January 1929

As 1929 began, the Federal Radio Commission had no idea what to do about television.

In less than two weeks after the start of the year, the Commission revised a decision made in 1928. It agreed to allow television broadcasts on A.M. frequencies between 1 and 6 a.m.—most radio stations then signed off around midnight—while it held hearings in February.

A unbylined story in the Santa Ana Register of January 24th said only WGY Schenectady and WIBO Chicago were licensed for television within the A.M. radio band, but several other stations were operating in the overnight hours “without express commission authorization.”

There was a great to-do about whether the presidential inauguration in March would be televised. There was only one station in Washington, Frank Jenkins' W3XK, on the air three days a week. But it was only airing films of people in silhouette. First, coverage was on. Then it was called a rumour.

There were plenty of inventors in the U.S. working on television; Philo Farnsworth comes to mind. In January 1929, a 22 year old man from Wichita Falls, Texas named Bryan Yancey Cummings, Jr., went on a mission to patent his tele-developments. In 1931, he was granted a patent, filed in 1928, for a radio receiver that had "special arrangements for the reduction of the damping of resonant circuits of receivers." Another patent was awarded in 1934, filed in 1932, with this explanation: "Scanning details of television systems; Combination thereof with generation of supply voltages by optical-mechanical means only having a moving aperture also apertures covered by lenses." Scanning discs were pretty much obsolete by then.

In 1930, Cummings was working in Dade County, Florida as a sounder recorder for a movie company. His Draft Card in 1940 has him self-employed in Fort Worth. He certainly changed careers as in 1950, he was employed in Dallas as an assistant physicist for the Atlantic Richfield Oil Company. He died in Dallas on Dec. 2, 1977.

Below are selected highlights of TV stories for the first months of 1929.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1929
TELEVISION IS ATTRACTING THE PUBLIC INTEREST
NEW YORK, Jan. 2. (AP)—Experiments seeking the development of a successful system of television transmission have keen public interest.
Such is the consensus of a committee headed by H. B. Richmond of Cambridge, and appointed by the Radio Manufacturers' association to study the progress and prospects of sending instantaneous light by radio.
Summing up its survey the committee stated: "One point was evident, that much confusion would be avoided among television interests if a standardization committee on television were appointed. Such a committee was named and has begun its work.
“Television is an actuality today, but only experimentally. Current television pictures are possible, although the pictures are small and reduced in detail.
"They provide excellent entertainment to a skillful experimenter. From the amusement standpoint they are in no way comparable with audio broadcasting. The necessity for close attention to the operation of the receiver should be stressed. A television reproducer cannot be started and left to itself.
"The complicated problem of synchronization is much simpler over wire lines than by radio. The difference should also be emphasized between sending photographs by radio, the sending of images from moving picture films and the more difficult feat of actual television.
"Television apparatus is an additional attachment which may be used with an existing set or connected to a specially designed receiver.
"Going beyond the present small picture means wider channels and under most known methods it would take the entire broadcast spectrum to put out a picture comparable with the moving pictures of the theater. One much discussed television experiment required three transmitters and receivers with a crew of trained engineers to keep the system in operation.
"There still is considerable disagreement as to how far television will go beyond the experimenter interest stage. This is because of the continuous attention required by present visual reproduction. The most careful analysis favor the experimental and strictly professional viewpoint."

