on the broadcasting wave, and that the sound produced was a high whistle which came with slight changes in pitch.
Although there are probably no picture receiving sets in Missoula now, it will not be long before some of the radio amateurs will be making them with success, he prophesied. That there are many such sets now in use is evident, or the Spokane station would not make the picture transmission by the television process a part of its program. "Of course the pictures are as yet only a simple outline, but the thing is extremely interesting," Mr. Peterson said. (Missoula Sentinel, Oct. 4)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1928
Chicago Fans to See Television at Work
Chicago, Oct. 5.—(AP)—Fans of Chicago, eager for a glimpse at television, will be given the opportunity at the seventh annual radio show here October 8 to 14.
The show, like the Radio World's fair just concluded in New York, is sponsored by the Radio Manufacturers' association, and it provides manufacturers an opportunity for the display of the latest in receivers, speakers and radio necessities.
The television layout will be similar to that shown to the public for the first time in New York. It will include transmitters and reproducers which will be connected by wire rather than radio. A part of the display will be a picture transmitter built for WMAQ.
Dr. R. E. Harris, head of the department of physics at Lake Forest college, has been named technical consultant of the show. He will be in charge of the television display and exhibits from the country's foremost scientific laboratories.
A broadcast studio is being fitted up, and radio stars will present their programs in view of the show visitors. Included in the local stations to broadcast these features will be KYW, WGN, WLS, WENR and WMAQ. Artists to appear will include Amos and Andy, Uncle Bob, Mike and Herman and the Salerno brothers. Jack Nelson, pioneer Chicago announcer and director, will be in charge of the programs.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1928
KSTP PURCHASES FIRST RADIO TELEVISION RECEIVER
Keeping abreast of the scientific! development in radio, KSTP, the National Battery station of St. Paul has purchased and assembled the first television receiving set in this section of the country.
The television set is entirely different from the picture receiver previously installed by KSTP to test results of its picture broadcasts, inaugurated three weeks ago. The new apparatus reflects images about one inch square like on a motion picture screen.
The basic mechanical unit of television is the Nipkow disc resembling a large phonograph record on edge and behind this is the Neon receiving lamp. A speed regulator and an image recorder with a frosted glass and lense completes the equipment. The magnifying lense through which the image of the picture is enlarged is arranged so that a group of people can see the result.
The KSTP set is not being used to pick "sights" out of the air as yet, due to the distance from Washington and Schenectady stations so sending out such signals, but as soon as [possible the] receiver will be used to test the results.
The National Battery station transmitter at Westcott, Minnesota, was so built as to permit the insallation [sic] of television transmitting equipment immediately following the development of this step in radio to the point where there are a reasonable number of receiving sets in listeners' homes.
(Marion, Ind., Daily Chronicle, Oct. 10)

PHOTO BY AIR IS FASTER THAN IS TELEVISION
The present status of television and picture broadcasting is well summarized in the survey made by Edgar H. Felix, New York expert for the Federal Radio Commission.
"Picture broadcasting differs from television," Felix reported to the commission. "No recording is attempted with television. The observer looks directly at light impulses controlled by the radiosignal. A complete image is reconstructed by the effect of persistence of vision. The entire image must therefore be repeated each sixteenth of a second. This fundamental limitation accounts for the crudeness of television and the vast ether space required to send an image having more than mere curiosity value.
"The use of sensitive paper for collecting images employed in picture reception overcomes all of the problems of television and accounts for the fact that television is limited to laboratory demonstrations conducted principally as a means for releasing blatant publicity while picture is spreading quietly from city to city and into the homes of countless experimenters.
"Several television or radio motion picture transmissions are in progress or projected on the broadcast band. This meritorious development work should be encouraged, but, when regulation is considered from the standpoint of the average listener, the respective stages of development of the two arts must be considered. It might be a service on the one hand to restrict the hours that television broadcasting is permitted and to permit unlimited broadcasting of still pictures. It is therefore worth while to consider the position of the two respective arts.
COMPARISON OF DEVELOPMENTS
"Picture broadcasting is already developed in practical commercial form; television is still an experiment offering an uncertain result. The parts for making picture receivers are on the market at reasonable cost, about that of a five or six tube home-built receiver. Any experimenter who was able to build his own set (more than 2,000,000 have done so in the United States in the last five years) can build up the simple three-tube outfit which constitutes a picture recorder.
