April 1929

Brooklyn had a TV station in 1929, but didn’t have it for long.

The New York Times of March 19, 1929, in a story dated the previous day, said Zah Bauk of Brooklyn had received a construction permit for television station W2XCL. A story on June 23, 1992 in the Baltimore Sun reported it had been operating under the permit since March 27.

In mid-April that year, the station owner, Pilot Radio, began test broadcasts. Radio-Craft magazine, in its September 1929 issue, told readers: “For the time being the transmissions will consist merely of spoken announcements and of musical notes of different frequencies. The purpose of the tests is to determine the quality of the modulation, the ability of the apparatus to handle the wide frequency bands required for television work, and the field strength of the signals in various parts of the Metropolitan area.”

The station didn’t last long. An unbylined story in the Jan. 10, 1930 edition of the Paterson Morning Call told how Pilot had asked the Federal Radio Commission to move the station to Lawrence, Mass., where its manufacturing plant was. The Commission agreed and the station call letters were changed to W1XY by July 31, 1930.

On the other side of the country, W7XAO in Portland was getting closer to being on the air. As well, a story in April 1929 tells how the Charles Freshman company in New York planned to get into the television broadcasting business. The company’s Joseph Freed set up a corporation later that year and was awarded construction permits on two frequencies as W2XCP in Allwood, N.J. The Commission's Radio Service Bulletin of August 31, 1931 says "strike out all particulars."

A story about a DXer with his home-built set mentions he visited C. Francis Jenkins the day of the Hoover Inauguration. There is nothing about a special telecast of film of the event on W3XK, so it likely did not happen.

There isn’t much to report on television for April 1929. The highlights we’ve come across are below.

SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 1922
Those interested in television will be pleased to know that 2XAG [General Electric in Schenectady] is broadcasting television every night from 7 to 9 P. M. on the band from 140.9 to 141.8 meters. (Buffalo Evening News)

FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1929
Freshman Company To Broadcast Television From Allwood Plant
Announces That Work Will Begin As Soon As Two Channels Are Granted By Federal Radio Commission—Stations To Aid Home Experimenters—Five Years Of Tests Ahead
The Charles Freshman Company, which has practically completed the moving of its radio set manufacturing equipment into a new home in the former Allwood Plant of the Brighton Mills, announced yesterday [12] that it would establish two television broadcasting stations there to aid the rapidly growing number of home television experimenters in the Metropolitan District.
Mr. Freed In Charge
The broadcasting stations will not be placed into operation until the Federal Radio Commission grants the necessary channels, application for which has already been made. Work will be begun as soon as the permission is granted under the direction of Joseph D. R. Freed, vice-president of the company, in charge of engineering.
Mr. Freed said that he did not expect to see television sets for home use on the market before five years. During that time, he said, his concern will devote its time to experimental work.
The Freshman Company is closely allied with the Freed Radio Company, and both concerns will have their main plants in the large Brighton Mills buildings. It is planned to manufacture the sets together to effect economies.
"There is little doubt that within ten years television receivers will be in every home which boasts a radio set today,” said Mr. Freed in commenting the television situation yesterday. "Many will, no doubt, have one within five years, but very few will have them before that time because I doubt that television will be perfected for home use much before five years.
"However, television is developing along lines which will make the radio receivers of today part of the new television receiver. There will not be any scrapping of radio sets in order to enjoy television; they will only have to get supplementary receivers. We are devoting a sum of money to develop television, but we feel that all the labor at this time should be expended in experimental work. (Daily News, Passaic, N.J.)

AERIAL TELEVISION IS DESIGNED
Plane Views Would Be Sent to Ground Receiving Station by Apparatus.
An “aerial television eye,” designed to transmit airplane views of cities or countryside to a ground receiving station, is being constructed by C. Francis Jenkins of this city, noted television inventor.
The apparatus, a sensational development of the Jenkins process of broadcasting visual scenes by radio, is to be tested for the first time shortly in a special plane ordered by the inventor from the Curtiss factory. The plane is to be delivered within a few days.
The experiment undoubtedly will be watched with keen interest by Army and Navy officials, as the device concededly would have great military value in time of war. With the aid of the apparatus, general headquarters of an army would be put within sight range of actual operations at the front.
Refines Visual Detail.
The apparatus will be of special type, built to insure “refinement of visual detail,” Mr. Jenkins said. The panorama below will be recorded in the usual way, by means of a “scanning disc,” light-sensitive cell and broadcasting paraphernalia. The scenes will be received on regular television machines set up in the Jenkins laboratory.
The Jenkins laboratory at present is at 1519 Connecticut avenue, but a new laboratory and television broadcasting station now is under construction in Maryland, on the Brookville Pike. Formal tests may be deferred until the new station is completed.
Mr. Jenkins was reluctant to discuss his plans in detail in advance of the tests, as he said “something might go wrong and spoil the first tests.” He declared, however, that he had “a lot of confidence in the outcome.” Preliminary experiments simulating airplane conditions have been conducted successfully, he stated.
In order to assume personal charge of the operations in the air the inventor has been taking pilot lessons at an air field near Rockville preparatory to securing a Federal license. Mr. Jenkins is an experienced flyer and piloted a seaplane of his own prior to enactment of regulations governing private flying. He was not familiar with land planes until recently, however.
Plane a Laboratory.
The plane which Mr. Jenkins has ordered is termed by him a "flying laboratory.” It is a Curtiss Robin plane of the cabin type, with a special Challenger engine. A complete television broadcasting outfit will be installed in the cabin. The scanning “eye” will focus on the ground through an aperture in the bottom of the plane. Mr. Jenkins will pilot the plane while two assistants operate the television machinery. (Washington Star)

WAYNESBORO MAN BUILDS A TELEVISION SET
A. J. Gardenhour, who is now located in his new quarters in Waynesboro, has devised a machine to serve the purpose of receiving pictures over the air. The power of receiving pictures by means of this apparatus is known as television.
One station can be received with accuracy. From the C. F. Jenkins laboratories, in Washington, D. C., operating through W3XK, television pictures are sent out each Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Mr. Gardenhour tuned in Friday [12] and reported having received several clear objects from W3XK. In the near future, he said, the Jenkins laboratories will start broadcasting every night.
Mr. Gardenhour with a circle of friends a few nights ago operated the radiovisor on which Mr. Jenkins holds a patent. On March 4, 1929, Mr. Gardenhour visited the Jenkins laboratories and had a long conversation with the inventor in which the following explanation of the operation of the television was given:
"Having tuned sharply on the station broadcasting pictures, to get the best signal strength possible, the operator throws over the switch to cut out the loudspeaker and cut in the radiovisor, i. e., the picture received."
Mr. Gardenhour's machine was made entirely by himself. The radiovisor is made from two victrola records clamped around a paper disc with forty-eight line pictures. It operates on 150 meters and fifteen picture frames per second. The explanation continues:
"Now with the rubber driving disc about one and a half to two inches from the scanning disc bearing block, one begins turning the adjusting screw to draw the motor outward. As the operator nears the synchronism, one will see the base line of the picture traveling rapidly upward.
"Continuing the adjustment the picture presently appears, probably obliquely, moving more and more slowly as the operator turns the screw, until it stops, upright, and there is the radio-movie in all its fascination.
"If the picture shows the upper half of the subject and the lower half above it, the operator touches the disc with the finger, once or twice, and the picture will move up until it is framed.
"The picture may be upside down as one looks at the lamp through the shining disc apertures; or it may be wrong right and left, like looking at a photograph in a mirror. However, except in reading titles, it is not often important wheather [sic] the picture is correct right and left or not; but it is very necessary to have the subject's head up. In any event, right and left correction is attained by reversing the motor, while if the picture is upside down one must take off the disc, turn it around and put the other side of the disc next to the lamp.
"The picture may again be negative or positive. To change from one to the other, the best way is to add another stage of amplification, although it can be done by substituting a “C” battery bias for the grid-leak and condenser on the grid of the detector. (Franklin Repository, Chambersburg, Pa., April 15)

SATURDAY, APRIL 13, 1929
Country Has 20,000 Sets for Television
Practically All Built by the Owners
Recently the Jenkins television transmitting station at Washington, D. C., with the call letters W3XK, was closed down for a period of 10 days. Ordinarily, this is on the air on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening of each week, from 8 to 9 p. m., E. S. T. on 46.72 meters (6,420 kilocycles). As a result, the Jenkins Television Corp. offices were virtually flooded with protesting letters from all parts of the United States, asking that the television services be resumed without delay.
"We estimate our own Jenkins Radiomovies audience at no less than 20,000," stated C. Francis Jenkins, the pioneer worker in the practical television field, when interviewed on this subject. “These 20,000 have built their own apparatus¸ which is therefore crude, to say the least. Nevertheless, they are enjoying antimated [sic] radio pictures three times a week, and getting a big thrill out of these pioneering efforts.
"With the early introduction of simplified television equipment for the home, I look forward to a rapid increase in the number of ‘looker[s]-in,’ particularly since the Iaity will then be in position to take part in television developments. Just as the first broadcast programs were received by some 65,000 listeners-in within range of Station KDKA, we have some 20,000 lookers-in tuned to our signals. I look forward to a rapid growth of this audience until we shall be catering to millions through a plurality of scattered television stations." (Washington Herald)

SUNDAY, APRIL 14, 1929
KWJJ PREPARES FOR TELEVISION
Portland Station Sets Pace in Northwest for Latest Innovation in Radio.
That television is on the way is evidenced by the fact that station KWJJ of Portland, Ore., is now installing apparatus to broadcast television and will be in a position to do so within two weeks, according to M. L. Blakemore, sales manager for Lee Olney, distributor for Stewart Warner radios.
First in Northwest.
“This is important in that it is the first move by stations in the northwest to install television," Mr. Blakemore said, "although a number of stations in the east are now doing so. It is not probable the apparatus will be sufficiently powerful to reach Spokane, but it will at least be effective in Portland and it is probable that stations in Seattle and Spokane will soon follow them. They will broadcast on a wave length of 52 meters and their call letters will be W7XAO.
"Everything must have a beginning and those who argue against television are in a class with those who scoffed at the steam engine of Watt, the locomotive of Stevenson and crude airplane of the Wright brothers, all of which eventually became an integral part of our civilization as I believe soon will television.
"It is a salient fact that the engineers of the Stewart Warner corporation feel that television is sufficiently far advanced that they have equipped the company's new model radio so that a television receiving set can be plugged in to it. By fall, in my opinion, television will be broadcast in Spokane." (Spokane Spokesman-Review)

THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1929
W2XCL, the television short-wave transmitter of the Pilot Electric Mfg. Co. of Brooklyn, will begin broadcasting tomorrow evening [19]. The unit will utilize 250 watts on a wave length of 142.5 meters and will be on the air every Monday, Wednesday and Friday evening between 9 and 11 o’clock. A good chance for television fans to prepare to receive the proper signals, so that when television actually becomes a success, the sets will be ready to receive. (David Braton, Brooklyn Times-Union)

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 1929
Brooklyn Radio Company Tests Television Set
Pilot Plans Regular Schedule After Experiments Friday on Low Waves
Preliminary tests of a short-wave transmitter which will be employed for television were conducted at 9 o’clock Friday [19] by the Pilot Electric Company through its station recently licensed by the Federal Radio Commission. While last week’s tests consisted solely of announcements and musical broadcasts, for the purpose of testing the modulating characteristics of the apparatus, it is expected that television programs will be regular features. Time announced for future broadcasts is between 9 and 11 p. m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The Pilot company is one of the few metropolitan experimenters to obtain a license for television from the Radio Commission. The station, which has been assigned the call letters W2XCL, uses a power of 250 watts and operates on a wave length of 143.5 meters. The purpose of the tests, in addition to testing the modulation, it was disclosed, was to determine the ability of the apparatus to handle the wide frequency bands required for television and the field strength of the signals in the various parts of the metropolitan district.
Owners of short-wave receiving sets through New York and New Jersey who had been advised of the tests reported excellent reception of the station’s signals. General opinion was that the quality was sufficiently good to handle the wide range of tones necessary for television transmission and reception.
These tests, according to John Gelosi, chief engineer of the company, will not interfere with regular broadcasting. The wave length is sufficiently below the entertainment bands to completely eliminate any tendency of overlapping, even in the vicinity of the apparatus.
“This experimental work will in no way cause interference with regular broadcast programs,” he said, “as it will be done on a wave length completely beyond the range of ordinary broadcast receivers. Two highly developed ‘televisors’ are ready to be connected to the radio transmitter, but actual transmission will not be started until a sufficient number of listeners report the signals of W2XCL to be of sufficient volume and clarity to warrant radio telephotography.
Geloso explained that images of L1iving people and actual scenes would be transmitted over the station as soon as the television programs were under way. Photographic films will not be transmitted regularly, he said, calling this type of transmission “animated radio telephotography.”
The Pilot company is one of the few organizations licensed recently by the Radio Commission for experimental visual broadcasting, having been assigned bands between 2,000 and 2,100 kilocycles (143-150 meters) and 2,750 to 2,850 kilocycles (105-109 meters). Last summer it built the television apparatus used for a few months at Station WRNY. (New York herald Tribune, Apr. 21)

SATURDAY, APRIL 20, 1929
A EXPERIMENT IN TELEVISION IS DAY'S FEATURE
Radio Amateurs on Hand for Outstanding Event of Relay League at Kimball.
Interest at the annual convention of the New England Division of the American Radio Relay League now in Session at the Hotel Kimball, centered this afternoon around a promised demonstration of television reception by C. N. Kraus of Brown University, president of the Radio Club of Rhode Island. Although the demonstration was promised for 1 o'clock, late arrival of his apparatus from Providence prevented Mr. Kraus from getting it assembled, and at 2 o'clock he had been unable to put it into operation.
The great interest in the demonstration brought many without connection with the Relay League to the Kimball ballroom, where they hoped to see small images transmitted from the Washington dance on the small ground glass screen set before a large black scanning disk. Following his television demonstration, Mr. Kraus was prepared to demonstrate his success with transmission and reception on the five-meter band at extremely high frequencies.
Among the interested spectators at the television demonstration was Hollis Baird of Boston, owner of station W1WX, himself a pioneer in the television field. Outside of station W1LEX a commercial station in Lexington, his is the only station in this section regularly transmitting television, and one of the very few amateur stations in the country so engaged. Mr. Baird’s transmitter is partly a standard vision transmitter, and in part an amplifying system of his own development for which he claims five stages of direct amplification of unusual efficiency. His broadcasts have been received 15 miles away with great clarity, and he has made arrangements for amateurs in the western part of the State to attempt to receive his signals. He does not use silhouet transmission as does Jenkins in Washington, whose transmission was to be picked up this afternoon, but transmits halftones which give full gradations of color. (Springfield Evening Union)

WANTS TELEVISION STATIONS TO MAKE KNOWN LOCATION
"Looker" Would Be Able to Adjust His Televisor For Reception.
By Robert Mack
(Consolidated Press Association)
Washington, April 20.—Television tinkerers, and there are some 20,000 of them, who have suffered agonizing hours trying to identify some discordant visual broadcasting station and adjust their televisors to receive its picture-producing signals, may soon be relieved of their plight.
John V. L. Hogan, of New York, one of the foremost radio engineers and inventors and a television enthusiast, has suggested remedial measures to the Federal Radio Commission. In short his plan is to have 20 odd television stations, now operating experimentally, "announce" their call letters and location, along with the speed and character of their pictures before and they actually begin transmission. Thus the "looker" would be able to adjust his televisor for reception of that particular station, rather than grope blindly for the precise set adjustment.
Television peeped out of the laboratory too soon, in opinion of most engineers. But to make up for this error the industry is guarding its childhood very closely. Mr. Hogan's suggestion, which has the support of the commission's engineers, is to correct at the very beginning a shortcoming that might the progress of visual broadcasting.
Mr. Hogan proposed that the commission adopt a general order requiring all television stations to announce, either by radio-telephone or telegraph (code) or both, the essential details of the visual broadcast. The majority of the television fans are radio amateurs and understand code, and anybody who is equipped for television reception can tune in on the short waves with a sound receiver to pick up the "telephone" announcement.
At the present time the television stations do not "announce" their identity and the result is that unless a particular "looker" is adjusted for the reception of a particular station, he gets nothing. Television broadcasting has not been standardized to the extent that the same set adjustment is suitable for all transmissions.
The existing television stations transmit pictures of 24, 48 and 60 lines at speeds ranging from 7 ½ to 20 pictures per second. In order to receive, the televisor must be so adjusted as to synchronize with the speed and number of lines of the pictures transmitted.
By agreement with the North American nations, the radio commission has set aside five television waves in the continental short wave spectrum, one of which is allocated [to] Canada on a priority basis. These channels are one hundred kilocycles wide, or ten times the width of the broadcasting channel. They are set aside for experimental purposes and the development of the visual radio art. (Roanoke World-News)

TELEVISION ALL SET FOR BROADCAST ON THREE TIMES WEEK
Pioneer Says He Will Reach 20,000 From His 5,000 Watt Station in East
By RODNEY DUTCHER
NEA Service Writer
Washington, April 20—Radio movies, still in swaddling clothes, are being slowly but gradually developed by C. Francis Jenkins, the foremost pioneer in the field of television.
Within a few days, Jenkins hopes to be using his new frequencies to broadcast movies from a new 5000-watt station, with a radiovision audience which he already estimates at about 20,000.
Since last July he has been broadcasting only silhouette pictures from his laboratory here, but he now hopes to be able to send out half-tones which will have the same effect as movies in your favorite theater.
By use of a magnifying glass, the radiovision audience which tunes in on the Jenkins programs at 8 o’clock on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings is now able to see the subjects moving on what appears to be a six-inch screen, but the inventor has also developed two-foot screen outfits for home use and larger apparatus for theaters.
"When we get going on half-tones,” Jenkins says “we will be able to broadcast many regular movie films, but not all of them. Right now we can’t carry a great deal of detail and have to have pictures with only three or four subjects.”
His new station, which will continue to be called W3XK, has been set up in a two-story house at Wheaton, Md., some five miles from Washington and the apparatus resembles a regular sound broadcasting station almost identically. Announcements in the regular fashion, of course, accompany the picture broadcasting.
“We are now engaged in keeping up our regular broadcast schedule and at the same time improving transmission," Jenkins says. “Of course the big thing we're engaged on is trying to change from silhouettes to half-tones. That’s why we asked for wider bands.
“Previously we have made brief, simple varied subjects and one or two story pictures and have bought a few cartoon pictures. We have produced ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and 'Old King Cole’ in one reel features. We have had to content ourselves with subjects without many fine lines.
“But we’re going to do better than that. We are only passing through the novelty stage, just as the motion picture itself had to pass through it. We don't expect perfection at first but, fortunately, neither does the public. “We’ve invited the assistance of the amateurs of the country because they're clever fellows and can give us many ingenious and helpful suggestions. We can't afford to set up a lot of regular stations over the country at our own expense.
“In return, we help the amateurs find the material they need to receive our program. It only costs them about $2.50 and some time and work to set up a radiovision receiver. With a shortwave radio set, an amateur needs only to get the picture receiving set together and attach it."
While Jenkins plugs away here in his laboratory to improve the new science the Jenkins Television Corporation has been building a factory in Jersey City to produce radiovision receiving sets and has already turned out a few preliminary samples. (Times-Signal, Zaneville, Ohio, Apr. 21)

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 1929
A. A. Goeddel went to St. Louis Monday [22] to see a demonstration of the television at the Bentwood-Linze Co. Goeddel states he heard and saw a stage production broadcast from some Canadian station. He compared it to the talking movies and said the vision was very clear except for some spots which appeared from time to time. (Waterloo Republican, Apr. 24)

February 1929

It took a mere four days for the Federal Radio Commission to make some decisions about television after a public hearing on February 14, 1929.

More or less, it maintained the status quo. Stations needed permission to go on the air in the broadcast band (that is, the a.m. band), and could only do it between 1 and 6 in the morning. Otherwise, they had to operate in the short waves.

The Commission also granted licenses for 17 TV stations, though many had already been operating, but only on a six-month basis. It held off on a decision on 15 others—some of them had been licensed and on the air—and rejected three others. The most interesting “on hold” one was by Alfred M. Hubbard, who set up a radio station in Seattle for a major bootlegger, and became a dry agent who turned state’s witness in a trial involving the head of the dry squad. He had apparently tested some television equipment in 1928, but was never did get a license. One of the rejections was pioneer Boston radio broadcaster John Shepard III.