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1929
TELEVISION PUTS MOVIES IN HOME
Chicago Radio Station Makes Successful Broadcast of Pictures.
CHICAGO, Jan. 3.—(AP)—Television has placed movies in the home within the realm of possibility.
The first successful broadcasting of ordinary motion picture films, not silhouettes, was done by WCFL, the Chicago Federation of Labor's station. Several listeners, with television reception apparatus, saw the movies on miniature screens.
So limitless are the possibilities of televising motion picture film, in belief of Virgil A. Schoenberg, chief engineer of WCFL, that he hopes to radiocast movie films, as well as other public spectacles such as football games and prize fights.
Within a few months, Schoenberg says, the radio fan may be able to see pictures of public events a few hours after they occur as he now sees them in his neighbor theater.
Silhouettes and small objects have been televised before, Schoenberg explained, but never has an ordinary movie film been put onto the air. Now WCFL engineers are experimenting to determine what particular tint of film may be broadcast most successfully.
Talking movies by television may be a reality soon, coming as the next development from experiments which have brought movies into the home, Schoenberg believes.
WCFL's television of motion picture films is achieved by a device which passes the film before a beam light that scans the film from left to right. The light images then are converted into electrical impulses, which are amplified and in turn converted into radio frequency pulses.
Use Standard Reproducer.
For the reception of movies via television, a standard television reproducer is used. It consists of a 48-hole disc revolving at 900 revolutions per minute, scanning from left to right and top to bottom. The output of a receiver including a detector tube may be fed into several stages of any good resistance coupled amplifier and that output in turn feeds into a neon tube set behind the disc.
WCFL broadcasts by television daily between 1 and 2. p. m., except Sundays, on kilocycles. From 9 to 12 p. m., the station's experimental substation 9XAA broadcasts irregularly on a 5,600 kilocycles.
A movie approximately one and one-half inches high appears on the receiver's disc. Lenses ordinarily are used to magnify the pictures. Details are transmitted by the WCFL apparatus SO that a piano player's fingers, for instance, may be singled out. Keys on the piano may be distinguishable, and the pianist's motions followed closely.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1929
DR. POWER LEAVES COLLEGE TO WORK FOR WESTINGHOUSE
The resignation of Dr. A. D. Power as professor of physics and director of radio research at Lawrence college was announced Saturday by Dr. Henry M. Wriston, president of the college. Dr. Power has been engaged by the Westinghouse Lamp company to conduct scientific research for the improvement of radio vacuum tubes at the Westinghouse branch at Bloomfield, N. J. [. . .]
While at Lawrence he has won recognition for his research in radio activity. Under his direction the Lawrence broadcasting station 9EHB has served in the national relay system, and apparatus for television has been set up with successful results. (Appleton, Wis., Post-Crescent)

MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1929
TELEVISION LIMITED TO AFTER MIDNIGHT
WASHINGTON, Jan. 7.—Pending a public hearing which will be held later this month, the Radio Commission today issued an order prohibiting all television broadcasting except between the hours of midnight and 6 A.M.
At the public hearing, the date for which has not been fixed, the commission will hear technical testimony on the status of television. The desirability of placing it in the broadcast band must be shown by its advocates before the new order will be modified.
Louis G. Caldwell, general counsel for the commission, said in a letter sent today to L. A. E. Gale, secretary of the National Association Opposed to Blue Laws, Inc., who had protested against the resolution of the Lords’ Day Alliance for exclusive religious programs on Sunday:
“The commission is without authority to censor programs which are broadcast over the air or to make any regulation interfering with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.”
Senator Dill of Washington, on the floor of the Senate today, read extracts from a letter in which WCFL, the Federation of Labor station in Chicago, asked whether anything could be done by the Senate to allow it to rebroadcast on short waves. The station was allowed 1500 watts by the Radio Board for daylight broadcasting, but was not allowed to broadcast after sunset.
“In other words,” said Senator Dill, “the labor station, designed to serve and reach laboring people of the central part of the United States, was not allowed to broadcast during the night time, the only time when the great masses of laboring people can listen to its program.”
Mr. Dill said that WCFL applied for a full cleared channel and 50,000 watts power. The commission has granted a construction permit for 50,000 watts but denied the station the right to rebroadcast from small stations in various parts of the country.
Senator McKellar of Tennessee, said that Congress should enact legislation to compel the commission to take action in favor of the labor station.
Representative Crowther of New York has introduced a bill in the House to make it mandatory upon the commission to provide fifty cleared channels for radio communication instead of forty.
Following their meeting here today recommendations will be submitted by the directors of the National Association of Broadcasters to the House Merchant Marine Committee tomorrow, on the bill to continue the life of the Radio Commission for another year.
The recommendations will concern the administration of the radio law, length of broadcasting licenses, distribution of radio facilities, power and rebroadcasting. (New York Times, Jan. 8)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 1929
TELEVISION PLANT NOW ESTABLISHED, JENKINS ASSERTS
Jersey City Factory Will have Television broadcasts if License is Granted
That television has reached the commercial stage is confirmed by the news that the Jenkins Television Corporation has acquired a factory at 346-370 Claremont ave., Jersey City, N.J.
“We shall have our general offices and factory, as well as our engineering laboratories, at this address, states James W. Garside, “we shall have a television broadcasting station for the New York metropolitan area [later W2XCR] installed in the annex on the roof of the building, with ideal conditions for satisfactory signal propagation, as of as license is granted by the Federal Radio Commission.
“Meanwhile, our experimental and research laboratories remain in Washington, D. C., in charge of C. Francis Jenkins, our vice president in charge of research.
“We are working toward production on standardized television receiving equipment for the home, as well as transmitting equipment for broadcasting stations desirous of engaging in this new art. The first sets of television receivers are now coming through our production department. Following exhaustive tests and satisfactory demonstration, our mass production schedule will follow. (Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