"The improvement in clarity and detail of still picture transmission is about two thousandfold and accounts for the fact that a useful picture may be transmitted by Rayfoto while television is still limited to silhouettes of outlines, where the most that can be hoped for is a recognizable close-up of a single face.
Picture broadcasting may be received with an ordinary radio receiver. The listener requires no re-equipment of a substantial nature. He has most of the devices necessary to receive picture broadcasting. For the reception of television of the limited 24-line type special studio amplifiers must be built which will respond readily to the rapid frequency changes involved. If more than 24-line pictures are attempted the listener must purchase a new shortwave receiver and the Federal Radio Commission must establish a television band of considerable magnitude on short waves. (Evansville Courier)

Ayres, Malinoff and Rasche, now dancing in “Luckee Girl,” at the Casino Theatre, will perform before the television broadcasting camera tonight. It is expected that several hundred television receivers now in operation will tune in. They are among the first stage artists to test the invention. (Yonkers Herald)

Television Machine C-J Show Feature
You no doubt heard of television. You have probably read about this revolutionary advance in the field of radio. But you have never seen the remarkable machine which permits you both to see and hear the performer and performance? Not in Evansville.
The management of The Courier and Journal Radio Show which opens Wednesday evening [10] for three nights of radio demonstration and entertainment holds the distinction of securing the first television machine ever to be exhibited here.
So you may inspect this marvel at close quarters and carry away a better mipression [impression] of the very latest development in radio when you have visited the show.
As Evansville is too far away from any station broadcasting television, the radio show announces it will not be posible [sic] to demonstrate the television machine in action. However it will be possible to tune in on station WGBF and what music looks like in pictures (Evansville Courier)

MAY PUT TELEVISION IN SHORT WAVE CHANNELS
By ALEXANDER R. GEORGE
Associated Press Feature Writer
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (AP)—The ultra-enthusiastic televisionist dream, of the day when a fan sitting in an easy chair before an open fire in his home or club will watch a world series or a football thriller reproduced on a screen by radio.
The radio scientist, reluctant to predict achievements greater than the current development of the art warrants, is usually more modest in his expectations for radio “sight.”
One of the biggest problems from the standpoint of the commission is the selection of wavelengths most suitable for picture transmission which will not greatly curtail other important radio services. Most radio men are of the opinion that the short waves are best adapted for television. With the increasing demand for these waves for aircraft, ships and other communication purposes, the assignment of bands 40, 50 and 100 kilocycles wide, such as is required for worthwhile television must be restricted, government engineers say.
For adequate television service of permanent interest to the public, channels 100 kilocycles wide are essential, Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, told the commission when he applied for 20 channels of that width. The commission now has about 20 applications for television channels.
Commissioner O. H. Caldwell, however, reports that he saw a demonstration in a New York laboratory of two men boxing, fencing and swimming, the transmission coming with “fair clarity” over a band only 40 kilocycles wide. Some stations have broadcast very small pictures on a channel 10 kilocycles wide in the broadcast hand.
The transmission of the pictures is accompanied by a series of buzzes and whistles in the aural receiving sets tuned to that wave. This interference of visual broadcasting with listeners presents another problem to the commission which believes serious encroachment on aural broadcasting should not be allowed.
To prevent interference with other services, the engineers of the commission plan to recommend the segregation of television to a special band of channels in the short wave spectrum. With the development of new devices and the perfection of equipment, the engineers hope that television service of value to the public can be given eventually on narrower channels.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1928
Simplicity of Operation Is Seen In Investigation Of Home-Built Set
PITTSFIELD, Oct. 11—The simplicity of television, in the face of its many problems before it can be put to popular use, is brought out in the following description of a home-built outfit that has been used for the reception of television plays broadcast from WGY at Schenectady.
The apparatus was built by G. Camilli, an engineer at the Pittsfield works of the General Electric company, and is described by a fellow engineer, A. Boyajian. It is very much like the apparatus designed by Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, inventor of television, and used at the recent television demonstration at Schenectady.
“The outfit looked like a small motor-driven grinding wheel, except that the wheel was a thin black disc,” says Boyajian. “The source of light was mounted in back of this disc and there was a large magnifying lens on the other flat side of the disc.