The off-again/on-again live coverage of the Hoover inauguration in March was both off and on in February.

As ironic as it was, one of the people who appeared and spoke on television in February 1929 was D.W. Griffith, the silent film director.

Below are some highlights, and they are few, of television for the month, including a transcription of the Commission ruling. For some reason, it didn’t appear in the Radio Service Bulletin put out by the government in February, it was in the March edition, along with the tabulation of approved TV stations. We have a biographical note about one of the losers below.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1929
EXPECT 200,000 AT INAUGURAL
Giant Radio Hookup Arranged for Ceremony
WASHINGTON, Feb. 1. (UP) — With Inauguration day little more than a month away, the nation’s capital is preparing to receive the 200,000 guests who are expected to see Herbert Hoover take his oath of office March 4. Four thousand persons saw Calvin Coolidge inaugurated in 1924.
Reviewing stands to seat 28,000 along the line of march from the White House to the capitol are under construction. Washington’s leading hotels already are booked to capacity.
Each mail brings the inaugural committee reservations for the charity ball at Washington auditorium the night of inauguration day.
Preparations for the most extensive radio “hook-up” in history are being made. Combined networks of the National and Columbia broadcasting chains, co-operating with independent stations, will carry a reportorial account of the parade and the speeches of President-Elect Hoover and Senator Curtis.
Powerful short-wave stations will speed descriptive words of the ceremonies even to foreign countries.
Also a television broadcast of the inaugural scene is being considered by radio engineers and the committee.

Television to Bring Producer's Voice and Figure From N. Y. to L. A.
Opening a new era in radio television transmission and reception, an arrangement has been made between the United Artists Theater and the General Electric Company to have D. W. Griffith, producer of "Lady of the Pavements," now at the local playhouse, broadcast his voice and form over the experimental short wave station of the electrical company at Schenectady, New York [W2XAD]. The television picture and voice will be broadcast Sunday, 4:30 p. m. local time, and will be received here after traveling through 3,000 miles of space.
The picture and voice will be received by Gilbert Lee, consulting engineer of General Electric, and foremost of local radio experimenters, on his short wave set stationed at 2274 Hidalgo street. His apparatus was constructed especially to receive the Griffith speech, which is in the form of a serious experiment to decide the future of commercial television. (Los Angeles Evening Express)

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1929
TELEVISION TO BE REPLACED BY SOUND PICTURE
Experiments Throughout The Country Are Making Rapid Progress
New York, Feb. 2. (INS)—Experiments now in progress will bring television out of the "peep-hole stage," in the opinion of James W. Garside, president of the DeForest Radio Company and president of the newly formed Jenkins Television Corporation.
"In television, as in other fields, there varying degrees of progress,” said Mr. Garside today. "There are experimenters throughout the country working with huge scanning disks, large neon lamps, and speed control, with the ‘looker-in’ gazing at a tiny image woven by the whirling holes in the scanning disk.
Like Penny In Slot
"This is the peep-hole of television, and is comparable to the penny-in-the-slot stage of the motion picture industry before C. Francis Jenkins of Washington, D. C. developed pictures on the screen, so that hundreds, and even thousands, might view them at one time.
"For several years past Mr. Jenkins has working, on television. Long before demonstrations early last year Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson of the General Electric Company and the Radio Corporation of America, as well as other workers in this field, Mr. Jenkins was transmitting and receiving television pictures over considerable distances.
“For more than six months past his transmitter, W3XK, at Washington, D. C. has been broadcasting simultaneously on two wave lengths, namely, short waves for distant 'lookers-in' and broadcast waves for Washington and nearby. "Although Mr. Jenkins, in order to foster interest in practical television, has distributed thousands of simple television outfits with cardboard scanning disks to amateurs and experimenters at cost, he has progressed far beyond the usual scanning disk technique.
"Indeed, he has discarded the scanning disk in preference of a special scanning drum of compact dimensions. Instead of the usual neon lamp with a single large plate requiring considerable output so that a special power amplifier or considerable B-batteries are required, Jenkins employs a four-plate neon lamp of his own invention, with each plate flashing in rotation so as to be scanned by one quarter of his scanning holes, in turn.
“An ingenious optical system projects the whirling dots of light on to a magnifier screen, so that not one but a dozen 'lookers-in' may enjoy the television program. Here, again, we have the transition that took place when selfish radio with its headphones made way for unselfish radio with its loudspeaker.
"The entire televisor, as he terms it, occupies less room than the average radio receiver. It may be operated on the usual radio set in place of the loud-speaker, if tuned in for a television signal. The operation is simple that the average broadcast listener can handle it.
Transmission Progress
"And at the transmitting end, Mr. Jenkins has scored comparable progress. While most television workers are struggling with the limitations of the television stage, with its small dimensions, scanning disk, sensitive photo-electric cells, lighting conditions and so on, as well as the search for so-called television faces or faces that televise properly with or without make-up, Jenkins has gone ahead with his radio movies.
"In this process he films suitable television subjects in any place and manner desired. The negative film is printed up on one or more positive film, and these are available for his radio movies projector. This device simply takes the film and converts it electrical impulses which are impressed on the outgoing waves from a broadcast transmitter, just as the microphone picks up sound waves, converts them into electrical terms, and impresses these on the outgoing radio waves.
"As the direct result of Jenkins' radio movies, any broadcasting station, with a simple device, is set up for television work. Ample subjects are made available. It becomes possible to prepare television subjects for the entire country without the trouble and cost of wire networks."
Projecting Image
Even that does not tell the whole story, Mr. Garside said. He declared that Jenkins has a scanning disk with matched lenses so that it becomes possible to project the television image on a fair sized screen, in order that the entertainment can be followed by a small theatre audience.
Jenkins is working on a television camera for is outside work will permit of picking up far greater detail and scope than has so far been attempted. He has a checkerboard lamp device which will convert television images into a powerful light-woven pattern, with many advantages over tiny holes of the usual scanning disk with so little light for magnifying purposes.
"I firmly said Mr. Garside, speaking of the future, "that television will find a place alongside our present radio programs. There will be television features just as there are sound features.
"Perhaps in some instances simultaneous broadcasting of sight and sound may be attempted, for it is entirely practical, even now."

Portland Man Will Operate Television Plant.
Permit Granted to Wilbur Jerman to Transmit Pictures.
WILBUR JERMAN, one of Portland's pioneer radio experimenters and broadcast operators, has been granted permission to operate a vision and still picture transmitter on 107 meters, using his experimental station call, W7XAO.
Television equipment supplied by the Daven corporation will be used for the transmission of pictures from W7XAO. The first pictures will be broadcast in about three weeks, according to Mr. Jerman, who is assembling the equipment in conjunction with station KWJJ.
Television is the broadcasting of images, the annihilation of distance for the eye, as aural radio has done for the ear. At the transmitter is a photoelectric cell. A beam explores the object to be "televised" reflected to the cell. This cell mondulates [sic] the carrier wave, just as though it were a microphone. Varying light actuates it just as varying sound actuates the microphone. At the receiver, in place of the loud speaker, is a glow lamp—a neon tube in one form or another—which changes its brilliance in step with the received impulses from the photoelectric cell. The light from this lamp is made to explore a screen in synchronism with the beam at the transmitter. The usual method of swinging the beams of light and down and over the object and screen is a mechanically revolving disc perforated spirally with holes, a device patented by Nipkow licensed in 1884.
There are two stations licensed for visual broadcasting within the broadcast band, WGY at Schenectady and WIBO, Chicago, and approximately 20 operating on short waves. Television and still-picture broadcasting, which heretofore have been permitted experimentally within the broadcast band, have been ruled out of that band, except between midnight and 6 A. M. However, W7XAO will be permitted to operate at any time on 107 meters. (Oregonian)

Griffith’s Face Seen in L. A. By Television
The features of David Wark Griffith and the sound of his voice were seen and heard in a tiny garage atop a hill at 2214 Hilalgo Street in Los Angeles yesterday [3] while he was speaking in Schenectady, N. Y. His likeness and voice were transmitted over the short wave stations of the General Electric Company there by television [picture on 2XO, short wave, 21.58 metres, sound over 2XAF 31 metres].
Mr. Griffith’s half-hour talk on the motion picture of the future and on the possibilities of receiving them in the home came over the air with little interference, but the outlines of his face were visible only for a few minutes and could not be picked up again. Gilbert Lee, an amateur experimenter, conducted the Los Angeles tests. (Hollywood Daily Citizen, Feb. 4)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1929
Improves Tube for Television
Chicago Man With Meagre Apparatus Designs a New Television Tube
By JOE LOVE
(NEA Service Writer)
BERWYN, ILL., Feb. 7—With hand-made apparatus and in the laboratory he has assembled in the basement of his home, William L. Cummings has constructed a new kind of television reproducing tube which may leave a decided impression on perfected television apparatus of the future.
For 20 years he has studied and done research work with special interest in photo-electric phenomena. At one time, in 1919, Cummings says he received an invitation from Lord Northcliffe to return to England and continue his experiments.
The reproducer now in use is the neon type, the result of the labors of Dr. MacFarland Moore. The shortcomings of this tube prompted Mr. Cummings to set about his experiments.
Neon, which gives off an orange light, has not the power to cast an image successfully upon a screen. When so done the result is like shadows rather than a clear cut and positive image. What was needed, others as well as Cummings believed, was a white light tube.
Improves Talkies, Too
Cummings started work with two ideas in mind; to make a tube that would give a black and white image on a ground glass and to do away with the oscilligraph used in the film registering of sound waves for phonograph records and talkie-movies. He succeeded in both.
The new tube looks like a regular radio tube, but instead of a flat surface of light as in the neon, it has a point source of light suspended like a ball of fire. The gas in the neon, due to cohesion to the plates, Cummings says, slows it up while the point source of light in his tube has no mechanical or physical losses. Cummings figures his new tube responds in one twenty-four millionth of a second!
Cummings finds that with a three-stage amplifier his tube gives superior service to the neon with an eight-stage amplifier and as a much lower cost.
This new tube, Cummings, says is more of an approach to the cathode tube in the matter of speed than anything he knows of. Another advantage over the neon tube is in the matter of enlargement of the image. In the neon the image is in the tube itself.
Has Large Range in Size
In the Cummings tube the light is projected upon a ground glass giving it a larger range of size. With the present tube a four by five-inch image is possible. Cummings plans to make a larger tube capable of an image eight by 10 inches in dimensions.
Cummings says his tube will be of service in the making of film records for modern phonographs and the production of talkie movies. The rays that are necessary for the recording of sound waves on film are emitted by this tube. With this tube, he claims, a portable outfit can be assembled which will do away with the cumbersome oscillograph now necessary the making of talkies. Not only that, but it will register any sound that is capable of being made and without undertones or overtones.
“I do not want to give anyone the impression that I myself am trying to perfect television. What I do is in the hope that I can supply those who seek that perfection with apparatus that will function better,” he says.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1929
LINDBERGH IS INVITED TO HOOVER INAUGURATION
Sound Movies of Ceremonies Assured but Television Reproduction Hope Wanes
WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 9 (AP)—Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was invited today to participate in the Hoover inaugural festivities.
The inaugural committee mailed the flier a specially embossed invitation. Assistant Postmaster General Glover, executive secretary of the committee, said Lindbergh will stop in Washington on his return flight from Central America. It was indicated that the request that he participate in the ceremonies will be personally confirmed at this time.
Asserting that the inauguration will be “the most photographed event in history,” committee members today were busy assisting photographers in making arrangements. More than three hundred, it was said, will “cover” the event. Sound movie producers have guaranteed to reproduce scenes at the ceremonies of inducting the president and vice president on Broadway on the evening of March 4. Films will be transported to New York in airplanes which will be specially equipped to allow development of the negatives en route.
Hope that the ceremonies would be reproduced by television dwindled today when members of the committee said plans by television operators had been virtually abandoned.