MONDAY, JANUARY 14, 1929
GENERAL ORDERS OF THE FEDERAL RADIO COMMISSION.
Picture and television transmissions restricted in use of frequencies in the broadcast band (General Order No. 56, January 14, 1929).—From and after the date hereof and until further order of the commission, neither picture broadcasting nor television broadcasting will be permitted in the broadcast band between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, except upon written application to and formal authority from the commission, and then only between the hours of 1 and 6 a. m., local time at the location of the transmitter. The written applications shall be on forms provided for that purpose by the commission.
For the purpose of determining whether picture broadcasting and/or television broadcasting may be permitted in the broadcast band in the future either at all or to & greater extent than above authorized, the commission has determined to hold a hearing for the presentation of evidence as to whether such broadcasting can be accommodated on a 10-kilocycle band of frequencies; whether such transmission will result in undue interference with the broadcasting of other stations; whether there is any general publie interest in having such transmission take place in the broadcast band rather than in the high-frequency band, and such other questions as will bear upon the issue of whether permission of sfich transmission in the broadcast band will serve public interest, convenience, or necessity. This hearing will be held at the office of the commission at Washington, D. C., on February 14, 1929.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1929
RADIO PICTURES
WGY, Schenectady, has discontinued television transmission on the broadcast band. Hereafter the signals go out only over the companion short wave transmitters, W2XAF, 31.48 meters, and W2XAD, 19.56 meters, on this schedule: Tuesday, Wednesday and Fridays from 1:30 to 2 P. M., eastern time, and Sundays from 11:15 to 11:45 P. M. by W2XAD; Tuesday from 11:30 to midnight by W2XAF. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1929
Television Is Radio Too Late for Inauguration
BY MARTIN CODEL.
North American Newspaper Alliance
WASHINGTON, Jan. 21.—All talk about television at the inauguration of President-elect Hoover March 4 is pure fabrication.
The inaugural ceremonies will be broadcast to the nation and the world through the great radio networks and their short wave stations, but the process will be the familiar audible one. Visual broadcasting has not reached the point of perfection where the national audience can see as well as hear the great event.
Senator George Moses of New Hampshire, heading the committee in charge of the inauguration, reports that no one has even proposed to broadcast the event visually.
The leading experimenters in the field of television all assert that they are not responsible for the reports.
A reply telegram from the Bell Laboratories in New York says there are no plans to use the Ives televisor at the inauguration This is the apparatus which transmitted living images of Mr. Hoover’s features by wire and wireless between Washington and New York something more than a year ago.
As far as can be learned, Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, who has been working on television at the General Electric laboratories in Schenectady, has no idea of introducing his television apparatus by March 4.
Jenkins Not Ready.
C. Francis Jenkins, the Washington inventor, reports that he will have his new television transmitter in operation here before March 4, but asserts that he does not expect to try to broadcast the image of Mr. Hoover making his inaugural address.
He adds, however, that his new station, utilizing a 100 kilocycle band of wave lengths will soon be broadcasting recognizable images in half tone that can be same sets that are now receiving his “shadowgraphs.”
It is practically a certainty both the National and Columbia Broadcasting System will offer the program through their coast-to-coast hook-ups.
One of the innovations of the 1929 inauguration will probably be the placing of a microphone in the United States Senate chamber for the first time. The plan is to broadcast the vice presidential inauguration that precedes the presidential ceremony.
By a curious turn of fate, the man who has consistently opposed placing a radio "mike" in the Senate, Senator Charles Curtis, Republican floor leader, will be the central figure in the ceremony in that chamber.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 25, 1929
Powerful Station For Radio Vision
Soon Be In Operation Few Miles From Washington By The Jenkins Laboratories