Tiny Spot of Light
“We were told to look through the magnifying lens. The screen was black except for a tiny spot of light. A switch was turned on, and the motor started spinning the disc. The tiny spot of light began to move across the black background and traced a bright line on it then another spot came and traced another bright line just below the preceding one; then another line and then another until it got to the bottom of the screen.
“As the disc spun faster and faster, these bright lines, instead of appearing successively, began to appear simultaneously, so that the entire screen was illuminated by a series of bright lines. As the disc gained greater speed, some patches like clouds appeared on the miniature screen, moving very fast and across the field.
“We are approaching synchronism now,” said Camilli. “As soon as we get exact synchronism, the picture will stay on the screen and be clear.
“Reaching a rheostat, he turned the knob gently. These patches began to move slower and slower across the screen when finally at exact sychronism they stayed on the screen.
"We craned our neck closer. There was the head of a person, fair forehead, black eyebrows, dark eyes, a little crooked nose and lots of cheeks, making faces at us, as real as though looking face to face.”
Trouble to Overcome
That’s all there is to television reception—outside of a few difficulties that may require years to iron out, says Boyajian. For instance, there's synchronization, which means keeping both the transmitting and receiving discs revolving at exactly the same speed.
Then there are fluctuations in the electric current which moves the image back and forth on the screen and tends to blur it. To this is to be added distortion introduced in transmission.
Yet television compares favorably in its simplicity with the complex apparatus Boyajian invented 17 years ago.
“It consisted of a multiplicity of selenium cells,” he recalls, located in the squares of a sending screen, a corresponding multiplicity of receiving lamps located at the squares of a receiving screen, a corresponding multiplicity of transmitting sets and wavelengths and a corresponding multiplicity of receiving sets, each square having its own sending and receiving station and frequency of transmission.” (R.J.A., Scranton Republican, Oct. 11)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1928
Can See Pastor
Miss Cora Dennison, 4157 Clarendon avenue and James Fowlkes of Kansas City, were principals last night [13] in what was heralded as the “first television marriage.” They were married by the Rev. Gustav A. Kienle of St. Luke’s Evangelical church, 62d and Green streets. The minister stood in a radio studio [WIBO] at Des Plaines, Ill., while the bride and groom murmured their responses before a crowd at the radio show in the Colesium.
Dr. Kienle, with the help of television, could see the couple and hear them. They, listening to the marriage service, could see the minister.
The bride was an employee of the Bismarck hotel which provided a huge wedding cake for the supper following the ceremony. (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 14)
NEW COMPANY ORGANIZED TO OPERATE STATION WKEN
Formation of the Great Lakes Broadcast System, Inc., to operate radio broadcasting and radio television was announced Saturday. The new corporation has been organized to take over the time of Station WKEN and has state charter rights for television broadcasting, according to Dr. John Richelen, Kenmore, one of the stockholders.
There has been no change in organization of WKEN by formation of the new company, majority of stock still being held by Louis P. A. Eberhardt of Kenmore. Louis K. Eberhardt is president of the radio station. Other stockholders in the new concern which has 800 capital shares of no par value are Mrs. Ethel Wyllie and James A. Elve, both of Kenmore. (Buffalo News)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1928
LIGHT AND POWER SHOW FOR 10 DAYS Annual Exhibition.
Will Be Opened In Grand Central Palace, Wednesday; Companies Show Wares
With a display of thousands of electrical appliances, including the very latest in labor saving and health making machines, the 21st annual Electrical and Industrial Exposition will open at the Grand Central Palace on Wednesday, October 17, for a 10-day exhibition, ending Saturday, visitors October 27. More than 200,000 visitors are expected to attend this year's show.
The first three days will be given exclusively to the trade as the first electrical trade show ever held anywhere. Contractors, wholesalers, retailers and others engaged in the electrical business throughout the United States will here have an opportunity to inspect the latest products of the manufacturers. The new show is an expansion on a national basis of the annual electrical show.
The show will be open to the general public beginning Saturday morning, October 20. Television will be demonstrated daily through the assistance of Radio Station WRNY and the courtesy of the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company of Brooklyn. Visitors at the show will have an opportunity to be televised.