Homemade Television Set Thrills Observers at Easton
EASTON, Md., Feb. 9.—J. Valentine Muller of Easton has completed the manufacture of a home-made radio television apparatus.
Mr. Muller has been one of the most active television enthusiasts on the Eastern Shore and has been widely known for several years for his experiments in radio receiving apparatus of all kinds.
Muller constructed out of home made parts his television receiver, using a 24 inch disc, a neon gas-glow lamp, and adjustable speed motor. He has had good reception of Jenkins' "radio movies" on 47.7 meters, he declares.
The few privileged to watch Mr. Muller's production in action have had the thrill of their lives by looking through the small square glass window and observing the radio "movie actors."
The receiver is of the short wave type, using aero coils and three stages of transformer coupled amplifiers. Muller has made it possible to use a transformer-coupled amplifier as his transformers are exceptionally large, with heavy cores.
Practically all television engineers, Muller said, have considered resistance coupled to be necessary because of its comparatively smooth amplifying characteristics. Muller's transformers with the large and heavy cores may account for his success with them. (Every Evening, Wilmington, Delaware)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1929
Scanning Disc Is Adjustable To Four Transmissions
THE usual difficulty encountered by experimenters with television receivers is inability to synchronize the signals from more than one or two stations, due to the difference in the number of holes in the scanning discs. This has necessitated the use of a different disc for every station picked up. The speed can easily be controlled by either friction or resistance devices, but the discs cannot be changed so easily.
These difficulties can be overcome by using one of the devices illustrated on this page. It is 24 inches in diameter and contains two discs of aluminum, one behind the other. One of these discs is fitted with a bushing for the motor shaft, while the other is cut out in the center and mounted on the first by several machine screws. The main disc is drilled with several lines of holes, in the usual spirals, and the second also is pierced by similar spirals; but they are so arranged that the holes of only one spiral coincide in the two discs at the same time. The second disc is mounted with slotted holes and a key is provided so that any of the spirals can be used by merely sliding the discs with the key until the holes match. An indicator shows which set of holes is in line.
The disc is provided with four sets of holes. The first has 24 holes and is suitable for use when receiving WGY, W2XAD, W2XAF, Schenectady, or W4XA, Memphis, Tenn. The second has 36 holes for W6XC at Los Angeles. The third has 45 for WCFL and WIBO, Chicago; and the fourth has 48, the recommended standard, used by other transmitters such as WRNY and W2XAL, New York and W3XK, Washington. (Radio News, March 1929)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1929
RADIO COMMISSION WEIGHS TELEVISION
National Authorities Drawn Into Hearing on New Phase of Wireless
OPTIMISTIC OF FUTURE
Jenkins Corporation Head Says 5,000 Amateurs Pick up His 'Movies'
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (AP)—The radio commission Thursday began consideration of one of its remaining major problems—television and picture broadcasting—and in doing so drew to its hearing room a number of the country's leading authorities on radio.
The hearing developed into a highly technical discussion.
C. Francis Jenkins, head of the Jenkins Television corporation of Washington, told the commission that by using the low frequency assigned him and through co-operation of amateurs he knew that motion pictures broadcast from his studios were being received by at least 5,000 persons.
He said he believed it should be tried out on the public to see what reaction came from "lookers in."
Lee De Forrest, one of the pioneers in the development of radio, said he believed the business of television and picture broadcasting should be encouraged and that if it would further the progress of such broadcasting to include it in the regular broadcast band he believed it should be included.
Frank Conrad, of Pittsburgh, in whose station KDKA first began operations, told the commission he believed television should not be allowed in the broadcast band at this time. He was joined in this belief by Julius Wineberger, representing the Radio Corporation of America.
The commission was told by C. E. Hoffman, engineer for the Jenkins Television corporation, that his concern was broadcasting a series of animated cartoons on a 10 kilocycle frequency very successfully. He said a regular receiving set properly equipped with a televisor could receive these animated cartoons and that the cost of a televisor would not be more than the cost of a good loud speaker.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1929
RADIOVISION BROADCASTING SCHEDULE.
(Copyright, 1929, by Science Service)
On Regular Schedule.
LEXINGTON, Mass., W1XAY, Lexington Air station, 300 watts, 4800-4900 kc. or 62 m. Standard scanning. Daily, 3 to 4 P. M. and 7:30 to 8 P. M. Will soon be equipped to broadcast voice and vision simultaneously.
PITTSBURGH, W8XAV, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., 20,000 watts, 4700-4800 kc. or 63 m. 20 frames per second, 60 lines per frame. Transmitting television programs, generally motion picture films, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 5:10 to 6 P. M. Eastern Standard time.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y.—W2XAF and W2XAD, General Electric Co., 24 lines, 20 frames per picture. Sunday, 11:15 to 11:45 P. M., W2XAD, 19.56 meters or 15,340 kc. Tuesday, 12 to 12:30 P. M., W2XAF, 31.18 m. or 9,530 kc. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P.M., W2XAD.
WASHINGTON, D. C.—W3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts, 6415-6425 or 47 m. and 1600-1610 kc. or 187 m. Standard scanning. 8 to 9 P. M., Eastern Standard time, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular Schedule.
BEACON, N. Y.—W2XBU, H. E. Smith, 100 watts, 4500-4600 m. or 66 m. Standard scanning. (Under construction).
CHICAGO, Ill.—W9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts, 4560 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning. At present standing by, awaiting sanction from Federal Radio commission.
LONG ISLAND CITY, N. Y.—W2XBT, Frank L. Carter, 8190-8200 kc. or 36.6 m. Irregular nightly experimental broadcasts.
LOS ANGELES, Cal.—W6XC, Pacific Engineering Laboratory Co., 500 watts, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. Will start on definite schedule within next six weeks.
MEMPHIS, Tenn.—W4XA, WREC, Inc., 5000 watts, 2400-2500 kc. or 122 meters.
NEW YORK, N. Y.—W2XBW, Radio Corporation of America, 5000 watts, 15,100-15,200 kc. or 20 m. The corporation also has been granted construction permits for W2XBV, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. and for W2XBS, 4600-4700 kc. or 64 m.
NEW YORK, N. Y.—W2XAL, Experimental Publishing Co., Radiovision suspended pending hearing by Federal Radio commission.
WASHINGTON, D. C.—C. Francis Jenkins, 5000 watts. (Under construction.)
Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers association. This is 48 lines per picture, 15 frames per second, with scanning consecutively from left to right and top to bottom, as one reads the page of a book.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1929
(RULES AND REGULATIONS GOVERNING VISUAL BROADCASTING)
The Federal Radio Commission has adopted the following rules and regulations governing visual broadcasting:
That visual broadcasting be designated to include both television broadcasting and picture broadcasting, or moving-picture broadcasting and still-picture broadcasting, and that ali licenses issued be of an experimental nature for & period of six months only, the licensees to report to the commission the results of their experiments; the transmitters to be located outside the city limits and sufficiently distant from important receiving centers to avoid interference.
For joint use to visual broadcasting licensees the commission authorizes the following bands of frequ encies for experimental use only; 2,000 to 2,200 and 2,750 to 2,950 kilocycles. In addition, the commission will authorize the operation of visual radio broadcasting transmitters in the band hetween 2,200 and 2,300 kilocycles, on the condition that they do not interfere in any way whatever with the services of any other nation on the North Ameriean Continent and in the West Indies, and that licenses be subject to revocation in case there are any complaints from any other nation of any such interference. The commission may continue to issue experimental television or visual licenses in the broadcast band for operation between 1 and 6 a. m. only, in accordance with General Order 50.
The commission adopted the following rules of priority in the granting of applications:
1. Those engaged in experimentation to improve the technique of visual broadcasting.
2. Those who employ methods which give the maximum definition with the minimum radio frequency band widths.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1929
Board Limits Hour and Wave For Television
Regular Band May Be Used Only Between 1 and 6 and After Licenses Expire
Short Waves Assigned
R. C. A. and Jenkins Receive Vision-Sending Permits
From the Herald Tribune Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—Transmission of television will not be permitted in the regular broadcast band after present licenses expire, except for experimental purposes between 1 and 6 a. m., the Federal Radio Commission announced this week [19] in granting numerous licenses for visual broadcasting. A number of relay broadcasting permits also were authorized. A public hearing, at which well known engineers from all parts or the country appeared and expressed their views on television, was held last week by the commission and it was generally agreed at this hearing that the regular broadcast band should not be used for television until it was out of the experimental stage.
In addition to the high frequency channels, between 2,000 and 2,200, and 2,750 and 2,950 kilocycles, which have been in use experimentally for visual broadcasting, the commission authorized use of the frequencies between 2,200 and 2,300 kilocycles. If any interference is caused with services operated by North American countries by the use of these channels, licenses will be revoked, it is stated. Licenses will be issued for periods of only six months.
Twenty-seven frequencies, lying between 6,020 and 21,540 kilocycles, were designated by the commission for relay broadcasting. This consists of high frequency transmission of programs between stations which, when picked up, are sent out over the regular bands. These frequencies were not assigned for the exclusive use of any one station, it was explained, and will be issued to others who may later qualify. The present licenses are issued for terms of six months, but longer-term licenses may be issued if, after six months’ trial, it is found that a station is operating in the public interest.
Licenses Issued
Those issued visual broadcasting licenses include two stations of the Radio Corporation of America located in New York and New Jersey—W2XBW and W2XBV—and a construction permit for a third station; one license to the Jenkins Laboratories, Inc., W3XK, to be located in Washington, and a construction permit or another station in Jersey City; four licenses to the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company for stations to be located in East Pittsburgh, Pa., and Springfield, Mass.; two to the General Electric Company in Schenectady and Oakland, Calif.; one each to WAAM, Inc., Newark, N. J.; Lexington Air Station; Lexington, Mass.; the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company, Brooklyn, N. Y.; the Chicago Federation of Labor, Chicago; William Justice Lee, Winter Park, Fla., and Aero Products, Inc., Chicago.
The following applications for similar licenses or construction permits, while not denied by the commission, were set for a hearing in order that the applicants might have an opportunity to establish whether or not public interest, convenience or necessity would be fulfilled by the granting of licenses: The Great Lakes Broadcasting Corporation, Chicago; John Milo Lutts, Los Angeles; Dudley R. Hooper, Rutherford, N. J.; Radio Air Service Corporation, Cleveland; Charles A. Johnson, Philadelphia; T. L. Kidd, San Antonio, Tex.; Harold E. Smith, Beacon, N. Y.; Ben S. McGlashan, Los Angeles; Stewart Warner Speedometer Company Corporation, Chicago; Alfred N. Hubbard, Seattle; Crocker Research Laboratories, San Francisco; Nelson Brothers Bond and Mortgage Company, Chicago; Robert B. Parrish, Los Angeles; Durham & Co., Inc., Philadelphia, and Western Broadcast Company, Los Angeles.
- - -
Three [applications] were denied, including Boyd Phelps, Jamaica, Long Island, N. Y.; Frank L. Carter, Long Island City, N. Y., and Shepard-Norwell Company, Boston. (Herald-Tribune, Feb. 19)
[Note: Boyd Phelps was the operator of amateur station 2EB in Jamaica, New York. He was born in Blunt, South Dakota in 1899 and became interested in radio at the age of 12. During World War, he was a radio operator and instructor in the Navy. After the war he spent time with the American Radio Relay League in Hartford before moving to New York by 1925. In 1928, he was sent a “radio photo” (like a fax) from the S.S. Berengaria in in the mid-Atlantic from its test with a television station in London. While in New York, he worked as a radio engineer. He moved to Minneapolis in November 1932 where he continued to work as an engineer and operated ham station W9BP. He soon settled in Morningside, Minnesota. He was killed in a car crash near Zimapan, Mexico in 1959, age 60. He was a Shriner, an Elk, a member of the VWF and the Radio and Teletype Club].