Washington, Jan. 25—Radiovision will soon be on the air every night for a large share of the country reports, Science Service. A broadcasting station for radiomovies and television with power of five kilowatts will soon be in operation a few miles outside of Washington by the Jenkins Laboratories, of this city. As the station will operate on a short wave, it is expected that it will have a much greater range than an ordinary broadcasting station of equivalent power. Just what wave length will be used has not yet been determined, as the federal radio commission has not yet announced the wave bands that will be assigned though they have to allocate certain bands each of a hundred kilocycles width for this purpose. With a hundred kilocycle band authorities are agreed that satisfactory details can be transmitted.
Pending the completion of the new station and the granting of a license by the commission, the Jenkins Laboratories are broadcasting three nights a week from their present station W3XX [W3XK]. This is done on two bands, one of 187 meters primarily for nearby reception, and the other of 47 meters, which is heard throughout the eastern part of the country. Though using only 250 watts of power, the radiomovies broadcast Is received regularly in Ohio and Indiana. As the bands licensed for this use are only ten kilocycles width, broadcasts have so far been confined to movies in silhouette, which, however, have been specially prepared for the purpose, and tell stories.
Present-day radiovision broadcasts only faintly portray the future possibilities, thinks C. Francis Jenkins.
“Perfect?” he says. "No, and the receiver looks no more like the ultimate structure will than the old “one lung” horseless carriage of twenty five years ago looked like the eight-cylinder limousine of today.
“But the ten thousand pioneering with our picture broadcasts are the radio pictures engineers of tomorrow, for they are building up a technical experience which will be of inestimable value in the art later on.
“After the day's work is done these youngsters rush home: bolt a hurried dinner: and then race away to the radio shack to tune in on our pantomime broadcasts.
"Exactly the same thrill which came to them with their first crystal set and headphone, now comes again when they pick their first motion pictures out of the air; pictures radiated into invisible space from miles and miles away and put together by their home-made receiver.
“Many of these amateurs have attained such quality of picture that they have moved their apparatus into the living room where the whole family may join in the fun.
"The pictures they see are black and white comparable to the cartoon movies in the theatre and just as interesting.
"Incdentally, it is rather a surprise to those who see these silhouette movies for the first time to find them so entertaining; but the explanation is that in movies the story is told in the action and halftone quality is not necessary to any enjoyment of them. The public is not usually critical of first efforts in any new thing the novelty alone entertains for awhile.
"From many letters we get, apparently the greatest anxiety of our audience, or should I say, optience, is that we will eventually get tired and stop broadcasting.
“On the contrary we are putting up a powerful station a few miles outside of Washington to make their picture reception easier, and the pictures better; and each broadcast from now on will contain at least one picture story.
Direct Vision Of Activities
"We are broadcasting in black and white only at present in order that the frequencies involved in motion picture transmission may stay within the legally permissible width of carrier channel.
“The halftones in regular movie film and in broadcasting from living subjects and scenes, require a broader band. This was recognzied by the federal radio commission, and bands one hundred kilocycles wide will be assigned for such work. The new, more powerful, station we are building outside of Washington is for this width of band, and we shall broadcast for fireside entertainment pictures selected from those now shown in theatres.
"Our present transmission on 6420 K. C. was undertaken principally to learn the possibilities and the limitations of this new entertainment; to build up a radio-movies technique; and to insure later the availability of radiovisors giving larger and brighter pictures, which can conveniently be watched by the whole family and friends of the family circle.
"Already radiomovies are giving pleasure to thousands of radio amateurs and shortwave radio fans. Ultimately this pantomime story-teller will come to our fireside with appropriate sounds and speech, as a fascinating teacher and entertainer, without language literacy or age limitation; an itinerant visitor to the old homestead with photoplays, the opera, and a direct vision of world activities." (Lynchburg News, Feb. 1)