The apparatus will be the same as used in the first public demonstration of television, which drew crowds at the recent radio show.
The showings will be just the same as if the subject were being televised from a distant point, as in the case of the images now being broadcast regularly at Station WRNY.
A glass enclosed broadcasting studio will again be in operation on the third floor where the public can watch programs being broadcast by Station WRNY, and hear through amplifiers erected outside the studio. Each night from 6 to 7 o'clock a contest will be held for singers, speakers, musicians and others who have never gone on the air before. The best contestants will be selected to enter the final contest on the closing night, when judges will name four winners for $50, $25, $15 and $10 prizes. (Yonkers Herald)

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1928
Television Limitations Are Emphasized in R.M.A. Report
By R.P. Clarkson
NEW YORK—There are now in the United States approximately 640 radiocasting stations, ranging in power from five watts up to a permitted maximum of 50,000 watts. These are only the stations in the so-called “broadcast band” which officially extends from 199.9 meters to 545.1 meters, but is commonly spoken of as the 200 to 600 meter band. Many of these stations have “short wave” associates, or companion stations which send out on wave-lengths below 100 meters the same programs, at least during certain hours.
Any television reception by the general public at the present time involves one of two things. Either the sending of images must take place within the 200 to 600 meter band or the public must buy special television receivers. If the sending of television images should be done in the radiocast band, it is admitted that most of the up-to-date receiving sets could be used for reception, and in place of the loudspeaker one would merely plug in a device to make the signal visible instead of audible. For the experimenter, this can be done.
However, the number of stations which are sending images is small, the results to date are crude and difficult to receive, the apparatus to create the image is cumbersome, and involves moving machinery which in turn requires electrical connections entirely apart from the set. Incessant attention is required for the instant to instant regulation of the device, while no one device can be used except for the particular station it matches, so that there can be no possible appeal to the general public.
The first step in any wide, general development of television will be for the establishment of sufficient transmitting stations so that a purchaser, wherever he may live, has at least one possible program he can tune to. And, of course, he would prefer a choice. Then, instead of the very few minutes occasionally given to a radiocast at present, there would be radiocasts of such length at to permit some degree of enjoyment. It is also obvious that there must be a standard adopted by the various stations which will permit a receiver to be used equally well on all of them. Otherwise, there can be no nation-wide use of sales of television receivers.
Transmission Widely Varied
At the present time, so far as the general public is concerned, there are only two stations attempting anything approaching consistent television radiocasting. These are WGY at Schenectady, on a wavelength of 379.5 meters, and WRNY in the New York area, on 326 meters. There are short waves carrying these programs also, as follows:
2XAL—New York, 30.9 meters.
2XAD—Schenectady, 21.96 meters.
2XAF—Schenectady, 31.4 meters.
In addition there is 3XK near Washington, D. C., operating on 46.7 meters, and carrying a program of dancing shadows or silhouettes, transmitted from a film, a sort of miniature moving picture in a rather simple form. There are several stations in the middle West contemplating this type of radiocast this winter.
At one time WLEX of Boston on 62.5 meters and 1XAY on the same wave had regular schedules, but they have been discontinued. Also WCFL, in Chicago on 61.5 meters has been radiocasting as has also 8XAV of Pittsburgh on 62.5 meters, and both continue.
In all cases the hours devoted to this type of radiocasting are few and the time subject to change. In the New York area, there are daily five-minute periods at various hours. The Schenectady radiocasts are of half hour or full hour duration several times a week.
Even aside from the widely different receivers necessary to get every one of these radiocasts, ranging as they do from 379.5 meters to 21.96 meters. it would be necessary also to have different television apparatus, for the different stations send their images at different speeds, and the images themselves are of different “screens” or numbers of lines corresponding to the screen of a half-tone production. At present the screens used are either 24 or 28, or approximately that. WRNY is using 14, and the Chicago station 25. The Schenectady radiocasts are 24 and the rest are 48, which bids fair to become the most popular. The speeds range from 450 R. P. M. at WRNY to 1260 at WGY. This means from about 8 pictures per second to 21. The usual “movie” is 16 per second.