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1929
TELEVISION EQUIPMENT NOT INSTALLED HERE
Westinghouse May Take Some Time Before Provision is Made for Broadcasts
No provision has yet been made at the local plant of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing company for a program of television broadcasts, General Manager A. B. Reynders said last night [20]. The company has recently been issued four television broadcasting licenses by the Federal Radio commission. According to the application for the licenses, the tests are to be conducted at Pittsburg and Springfield.
When the plan called for in the licenses is put into effect, local radio experimenters will have an opportunity to try out television reception. Special equipment will first have to be installed at the local plant, which may require some time to complete.
The licenses cover short-wave tests on frequencies from 2000 to 2300 and 2750 to 2950 kilocycles. Broadcasting will be restricted from 1 to 6 mornings. Up to this time experimenters have relied on stations operated by the General Electric company at Schenectady, C. Francis Jenkins stations at Washington, and the Lexington air station at Lexington. Since January 1 television tests have not been permitted within the broadcast area and those who have continued attempts to receiving pictures by radio have built short-wave sets and tried for the television broadcasts to be found in the high frequency bands. From occasional reports this reception has not been reliable. (Springfield Daily Republican, Feb. 21)

WBZ TELEVISION NOT TO BE TRIED FOR SOME TIME
Steps Await Changing of Radio Board's Ruling on Land Wire, Says Engineer Myer.
No immediate steps to broadcast television from radio stations WBZ at Boston, or KDKA at Pittsburgh are contemplated by officials of the Westinghouse Electric Manufacturing Company, unless the Federal Radio Commission changes its ruling that no station may use a radio circuit to broadcast television where a land wire is possible, it was learned last night [20] from D. A. Meyer, engineer in charge of broadcasting for the Westinghouse in Massachusetts.
Not because the distance between the East Springfield and Pittsburgh plants of the company is so great, but because a land wire may be used, the company comes under this ban. A change in the ruling would probably in result in television broadcasting from both stations, but the present plant to plant communication between East Springfield and Pittsburgh is done on a low wavelength and with high frequency, which makes possible only point to point communication.
Should the company be allowed to undertake television broadcasting on an experimental scale, Mr. Myer said, there is still little possibility that the broadcasts would benefit experimenters, because of the fact that television is not standardized. The work is so complicated, said Mr. Myer, that unless an understood the equipment being used in the broadcasting and constructed his own equipment to conform with that, there would be little success to reward his efforts. (Springfield Union, Feb. 21)

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1929
Inaugural Movies May Be Televised
The inauguration ceremonies of March 4 may be seen by some fifteen or twenty thousand lucky persons outside of Washington, if the plans of C. Francis Jenkins, the noted television inventor, do not go awry.
Jenkins expects to take motion pictures of the inaugural and put these on the air by means of his own invention—a radio movie transmitter.
These pictures would go out on short waves to amateurs and others equipped with the proper television receiver. Jenkins says he is prepared to take movies of the inaugural all day and even up to ten in the evening, and have them on the air within fifteen minutes after taking. (Olean Evening Times)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1929
Wilbur Jerman, KWJJ technician, reports that he awaits only photo-electric cells to begin the television broadcast [on W7XAO]. Jerman said that as television is still in experimental stages it will not be advisable for those interested to invest in receiving equipment because when the problems confronting the engineers are solved and television becomes practical, receiving equipment will probably differ in many respects from that in use today. (Oregon Daily Journal)

May-June 1928

There wasn’t much to see on television in mid-1928, but that wasn’t the point. It was the hunt for a signal that was the main thing.

Television took a leap on May 11, 1928 when WGY, the General Electric Radio station in Pittsburgh, began a regular schedule of telecasts. The station switched from sound to picture broadcasts for a half hour, three times a week. You might see someone’s head and not much more. It transmitted at 24 scanning lines, 20 times a second, so the picture wouldn’t have been very clear even in the best conditions.

Others were experimenting, too, including C. Francis (Frank) Jenkins in Washington with his silhouette pictures, WCFL in Chicago, WLEX outside Boston, and Hugo Gernsback’s WRNY radio station with a transmitter in New Jersey. There was a huge to-do about a station in Yonkers but the idea never panned out; it doesn't appear the backers applied for a license from the Radio Commission, which was wrestling with finding appropriate frequencies for visual broadcasting. And Harold E. Smith's W2XBU was given permission by the Commission to go ahead.

This spot on the internet is going to devote its space for the next number of months on those formative years, from mid-1928 through to 1929 (1930 and onward is elsewhere on this blog).

Some stations experimented with sending pictures, but the transmissions were more like sending faxes. Still, at times it was being called “television” to the annoyance of purists. WMCA in New York and WTMJ in Milwaukee were in this category.

This post gives a roundup of highlights in television in June 1928, with a brief look at May.

THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1928
Regular Television Broadcasts Announced
NEW YORK, May 10.—The General Electric Company tomorrow afternoon will start a regular schedule of television broadcasting for the benefit of experimenters and amateurs who have constructed television sets.. Between 1:30 and 2 o’clock tomorrow, Eastern daylight time, the General Electric will broadcast a television program over WGY from the laboratories at Schenectady. Hereafter on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons at the same time WGY will broadcast for television sets.
Faces of men talking, laughing or smoking will be broadcast tomorrow. No elaborate television effects will be attempted in the near future.
WGY broadcast a few moments of television tonight so that listeners might recognize the peculiar sounds of such action by radio. The signal is an intermittent, high-pitched whirring sound, the pitch varying with the action before the transmitter. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 11)

SUNDAY, MAY 13, 1928
A series of radio television demonstrations for the public is to begin about June 10 over the 326-meter wave length of WRNY, according to an announcement yesterday [13] by the inventor, Theodore H. Nakken, President of the Nakken Television Corporation of Brooklyn, a recently formed subsidiary of the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Company. The first tests of the televisor transmitter and receiver, designed for use on the channels of the speech and music broadcaster, are to begin late this week in Brooklyn. Laboratory tests will be followed immediately by tests over greater distances using WRNY, Mr. Nakken said. The first public exhibition is scheduled to be held in Hotel Roosevelt early next month.
The televisor transmitter will be linked with the WRNY control apparatus in the Roosevelt and electrical impulses corresponding to the object or face before the instrument will be sent, over a wire to the WRNY broadcaster at Coytesville, N. J. From that point the radio waves will carry the image back to the Roosevelt to operate the televisor receiver, said Mr. Nakken.
“My object is television which can be employed by every broadcasting station under present conditions, namely, the ten kilocycle variety of television, rather than television which requires a much wider channel,” he continued. “The wider or more perfect television might be better to look at, but there is no available radio band at present for its application because the channels are already crowded.”
Mr. Nakken said his machine is to work on the principle of more perfect individual images or “scannings” but only ten of them per second. The one drawback will be a slight flicker as one image passes off the screen and the next begins, but this must be accepted as one of the limitations due to the impossibility of obtaining a wider television band under the present overcrowded condition of the radio waves, he asserted. One of the limitations of “ten kilocycle” television is said to be the impossibility of transmitting very rapid motion. (New York Times, May 14)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 16, 1928
Within a month WRNY will begin a regular television service, Theodore Nakken, inventor, announced in a talk from that station last evening [16]. He warned enthusiasts, however, against the belief that public events, such as parades or baseball games, would be televisioned in the near future. This will not be possible unless some radical improvements are made in existing devices, he said. (Ben Gross, Daily News, May 17)