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26, 1929
Yancey Cummings Perfects Radio Television Set
B. Y. Cummings, Jr., young Wichita Falls inventor, who has perfected an improved machine which he predicts will revolutionize television, has gone to the East where he will spend some time in Washington and New York City, making arragements for the manufacture of his machines.
Attorneys say that Mr. Cummings is entitled to six basic patents. Mr. Cummings and Orville Bullington will probably organize a company here for the manufacture of the machine after the patents are granted.
In the past all telephoto pictures have appeared as silhouettes. Mr. Cummings' machine makes them as half tones and they naturally appear much more likelike. (Wichita Falls Times)

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 1929
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31.—(AP)—With the erection of a special radio picture broadcasting station five miles north of Washington, C. Francis Jenkins, pioneer radio inventor, plans to transmit pictures every night of the week except Sunday.
The new station will start operating within two or three weeks, Mr. Jenkins says, and it is hoped with an increase in power to serve "lookers" throughout the United States. The band in the short wave field recently set aside by the federal radio commission for television and picture broadcasting is better adapted for clear transmission than the channels on which he is now operating and should eliminate much of the fading which is the bane of good picture reception, he says.
The new transmitter under construction at the Jenkins laboratories will be adjusted for the sending of half-tones and images of living persons. Jenkins has been giving a silhouette movie program. Picture stories also will be broadcast from the new station.
Mr. Jenkins says the radio picture art has passed the stage of early experimentation and is already bringing entertainment to hundreds of enthusiastic "lookers." Picture transmission, he declares, is at a point comparable to the position of KDKA, of Pittsburgh, when it inaugurated aural programs.
Most of the lookers are amateurs in the United States and Canada. Bonafied reports of reception of his pictures have been received, he says, from amateurs in California, Porto Rico, Montreal, Bismarck, N. Texas, northern Michigan, Florida, Colorado and Iowa as well as nearby states. Particularly good reception has been reported by Boston amateurs.
Until the commission designates the particular channels to be used under the new allocation, the Jenkins laboratories will continue to broadcast on 46 and 186 meters. The pictures are broadcast Monday and Wednesday nights from 8 until 9 o'clock, eastern time.

WRNY, New York, telling about 1928, reports that it was on the air a total of 2,192 hours. Included were 53 hours and 15 minutes of television transmission. (Associated Press)

Radio Service Bulletin
The Federal Radio Commission approved the following frequency revisions in January 1929:
East Pittsburgh, Pa., (W8XAV, owned by Westinghouse).—2,000 kilocycles (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9); power, 40,000 watts.
Ossining, N. Y., (W2XX, Robert F. Gowan).—2,000 kcs. (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9); power, 100 watts.
The Commission approved the following special station
Iowa City, Iowa (W9XAZ , State University of Iowa).— 200 kcs. (150 metres) to 2100 (142.9); power, 500 watts.

December 1928

Did someone once say the road to television is a boulevard of broken dreams?

Well, it certainly wasn’t Harry Warren and Al Dubin, who wrote the song of the same name for a 1933 movie musical. But I digress.

It may be trite, but true. Look no further than stories about television at the end of 1928.

In December, the Associated Press reported on several would-be television station owners. One was John Shepard, Boston radio station owner and dry goods retailer. He was on the verge of forming the Yankee Network, a small chain of radio stations. You’d think he had the credentials to get a television license. The answer, eventually, was “no.”

Then there was Frank L. Carter, the subject of a feature story in June 1928 in the New York Times. The Corsicana-born Carter was a ham operator starting in 1914. By mid-1928, he had been the service manager of the radio department of Ludwig Baumann and Company. His amateur call letters were 2AZ, but the Federal Radio Commission gave him a special call of 2XBN for “experimental picture broadcast work.” The Brooklyn Daily Times of June 10 revealed he was experimenting on 36.6 metres (8,195 kcs.) every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from his Long Island home using the Cooley system. In other words, he was sending what amounted to facsimile pictures.