In spite of those pioneering stations, most of whom are carrying on this work either to gain experience and knowledge against the time when television actually arrives, or to aid in the encouragement of experimentation, there is no general tendency for radiocasting stations to enter this field. In fact, it is a question whether the Radio Commission will permit the stations now indulging to continue, except as suggested by one of the commissioners, it be done after midnight.
Cause of Lack of Interest
It is the unsuitability of the radiocast band which is largely responsible for such lack of interest on the part of most of the television radiocasters and is largely responsible, also, for the poor results on the part of those who have taken up the matter. This arises from the legal separation of stations by only l0,000 cycles. The effect of this restriction is to limit the frequency transmitted from any station to 5000 cycles, because even Galli-Curci’s highest note will not reached 1500 cycles and the overtones of a violin of its harmonics will be of little power above 5000 cycles. For television purposes, however, a frequency limitation of 5000 cycles immediately makes impossible either quality or action. If 16 pictures per second are transmitted, no one picture can be made up of more than 312 impulses or dots. Assuming a square picture of even an ordinary newspaper cut, the maximum size possible would be about one-quarter of an inch square.
By using a single sideband, and thus utilizing the entire 10,000 cycles, the area would be doubled. By reducing the action to the flickering stage of the old movies, and being satisfied with a quality poorer than the crudest of the printer’s work, one can secure an image 1¼ inches square.
In one or two instances, for demonstrations only, the Radio Commission has granted permission to ignore the legal limitations and fair results have been obtained in an image about three inches square. It can be demonstrated that this size is about the limit that can ever be reached with a good image showing moderate action, using the rotating disk system without a multitude of receivers.
Ignoring any difficulties to be overcome, however, it is certain that even 20,000 or 40,000 cycles separation of stations will not ultimately suffice. That means television must go down to the short waves. (Christian Science Monitor)

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1928
TELEVISION BROADCAST PROGRAMS NOW SENT OUT DAILY BY CHICAGO STATION
Technicians Fast Putting New Invention Into Home; Carter Company Making Parts for Set to Plug Into. Radio Receiver and Draw Power From Socket.
THE marvels of television are very much in the spotlight, from the eagerness with which re- [missing sentence] on the newest developments in this field are received. Scientists, radio engineers and laboratories are focusing their skill on television, seeking to simplify it for common use.
Not since the birth of radio broadcasting has any scientific development been greeted such flights of fancy and conjecture as television. Apparently our sense of romance in comforts and luxuries has not been dulled by the magic parade of electricity, movies, radio, automobiles, industrial chemistry and aviation. It is well to stop and take stock of the status of this budding new division of the radio industry.
Although as yet comparable in results with our experiences with radio eight or ten years ago, technicians are applying to television the experience they gained from the radio industry in the last ten years. They have accelerated the progress of this new art so rapidly that it will be placed in the home in less time than was music by radio.
Regular Wave Bands Used.
The vast field of opportunities television offers is indicated by the entrance into it of one of the largest and oldest radio parts manufacturers—the Carter Radio company of Chicago. Believing the first requisite in establishing television on a sound basis to be the development of the right kind of broadcasting equipment, the Carter company installed a unit of this apparatus in Chicago. Unlike most other systems, which are operated on short waves, the Carter transmitter broadcasts television over the regular wave bands that broadcast receiving sets tune to.
The trial test of television reception, as broadcast by Carter through the WCFL Chicago station, was received at a point three miles from the transmitter: Although the receiving apparatus was of the laboratory type—rather crude in appearance—the results were good. One could plainly see the facial expression of the subject who was standing before the photo-electric cells in the WCFL studio. The expression of his face, the movement of the lips and action in wiping his face with handkerchief plainly visible by looking at the little spot about two and one-half inches square on the receiving scanning disc. Radio parts manufacturers and distributors who attended the test were of the opinion that here was the advent of a vast new period of activity in radio and the art of home entertainment, according to Lloyd Edison Back in the September issue of the Chicago Commerce.
Another novel test was staged when a giant tri-motored Ford plane soaring 3000 feet above the Chicago television successfully, picked up the television broadcast from the WCFL transmitter.
The Carter company has just installed more advanced equipment in station WIBO, Chicago, whence television broadcast programs are sent out daily. Only a few nights ago, for the first time in television history, voice and pictures were broadcast simultaneously on one wave band.