SUNDAY, MAY 20, 1928
IS TELEVISION HERE?
Present views of leaders in the radio industry on the subject of television are given in a symposium recently printed in the New York Times. The persons interviewed are eminently qualified to place television in its true light. Their statements are authoritative. Here are a few excerpts from their recently expressed views:
"We are not now manufacturing television apparatus for the home, because, frankly, we do not yet know how to make a simplified and low-priced television receiver practicable for home use. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that within the next few years such equipment and service will be developed and made available to the home.”—David Sarnoff, vice president and general manager, Radio Corporation of America.
"Radio vision of moving objects is already an achievement of several laboratories and eventually will be available for the home. But between the scientific accomplishment and the widespread commercial application of television the steps involved seem at present so complex that even the most rapid development of the art can hardly promise satisfactory television service before two or three years at least."—O. H. Caldwell, Federal radio commissioner. “The practicality of television by means of radio has been demonstrated, and it offers a field for future scientific and commercial development,”—M. P. Rice, General Electric Company. "There is no doubt that the development of television will go forward and that eventually television will be commercially used."—Dr. J. H. Dellinger, United States Bureau of Standards.
"While marvelous tests have been accomplished in television it should be understood that these are only experiments. I hold a considerable measure of doubt as to whether television will for many years to come be a matter of popular appeal in American homes.”—L. S. Baker, National Association of Broadcasters.
“Any reasonable-minded man is warranted in predicting that television will come, but let the public know the facts: It is not here now nor anywhere near it."—R. M. Klein, general manager Fada Radio. “I am willing to go on record to the effect that practical, commercial, reasonably priced television equipment for the home will not be on the market within five years, and very likely not within 25 years.”—Dr. Lee de Forest.
"In my opinion prospective radio buyers who postpone their purchases until such a time as television is a practical accomplishment will, unquestionably, deny themselves at least several years of splendid radio entertainment."—Sam Picard, Federal radio commissioner. (Boston Globe)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1928
Radio Pictures Broadcast, Picked Up by Amateurs
WMCA Puts On Co-ordination of Photographs and Talk
In the first co-ordination of radio entertainment and photographic transmission, pictures of Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, an episode in the last Tunney-Demsep [sic] fight and the group that gave the program, were broadcast by Station WMCA, New York, last night [23].
The pictures were transmitted by the Rayfoto system, developed by Austin G. Coley, and formed an integral part of a special radio program presented by a group of artists and speakers.
Several amateur operators, including Presley Astin, of 62 West Thirty-ninth Street, were successful in receiving the pictures. Future combinations of sound and picture broadcasting are to be presented by Station WMCA on a regular schedule for a number of weeks. (New York Herald Tribune, May 24)
FRIDAY, MAY 25, 1928
Shortage of Radio Channels Seen as Television Obstacle
WASHINGTON, May 27—(AP)— If radio vision is to be made available, like radio sound is today, allocation experts foresee a new problem in finding sufficient space for television channels in the dwindling broadcast spectrum.
For adequate television service of permanent interest to the public the allocation of bands 100 kilocycles wide is essential, Dr. Alfred Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, told the federal radio commission [on May 14]. A 100-kilocycle band today will afford 10 telegraph or 10 telephone channel and with the perfection of transmitting apparatus soon will accommodate 20 channels. Capt. S. C. Hooper, naval radio engineer, says: “Dr. Goldsmith says that a band width of five kilocycles is required for a 24-line picture, 20 kilocycles for a 48-line picture and 80 kilocycles for a 96-line picture.
“When it is considered that even fairly crude newspaper halftone illustrations have from 150 to 300 lines it will be appreciated that pictures of continuing interest to ‘lookers-in’ will required at least 100 kilocycle bands,” he said.
“Even this will suffice merely for showing action of two or three figures clearly with a certain amount of background detail.”
Dr. Goldsmith has requested assignment of 20 channels, 100 cycles wide, in the frequencies ranging from 1525 to 17,150 kilocycles for experimental work in television broadcasting.

SUNDAY, MAY 27, 1928
WANT SHORT WAVES FOR TELEVISION
RCA Asks 20 Channels for Experiments
Recent bearings of the Federal Radio Commission on the a1location of trans-oceanic short wave channels indicate that television, although not here now, may be reasonably expected as a future development of broadcasting. This fact was brought out by Alfred N. Goldsmith, chief broadcast engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, who has applied for 20 television frequencies in the following wave band: Between 75 and 196.7 meters for urban service; 45.11 and 73.17 meters for suburban and rural service, and 17.49 and 35.39 metera for international service. Each frequency would be about 100 kilocycles wide, or some five times the width of the ordinary radio telegraph channel.
“Intensive development work of a experimental nature has already been carried on and transmission of television material is at hand through confidential experiments and transmissions carried on at Schenectady, Pittsburgh and New York. In other words, television is not a vague and remote project, but, while still experimental, is an imminent and plausible probability. Indeed, a fair parallel is to compare television in its present state of development with ordinary broadcasting in its condition in 1921. The wise policy of the Government which encouraged the development of broadcasting in 1921, if similarly applied to television at the present time, will lead to a tremendous and desirable growth of that art as a service to the public,” Dr Goldsmith declared.
Want Short Waves for Experiments
“The granting of experimental licenses on the various recommended television broadcasting channels will encourage a rapid development of this new art and its corresponding coordination with broadcasting, which will lead to the provision of a completely satisfactory and hitherto unobtainable radio sight-and-sound service to the peop1e of the United States and even of the entire world.
“To develop the three basic types of television broadcasting requires permission from the Federal Radio Commission to explore experimentally the television transmitting capabilities of a considerable number of 100-kilocycle bands between 1500 and approximately 17,000 kilocycles 199-9 and 17.7 meters). We know very little of the television transmission capability of these bands and we shall never determine how to utilize them effectively for the entertainment and instruct1on of the public by television unless encouragement is given those planning to develop the art, through authorization experimentally to transmit television material on such wavelengths and to determine conclusively the sort of service given in urban, suburban and rural and international television services, on eaoh of these bands.” (Boston Globe)

SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1928
Improved Television Sought As Scientists Work Overtime
BY C. E. BUTTERFIELD
NEW YORK, June 2. (AP)—The world is moving toward television—how fast only time will determine.
Much must be learned and done before this newest form of radio art can be brought into step with sound broadcasting. Yet scientists are working long hours in an effort to perfect the radio moving picture, aided to a certain extent by amateur experimenters.
One of the latest forward steps was the announcement of actual television broadcasts by WGY, Schenectady, on a wavelength of 379.5 meters. These broadcasts are be made each Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at 12:30 Eastern time. Whether visual transmission will become as popular, almost overnight as did sound broadcasting depends largely upon the product delivered to the "seer." In the early days of radio the music that came from the receiver did not compare at all favorably with the output of modern apparatus.
A similar situation now prevails in television. The movies transmitted are crude, scientists admit.
Like other forms of radio, the amateur is taking an active interest in television. At every opportunity he is contributing his small part toward the ultimate result. Parts may be available within a short time for the home experimenter, and if he takes to moving picture transmission as he did to sound broadcast the day that television is as much of an actuality as music from the air may be much closer than present developments seem to indicate. The radio movie now is not much more than a silhouet. But subjects are recognizable, even where the pictures have been sent across the Atlantic. Improvements are expected by which it is hoped that the results will be more lifelike even than an ordinary photograph.
While the picture transmitting apparatus is somewhat complicated, the receiver comparatively simple. It generally is attached to an ordinary sound set. It contains receiving tubes and a light tube which changes the electrical impulses into light rather than sound.
Scientists are spending long hours in laboratories in attempting to overcome obstacles.
Prominent among them are three men who see great possibilities for the radio movies.
It is Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson's apparatus, which is being used in the WGY experiments. These broadcasts may be up on any television receiver, but are being made primarily to aid engineers in advancing the art. Dr. Alexanderson, whose contributions to radio date back several years, has developed a televisor that produces fairly legible pictures.
At Washington, C. Francis Jenkins, another radio picture pioneer, does not hesitate to predict that television will be available in some form by Christmas through an inexpensive receiver. Like other television sets, his reproducer takes the place of the loud speaker in the sound receiver.
Another investigator, John L. Baird, is the most active of the scientists abroad. Pictures from his transmitter have been sent from London and picked up on this side of the Atlantic, In connection with Baird's work, recent announcement was made that an American company had been formed to make television equipment available for amateur use. The backers said they hoped to broadcast pictures through a chain of stations.
Television should not be confused with telephoto, which deals only with photographs or "stills." The same problems do not enter into this method of light transmission. The time element there is not so important, although a single cabinet size photograph has been sent over the air in 90 seconds. In radio movies at least 16 complete pictures must be sent per second to give a recognizable result.
TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1928
First Television State In U.S. To Be Built Here; Syndicate Asks City Permit
Two Huge Towers To Be Built Atop Proctor’s
America first large television station, capable of broadcasting and receiving across continents and oceans to and from far corners of the world, will be located in Yonkers if city authorities act favorably on an application for a building permit for two tall towers atop Proctor's Theatre Building.
With the revelation today, it also was disclosed that research work has been going on quietly on the Proctor roof for more than a year, and tests also have been made at the Water Tower atop Nodine Hill, and at a point along the Palisades opposite Dyckman Street.
Herbert Z. Fokress of 141 Caryl Avenue, representative of a syndicate of American millionaires, recently acquired the American rights for the English television invention for his company on a trip to London, and on his return admitted the possibility of location of the company's station in this city.
Tests Now Under Way
Today's revelation, however, show that the syndicate had a staff of three government licensed operators conducting research work in eight-hour shifts for a period of about six months, with an expensive sending and receiving apparatus housed on the roof of Proctor's which, as a result of the thorough tests, has been chosen as the best location of the proposed station. The Tahiti Island in the Pacific, Australia and other far-away point were communicated with in the tests, it was learned.
These operations were dlscontinued a month ago after negotiations had been started with Building Inspector James W. Armstrong.
The request to Mr. Armstrong for a permit discloses that two ornamental steel towers will shoot into the air to height of 100 feet, the cost of erecting the station being approximately $75,000.
While Mr. Armstrong has not made any decision on the project he has informed agents of the television syndicate that the plans are all right as far as the apparent sole restriction contained In the building code is concerned. That restriction concerns the area of the base of towers.
No Bar in City Laws
What apparently is keeping the the decision in abeyance is uncertainty as to whether the plan is in conflict with other building or zoning regulations, and it is said officials so far have been unable to find anything under the law governing erection of roof towers for such us a involved in the television station.
Under the company's plane, the Yonkers broadcasting towers would be a remote control station, operated from New York City, with all pictures and other transmissions passing through the station.
So far as is known, no tieup has yet been made or broached for use of television service in the theatre. More than a year ago, it was learned agents of the syndicate obtained, permission to use the Proctor roof for their experiment. The Water Tower had been disapproved because of expense involved in installing necessary electrical power, and the Palisades site also failed to meet the favor of the experts. At the conclusion of their tests, however, they reported the Proctor roof as ideal for the television station.
Tests Here Cover World
A network of wireless experts was thrown over the world for the tests, apparently, and communications were established in code. Atmospheric conditions, climate and other technical conditions were found favorable. Then tests were made to determine whether the station would cause interference with radio receiving sets in Yonkers, and the experts are said to have reported this had been eliminated after many adjustments. They also are said to have eliminated interference of the constant flashing and clicking in the penthouse stop the Proctor building, where the two 50-horsepower elevator motors are located.
Remote Control Necessary
The purpose of locating remote control station in Yonkers instead of the station itself in New York is of the interference in the latter city caused by the numerous radio stations.
One of the Proctor would extend 100 feet into the air from the front roof. The other would be on the lower rear roof, but would be taller, to reach the same height as its companion.
The theatre building itself Is 102 feet high, and the area of its site is 27,720 square feet. The plans for the towers are said to call for bases of 256 feet apiece, so that they would be well within the limit set the building code of 10 per cent of the lot area.
The company planning the station is to be known as the Baird American Television Company, Inc., Board being the name of the English inventor. According to Mr. Pokress, financing of the company involves “many millions” of dollars. In the syndicate he represents, he said, are, among others, Charles Izanstark of Chicago, Nathan Feldstern of Philadelphia, president of the American Radio Stores Corporation and Raymond Rosen of Philadelphia. A month ago Mr. Pokress said it was hoped to have the station erected and ready for operation in 60 days.
He said the company plans to retail television sets for use by amateurs, who, he said, will not require licenses. (Yonkers Statesmen)