Carter asked the Commission to turn W2XBN into a television station. The answer was “no” again. Carter moved on into community and political work. In 1930, he claimed a CBS employee tried to bribe him to end his opposition to the network’s proposed radio transmitter in Hempstead. In 1936 and 1937, he griped railroad power rails and transmission lines interfering with radio reception (within three years he was living in rural Ohio).

And then there’s the story of the Jenkins Television Corporation, tied in with the DeForest Radio Corporation. It announced in December it was getting into the television set manufacturing business and offered common stock. This is just before the start of 1929. We know what happened to stocks that year. Both Jenkins and DeForest opened television stations in New Jersey, with one moving to New York and the other burning down. The companies couldn’t stay afloat and went bankrupt while the New York station went off the air.

The Radio Commission tried to sort out problems with television transmissions bleeding over into radio programmes by ordering them off the a.m. frequencies. Even then, there was a bit of confusion. Some newspaper reports said the stations affected would have their licenses revoked on Jan. 1, 1929. Others said they had a broadcast window allowing them to continue operating. Oddly, the Radio Service Bulletin, which announces General Orders of the Commission does not contain anything in its December 1929 issue. The next ruling, modifying this decision, was published the following month.

The following are the TV highlights for December 1929.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 1, 1928
Station WNAC Asks Television Permit
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1—(AP)—Permanent television service will be given “lookers-in” by WNAC, Boston, if the Federal radio commission grants an application for a short wave band of frequencies.
John Shepard, president of the Shepard Norwell Company, which operates the station, has told the commission that the station proposes to synchronize visual and audible broadcasting. He says pictures of an orchestra leader directing his orchestra would be transmitted by short waves for reception by special televisor equipment while the loud speaker would bring in the music.
The station has applied for a band of frequencies kilocycles wide in the vicinity of 5,000 kilocycles. Later it is hoped to reduce the width to 10 kilocycles, the same sized channel now used for audible broadcasting. Power of 1,000 requested.
Frank L. Carter, radio amateur of Long Island City, N. Y., has asked the commission for permission to convert his amateur short wave station to an experimental television station.
Another applicant for an experimental license is A. E. Smith, chief of the technical laboratory of the Aero Products Company of Chicago. Mr. Smith told the commission that television has not reached the practicable stage and the object of his company is to experiment within the laboratory and if the results seem to warrant to put it in service operation.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1928
Another Television Complaint.
Last evening, Wednesday, 14, reception over my set of the story of the steward of the lost steamer Vestris was entirely ruined by the interference of a station announcing itself, as nearly as I could make it out, as W3XK.
The address of Mr. [Frederic] Wile came through beautifully, but at 8 o’clock this interference began and lasted, with occasional breaks, until nearly 9, when the announcer stated that they would be on the air again at 8 p. m. Friday next. The interference was as though a generator was running at high speed, accompanied at intervals by screeches and similar noises.
I called at the Radio Commission’s office today relative to this matter, and gather from what I was told there that this is an amateur station, experimenting with television, which has permission to operate at certain hours not included in those of the program of WRC. It would, therefore, seem that no attention is being paid to the restriction, much to the discomfort of listeners-in to such instructive addresses as those referred to above.
CAPTAIN X. (Washington Post)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1928
Will Make And Sell Home Movie Television Sets
NEW YORK, Dec. 4.—(AP)—Formation of a $10,000,000 corporation to manufacture and sell home movie television sets was announced today.
The company, to be known as the Jenkins Television Corporation, will have as officers James W. Garside, president of Deforest Radio Corporation, as president and A. J. Drexel Biddle, chairman of Deforest Board of Directors and Trustee of the Duke Endowment, as chairman of the board.
C. Francis Jenkins, inventor of a motion picture television device, will be vice president in charge of research and a director.
The device is a transmitter which works from an especially made film permitting reception of television signals from any broadcasting or short wave transmitter. This device is coupled with a receiver which it is claimed, will project animated pictures into the home.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1928
No newspaper story can be found to accompany this captioned photo. His obituary in the Aug. 30, 1991 edition of the Victoria, Tx., Advocate doesn't mention this accomplishment.
Dudeck was born Oct. 29, 1910, in Toledo, Ohio, to the late Paul Richard and Cornelia Schweibold Dudeck. He received a 5-year degree in electrical engineering from the University of Detroit, where he began his career in radio as an announcer with WMBC.
After graduation, he was employed by Western Electric for research and development of radar. During World War II, he was attached to the Navy, teaching top secret radar installations on submarines. After the war, he was employed by ABC radio and television stations WXYZ in Detroit, Mich. He worked with "Wide World of Sports" and, in 1964, he was in charge of engineering the first live picture transmitted from Innsbruck, Austria, via satellite to the United States. He moved to Houston in 1968 and continued his work with ABC station KXYZ.
He retired from ABC in 1975 and began doing radio and television consulting in the United States and other parts of the world. In 1984, he purchased KQRO radio station in Cuero and retired in June 1991. He died Aug. 28th.