The heart of the system is the magic photo-electric cell. Briefly, this is what takes place: An intense beam of light from an arc lamp passes from right to left through a whirling perforated disc, the successive beams falling on the subject's form. As the reflected light beams fall on the four large photo-electric cells, minute photoelectric currents are produced. These currents are then highly amplified, passed on to the transmitter, onto the antenna and into the air on a carrier wave.
Image Can Be Magnified.
This wave is then intercepted by the radio receiver very much as music is now received. This intercepted signal then amplified through a special amplifier or through the regular audio amplification department of some commercial receivers, and passed on to the Neon tube. This is the television receiving tube and is distinguished by two small plates on which the image is impressed. This tube is placed behind a receiving scanning disc, which is rotated at exactly the same speed as the transmitting disc by a synchronous motor.
The reproduced image is seen by looking through a diaphragm ni [in] front of the whirling disc at the spot where the Neon tube is located. The visible image is ordinarily about two and inches square, but can be magnified to larger dimensions by the use of lenses installed in front of the television receiver.
The Carter company is in the process of manufacturing parts for a receiver consisting of a Neon lamp, scanning disc and motor properly installed in an attractive cabinet. It is designed to plug into the average good radio receiver, socketing its power from the light socket. (The Sunday Oregonian)

Abey Owns Two Sets
The only two television receiving sets in Fort Worth belong to Bob Abey, radio dealer and service expert, an associate member of the Institute of Radio Engineers. He is frank in stating that his results in experimenting with the devices are very unsatisfactory and that since he purchased the receivers in June no satisfactory images have been received. He still is experimenting, however, and believes that in time better results will be obtained.
Abey says his chief troubles are short wave ''jumping" and scanning disk (screen) synchronization. Explaining “jumping," he said that this merely is keeping the receiver “tuned in" properly on the transmitting station. The matter of synchronization with the transmitting station lies in keeping the scanning disk, of 48 apertures (screen 48), revolving at the same rate of speed as the transmitting apparatus. In other words, if the disk ought to revolve 960 revolutions per minute, any quickening or slowing down of the electric motor driving it will cause distortion of the image. This necessitates, Ahey says, the use of a rheostat to control the speed of the motor. The operator must watch the image—a rheostat in his hand—and constantly correct faulty images. The tubes in the receiver are Neon gas filled.
Abey believes that it will be at least three years before television enters the realm of the practical. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram Oregonian)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1928
A NEW GIANT IS CREATED
R. C. A., K-A-O and Film Booking Office Join Forces
The amusement industry has a new giant to-day, a new consolidation, the Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation, which brings one step nearer to actuality what was, a few years ago a wild dream—television entertainment.
The new combination places the powerful Radio Corporation of America and its two subsidiaries, R. C. A. Photophone, Inc. and the National Broadcasting Company, in a commanding position in the amusement world.
Keith-Albee Orpheum controls 700 theatres. The National Broadcasting Company offers the best available talent and experience for making programmes, and the third member of the new group, Film Booking Office Productions, provides facilities for producing films.
While talking pictures constitute the primary production aim, the alluring financial possibilities in broadcasting programmes, already held technically possible, are regarded as factors which will lead to immediate experiment with television.
Thus, within a few years, a single show may be shown simultaneously throughout this and in England, or even on the continent.
Heading the new group as chairman of the board of directors is David Sarnoff, vice-president and general manager of the Radio Corporation. (Brooklyn Times-Union)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1928
Board Clears Ether for Good Reception of Election Returns
FRIDAY, OCT. 26—(AP)—Because of the “widespread public interest in satisfactory reception of election returns,” the Federal Radio Commission today took steps to insure clear reception conditions from 8 p. m., Nove. 6 to 12 o’clock noon, Nov. 7.
Each amateur and experimental station, including television sets, was asked to cease operation during the period “if and to the extent that each station causes interference with reception from broadcasting stations.”
Broadcasting stations not entirely engaged in sending the returns were requested, so far as consistent with the carrying on of necessary communications, to conduct their stations with the minimum of interference.

Tube Takes Place of Disc in New Television Set Up
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26 (AP)—Transmission of 20 pictures a second, without moving mechanical elements, is accomplished by a new television process devised by Philo T. Farnsworth, 22 year old inventor of San Francisco.