THURSDAY, JUNE 7, 1928
WCFL Is First to Employ Television
Chicago, Ill., June 7 (U.P.).—The Chicago Federation of Labor radio station, WCFL, will blaze the trail in television broadcasting on Friday, June 15, according to Ed Nockels, secretary of the Chicago Federation. George Schoenberg, radio engineer, selected WCFL, located on a navy pier, as the only Chicago station adapted to this new form of broadcast. Equipment is being installed in preparation for the experiment.

FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1928
GREEN BUILDING PERMIT ISSUED
Permit for a new building on Star island to house additional operators and other employes of Col. E. H. R. Green, who announced recently that be will make Miami Beach headquarters for his television experiments, has been issued to John B. Orr, Colonel Green’s contractor. The building will be erected immediately, at an estimated cost of $34,000.
The experiments which are expected to be started early next fall, will be made in conjunction with the work of Colonel Green's laboratories and radio broadcasting station at Round Hills, South Dartmouth, Mass., now being operated by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
An attempt will be made to send north by radio special motion pictures of Miami Beach. (Miami News)

TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 1928
CHICAGO RADIO USED TO BROADCAST PHOTO
Chicago, June 12 (AP)—The first demonstration of Chicago-made television apparatus was given today at radio station WCFL.
The demonstration marked the successful development of a device which its inventors claim to be more readily adaptable to the average radio receiver than the equipment already in use. It was designed by M. L. Hayes and U. A. Sanabria of Chicago.
Application to transmit pictures over a 195-meter wave has been made to the federal radio commission.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 1928
STATIC ELIMINATED. RADIO MEN BELIEVE
But Television Still Remote, Expert at Trade Conference Declares.
By OWEN L. SCOTT.
[Freelance newspaper writer]
CHICAGO, June 13.—Static is being licked, eliminating one of the biggest handicaps of radio, but television, regarded by many as the next step forward in the industry, is remote as a practical proposition.
This about sums up the situation confronting the radio trade gathered here for its annual show of advance models. Displays indicate that the industry has taken a big step forward within the past year from an engineering standpoint—with the trend toward all-electrical sets, simple to operate, compact in form and just about fool-proof.
Just one demonstration of television is to be seen. It is not particularly convincing in its practical aspects as a luxury for the home. H. B. Richmond, director of the engineering division of the Radio Manufacturers' association and for 20 years an expert in radio engineering, believes that the television development still is a long way off, except as an experimental move. [...]
"Television has received a good deal publicity than its practical aspects seem to warrant. The sending of individual pictures by wire or radio is entirely different. That is very practical, but television is much more complicated and, except from an experimental engineering standpoint, has little practical interest.
“The image you see now is only about one and one-half inches square and cannot even include an entire person. To enlarge is requires a great deal of equipment. The result is expensive and unsatisfactory from the standpoint of the average person."

FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1928
Try Television on 40 Kilocycle Band
Experiments in Preparation for Establishing Television for Radio Audience Made
WASHINGTON, June 16.—(AP)—Successful experiments preparatory to the establishment of television service for its radio audience have been conducted by Station WLEX, Boston, John Stewart, manager, has informed the Federal Radio Commission.
The experiments have involved the use of 48 scanning lines repeated 18 times per second In transmitting pictures. This takes a band 40 kilocycles wide in the short wave spectrum. Mr. Stewart told the commission it was possible to transmit television on a 10 kilocycle band by using 24 scanning lines repeated 20 times per second. This method, however, necessitates the loss of the higher frequencies with a considerable loss of detail, he declares.
Mr. Alfred Goldsmith, chief engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, recently told the commission that channels 100 kilocycles wide are needed for adequate television service.
Forty or so meters are the logical wavelengths for television, Mr. Stewart said. The WLEX television transmitter is keyed for 40 meters. This can be changed but the short waves are necessary for successful picture transmission, he asserts. WLEX has not been on the air with its television signal but has conducted its tests through monitoring the signal.

SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 1928
Television Set Will Be Put in Here
WILBUR JERMAN, technical manager of radio station KWJJ, announced yesterday [16] that within two months the station will begin installation of television equipment for broadcast of small pictures on a wavelength of 54 meters.
Jerman's experimental license, 7XAO, for operation on 54 meters, will be used for the broadcast. This being the only experimental license of the kind in the Northwest, several requests have been made of the owner for television experiments.
In response, Jerman promises two broadcasts of one half hour each week. Musical accompaniments will be undertaken by KWJJ [W7XAO] on 250 meters.
Considerable revision and construction of equipment will be made within the construction period, the technician said.
In recent issues of the radio magazine, QST, designs have been shown of a comparatively simple television hookup. Recently an Eastern concern announced moderately priced television sets which are adaptable to ordinary broadcast receiving sets. The report indicated that the machines would be moderately priced.
“The system of transmitting and receiving the small pictures, not more than an inch square, is simple," Jerman says. “In short wave reception of pictures a three-tube regenerative short wave receiver is used, and in place of a loud speaker is used a neon tube, and in front of this tube is a screening disc in synchronism with the disc at the station. Just ahead of the disc is one-inch window in which the image appears.
"In a few weeks I will be able to give more details as to equipment and Installation." (Oregon Journal, June 17)

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1928
WCFL MAKES SUCCESSFUL BROADCAST OF TELEVISION
CHICAGO, June 19—(AP)—A successful broadcast of voice and television at the same time was made tonight over station WCFL, the Chicago Federation of Labor, in an experiment under a special permit issued by Samuel Pickard, the Federal Radio Commissioner.
A view of the head and shoulders of E. N. Nockels, secretary of the Chicago federation, was broadcast with his voice and received by the inventors of the process, M.J. Hayes and Ulysses Znarbria [sic], over their receiving apparatus located several miles away from Navy Pier, where WCFL maintains its station.
Officials of WCFL said they would seek permission now for a permanent license to broadcast television.

SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 1928
BROADCAST OF MOVIES HERE JULY 2
Prof. Jenkins Announces the Bginning [sic] of Regular Program in Capital.
Washington, June 24.—A program of motion pictures will be broadcast from the Jenkins’ Laboratory, 1519 Connecticut avenue northwest, July 2, at 8 o'clock. The program will last for an hour and will be sent through television on a wavelength of 46.7 meters, which will enable amateurs in the United States and Canada to pick it up. The pictures will be broadcast at the rate of 15 a second and will contain 48 lines to the picture.
The performance will be repeated each Monday night with a different set of pictures. As the demand grows, the number of performances a week will be increased to three. For a time, the moving pictures will depict only simple action. Later, those with plots will be used.
During the past three weeks, the moving pictures to be shown July 2 have been broadcast a number of times between the laboratory and the home of Prof. C. Francis Jenkins, 5502 Sixteenth street northwest, where they were witnessed by private audiences. The reception was said to have been entirely satisfactory.
Gens [Jeanne] Marie Belote, 6-year-old daughter of Theodore Belote, 1612 Longfellow street, and Catherine and Constance Rounds, daughters of Lieut. Edward Rounds, engineer in the Navy Department, acted for the pictures to be shown July 2. They will be from 5 to 15 minutes long.
The amateur radio operator can equip his set with a picture receiver for $10 or $15, Dr. Jenkins stated. The laboratory, however, he stated, does not manufacture or sell them. It is broadcasting the pictures only in the interest of television. Yesterday [22] Dr. Jenkins gave an account of his work with television before the Washington Round Table luncheon held at University Club. (Washington Post)

CONFERENCE SOON ON TELEVISION AND RELAY ASSIGNMENTS
Washington, June 23—A conference is soon to be called by the Federal Radio Commission of applicants for high frequency assignments to be used for relay broadcasting and television.
The commission has received 40 applications for the 18 channels available, and the applicants will be called on to show the "public interest, convenience or necessity" they would serve if granted assignments.
Already the commission has conferred with engineers about the bands specified by the International Radio Convention for high frequency broadcasting, relay broadcasting and television.
Here are the frequency bands which may be assigned with the approximate distance range for each:
6,000 to 6,150 kilocycles—distance 500 miles at day, 4,000 miles at night.
9,500 to 9,600 kilocycles—distance 1,200 miles at day, 5,000 miles at night.
11,700 to 11,900 kilocycles—distance 2,500 miles at day, 5,000 miles at night.
15,100 to 15,350 kilocycles—distance 2,500 miles at day, 5,000 miles at night.
17,750 to 17,800 kilocycles—distance 3,000 miles at day, 6,000 miles at night.
21,450 to 21,550 kilocycles—distance 4,000 miles at day, 7,000 miles at night.
Television Assignments.
For television, the engineers suggested that experimental development stations be licensed between 4.500 and 5,000 kilocycles, on five 100 kilocycle channels, one channel to be assigned to each zone or night use, and all five channels to be assigned to each zone for day use.
In addition, one 100 kilocycle channel in the band, between 15,100 and 15,350, or the 11,700-11,900 band, and two 100 kilocycle channels above 23,000 kilocycles are recommended for television experimental work.
Channel Shortage.
The engineers suggested that due to the shortage of available channels, that only the most important applications should be considered on the following basis:
1. Overseas and international relay broadcasting.
2. Long Distance broadcasting beyond reliable range of national broadcast network between 550 and 1,300 kilocycles.
3. Television experimental and development work.
4. National relay broadcasting (within United States).
Another thing that the Commission may take into consideration is that the high frequencies are primarily valuable due to their great carrying range at low cost, and that they cause international interference. Therefore, it is suggested by the engineers, they should be assigned for long distance uses when low frequencies are not practical. (Brooklyn Eagle, June 24)

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 1928
Policy of Encouragement Officially Evolved With Reference to Television
BY DEANE KINTNER
NEWS from Chicago that the television broadcast foretold last Sunday resulted in transmission of a speaker voice and likeness simultaneously over a distance of several miles invited attention to this new phase of radio from the viewpoint of the Federal Radio Commission.
In this connection, latest advices from Washington are that a policy of encouragement will be followed by the commission with respect to television, and every assistance possible given to those who are developing this new branch of the radio art, so far as it does not interfere with other established services.
To this end the commission has already granted one or two temporary licenses for television transmission. Among the stations engaged in this work are WOR at Newark, WFCL at Chicago, and C. Francis Jenkins, Washington inventor. The two stations have been working on wave lengths outside the broadcasting band, but Jenkins, who has not yet been assigned a channel, has been operating in the broadcast band while awaiting permission to use a specific wave length.
Cleveland? Not Yet.
So far as can be learned, no Cleveland station has yet made formal application for a license to transmit visual matter and, in fact, only a few persons have so far indicated their desire to go into this branch of the industry. The Radio Corporation of America, at the recent hearings on short waves, asked for a number of channels on which to transmit pictures, but the commission has not yet made any decision on such applications.
The various members of the commission have expressed interest in radio vision, and it has been indicated that no handicaps will be placed in the way of experimenters who are engaged in perfecting the transmission and reception of pictures. It is not anticipated that any permanent licenses will be granted for television until the commission is assured of its perfection, but temporary permits will be granted freely.
Away Up or Down
A report recommending that certain channels, some on long waves and some on short, be set aside for television has been submitted to the commission by its technical adviser, Capt. S. C. Hooper. It seems highly improbable that television will be permitted in the broadcasting band because it requires, in its present stage of development, a much wider channel for a picture than for voice or music. A band of at least 100 kilocycles is required for the transmission of a picture of moderate size; because of this necessity it is deemed impractical to permit transmission within the range of 10 kilocycle channels now assigned to voice transmission.
Statements made at the recent short wave hearing indicated that television was rapidly being perfected and that within a much shorter time than the public generally anticipated it would be possible to offer a complete picture service.
As soon as transmission of moving pictures, toward which a number of experimenters are working, is perfected, the newer art probably will be linked up with broadcasting as it is now known, so that listeners can see as well as hear artists as they perform. Probably the first such entertainments to be given will be from talking motion pictures.
Radio Movies, and Yet—
The WCFL broadcast of voice and image, using apparatus described in some detail last Sunday, was the most ambitious effort to date to provide listeners with "radio movies.”
However, as pointed out then, set owners should not be too greatly exercised, for the image transmitted was very small and somewhat indistinct, and it was, of course, subject to all such radio troubles as fading static and distortion at the transmitting and receiving end.
Part of this distortion of pictures through the air tends to be introduced by the fact that the receiver runs a little faster or a little slower than the transmitter. Perforated scanning discs at either end must be perfectly synchronized to give a clear reproduction.
At WCFL, in co-operation with the Carter Radio Co., this is being accomplished within close limits by using the 60-cycle pulsations of lighting current to control the speed of apparatus at both ends of the ethereal line. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 1928
TELEVISION IN PLANE TESTED
Chicago, June 27. (AP)—Passengers in a tri-motored monoplane cruising over Chicago yesterday [26] listened to the voices and saw the faces of persons several miles away in a radio studio.
It was the first successful experiment in airplane reception of television. The broadcasting was from the studios of WCFL, the Chicago Federation of Labor station.

THURSDAY, JUNE 28, 1928
MAKES HOME-MADE SET
Bloomsburg, Pa., June 29. –(UP)—Louis W. Buckalew, 16, last night [28] received a television picture at the home of his parents. The picture comprised 40 lines and represented a man sending a message.
Buckalew is an amateur radio operator, and he has received word that his station has been heard in Holland. He has heard stations in New Zealand, Russia and England.
[Note: Buckalew was born Dec. 12, 1912 in Bloomsberg and died Dec. 29, 1974 in Orlando. He was a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army and retired to Florida where he belonged to the Elks and the Masons. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.]

HAROLD C. SMITH GRANTED PERMIT
Bacon, June 28.—Harold C. Smith, of this city, has been granted a permit from the Federal Radio Commission, it was announced here today, to set up a television transmitting station [W2XBU] on Mount Beacon.
Smith has a staff of three men to aid him and his application stated that he has sufficient capital to finance the venture.

WTMJ TO GIVE DAILY PICTURE BROADCASTS
MILWAUKEE, Wis.—(AP)—A license to broadcast photographs has been obtained by WTMJ, transmission to begin about August 1.
Using the Cooley Rayfoto system, WTMJ expects to arrange to daily schedules of picture transmission, one during the day and the other about midnight. The pictures may be picked u on an ordinary receiver, provided it has photograph reproducer.
WTMJ is the first station wets of New York, where WMCA has been sending out “stills” for some time, to take up the new art, which some experiments see as the preliminary step toward television, or radio movies. (Greenfield Recorder)

FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 1928
RADIO CENTER IN NEW YORK PUTS TELEVISION ON MARKET
Cortlandt Street Shop Windows Already Have Tubes, Scanning Discs, Amplifiers and Other Apparatus on Display.
By C. E. BUTTERFIELD
Associates Press Radio Editor
NEW YORK, June 30—(AP)—Television may not just around the corner, but Cortlandt street, the Fifth avenue of radio, apparently thinks something is in the air.
Cortlandt street, the radio center of downtown New York, has been tempting the never-satisfied experimenter with television apparatus for some time. What is to be expected of this equipment can be determined only after a trial. In the display windows are kits containing television tubes, scanning disks, rheostats and three-stage resistance amplifiers that build up the signal which actuates the light-receiving tube.
Except for the amplifiers, which are standard, the equipment is crude to a certain extent, particularly when compared with some of the sound apparatus. However, if it will bring in television signals, it has done its part toward opening radio’s eye.
What Diagram Reveals.
The diagram of a television amplifier and reproducer indicates that its construction is not so difficult after all. Reception largely is a question of finding such signals on the air. WGY, Schenectady, now is broadcasting "radio movies" each Sunday evening after the regular program, while WLEX, Boston, is planning experiments on 40 to 80 meters. WRNY, New York, also is preparing to send out television signals.
However, the "telemovie" now is at the stage where only the radio fan with wide experience and an inventive turn of mind is in a position to take up experimentation Much patience will be required to get the apparatus functioning properly.
One kit prospectus makes this statement:
“Now that television is being broadcast, it is possible to receive pictures with simple apparatus. Results will depend on the distance of the broadcaster and upon the efficiency of the tuning system of a sound receiver, which is used to tune into the picture broadcasts. Any good set that will receive television signals audibly will give satisfactory results.
New Form Amplifier Described.
"As transformers are unsuited for amplifying all frequencies, a resistance coupled amplifier plays an important part. The audio amplifier of the set is not used, the television intensifier being cut in at the detector output. If the set does not have a detector jack, one must be provided.
"The television tube is connected to the output of the last amplifier tube in place of the speaker. This tube is placed at the rear of the scanning disk, which is set on the shaft of a motor, and a small window is mounted in front or in the rear of the disk. The speed of the disk must be kept in step with that at the transmitter. Speed is regulated by a rheostat, cut into the line feeding the motor. For close adjustment two rheostats will be needed.
How to Get Best Volume.
“Before actually connecting the amplifier to the receiver, it is advisable to tune in to the television signals to get the best volume. Then the audio amplifier is disconnected and the resistance amplifier cut in at the detector jack. The switch controlling the motor is turned on and the disk speeds up slowly, the operator watching for signals through the window. As the disk approaches critical speed, flashes will be thrown across the window and figures will appear when the correct speed is reached. The picture will remain until the speed steps out of synchronization again, but by careful adjustment of the motor rheostat it can be brought back.
"The amount of illumination of the television lamp is governed by the output consumption of the tube and the strength of the signals. In the resistance amplifier two hi-mu tubes are preferable in the first two steps with a power tube in the last step."