The scanning discs at transmitter and receiver of other systems, which must be synchronised to revolve in unison, are done away with. Instead electron beams are produced by cross vibrations to form an image on a fluorescent screen at the receiver.
The entire picture or image of any object that is to be transmitted is reproduced almost instantaneously, with 8,000 elements or “pin points” of light in each picture to give detail. The number of elements can be increased indefinitely, but at the present stage of development the sharpest image is obtained with that degree of detail. It is equivalent to a newspaper half-tone with a 100 line screen.
The system is built around a special dissector cell. This is a vacuum tube containing a cathode coated with photoelectric material, preferably potassium or caesium hydride. The picture is focused on this plate which at every point gives off electrons to proportion to the light shining on it. These electrons form an electric counterpart of the image cast upon the plate.
The electric image is produced in the plane of a tiny aperture which collects at one instant only the electrons having a single emitting point on the cathode. Therefore when the electric image is stationary a current is produced in the output of this tube which varies in magnitude with the light incident on perhaps the center of the cathode plate.
This electric image may be moved magnetically over the collecting aperature, so that the aperature receives in succession and in regular order the electrons from each point on the cathode plate.
Synchronizing involves generating two currents at the receiver identical to those at the transmitter used for scanning or breaking the image into pin points of light. This synchronization is automatic.
The transmitting tube is about the size of an ordinary quart jar. The receiving tube containing the screen is no larger.
The inventor estimates that the receiving apparatus could easily be attached to an ordinary receiver and manufactured to retail at $100 or less.
For the last three years Farnsworth has been perfecting his system to the Crocker Research laboratory, his efforts being financed by two San Francisco businessmen, R. N. Bishop and W. W. Crocker.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1928
WRNY TELEVISION SCHEDULE OPENS
Immediately following the public demonstration at New York University, Aug. 21, of the television system developed by the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company, television transmitting, using this apparatus, was put on regular schedule over WRNY, the Coytesville (N. J.) station of Radio News. Television will be transmitted from this station during the first five minutes of every radiocasting hour.
The images transmitter by the Pilot system, according to the engineers present at the public demonstration, are remarkably clear and steady, faces being as easily recognizable as those of the average newspaper half-tone. The images have the pleasing quality of a fine wood cut, being made up of horizontal lines. (Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 27)

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1928
Television Broadcasts
LEXINGTON, Mass., Oct. 30. (AP)—Radio station W1XAY announced today that it would start regular television broadcasts today at 3 p. m. Radio pictures will be broadcast daily from 3 to 4, excepting Saturdays and Sundays.
The broadcast will be sent out on a wave length of approximately 4850 kilocycles, or 62 meters. A 48-line picture will be used on a disc doing 900 revolutions a minute, the disc being driven by synchronous motors.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER, 31, 1928
GENERAL ORDERS OF THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION
Regulations governing picture and television transmission (General Order No. 50, October 31, 1928).—Picture and television transmission for general reception by the public will be referred to herein by the commission as picture broadcasting and television broadcasting.
Picture broadcasting and television broadcasting will be permitted (but only upon written application to, and formal authority from, the commission) on frequencies above 1,500 kilocycles, the exact frequencies, or bands of frequencies, to be determined by further order of the commission.
Between the date of this order and January 1, 1929, picture broadcasting and television broadcasting will be permitted to a limited extent (but only upon written application to, and formal authority from, the commission) in the broadcast band between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, subject, however, to rigid conditions designed to prevent interference with the reception from broadcasting stations. Among such conditions will be the following: (1) That the band of frequencies occupied by any such transmission shall be not wider than 10 kilocycles, and (2) that such picture broadcasting and television broadcasting be limited to period of not more than one hour per day at a time of the day other than between 6 and 11 p. m.
The extent to which picture broadcasting and television broadcasting in the broadcast band of frequencies will be permitted to take place after January 1, 1929, if at all, will be determined by later orders of the commission, which will depend on investigation by the commission of the results of permitting such operation with respect to interference and the popularity of such transmission with the general public, and will further depend upon the interpretation which the commission shall be advised is proper of the obligations of the United States under the International Radio Telegraph Convention of 1927, with respect to permitting anything other than telephonic transmission in the broadcast band.