SOUTH AFRICAN FAN BELIEVED TO HAVE TELEVISION RECORD
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Dec. 16.— (AP)—A local resident named Mac Cormick is believed to have established a new television record by receiving today images broadcast from station 2XAL New York. The images as received were fairly clear.
The radio amateur call book magazine lists 2XAL at the Experimenter Publishing Company, Villa Richard, Coyotesville, N. J. Hugo Gernsback, president of the station, was surprised last night [15] when informed that television images had been received at such a great distance. He said that though notices of such receptions by American stations were frequent, this was the first word that had been received of reception in foreign countries other than Canada, and is a record for all stations, as far as he knows.
Mr. Gernsback explained that television images have been broadcast three times a week simultaneously from the two stations since August 12, and that they are the only two in New York City that broadcast television images.

Stations on Regular Schedule
CHICAGO, ILL., 9XAA, Chicago Federation of Labor, 500 watts, 4555-4565 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning. 2 to 3 P. M. daily, except Sunday. Owners also operate WCFL, 615-625 kc., or 484 m., through which irregular radiovision broadcasts are made in morning hours.
LEXINGTON, MASS., 1XAY, Donald R. Laffin, 300 watts, 4800-4900 kc. or 62 m. Standard scanning. 3 to 4 P. M. daily, and irregularly with WLEX for voice.
NEW YORK, N.Y., WRNY and 2XAL, Experimenter Publishing Co., 250 watts, 914-924 kc. or 416 m. and 250 watts, 9695-9705 kc. or 31 m. 48 lines per picture. 7 ½ frames per second. First five minutes each hour while on air.
SCHENECTADY, N. Y., WGY and 2XAF, 2XAD or 2XO, General Electric Co., 50,000 watts, 785-795 kc. or 38 m. in broadcast band. 13,655-13,665 kc. or 22 m. and 9545-9555 kc. or 31 m. at 25,000 or 40,000 watts on short wave. 24 lines, 20 frames per second. WGY broadcasts Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 1:30 to 2 P. M., Sunday, 11:15 to 11:30 P. M. Sunday broadcasts also on 22 m. and Tuesday on 31 m. schedule effective until Jan. 1.
WASHINGTON, D. C., 3XK, C. Francis Jenkins, 250 watts, 6415-6425 kc. or 47 m. and 1600-1610 kc. or 187 m. Standard scanning. 8 to 9 P. M., Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Radiomovies.
Irregular, or Under Construction
BEACON, N. Y., 2XBU, H. E. Smith, 100 watts, 4560-4600 kc. or 66 m. Standard scanning (Under construction).
CHICAGO, ILL., WIBO, WIBO Broadcasters, 5000 watts, 1475-1485 kc. or 203 m.
LOS ANGELES, CALIF., 6XC, Pacific Engineering Laboratory Co., 500 watts, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m.
MEMPHIS, TENN., 4XA, WREC, Inc., 500 watts, 2400-2500 kc. or 122 m.
NEW YORK, N. Y., 2XBW, Radio Corporation of America, 5000 watts, 15,000-15,200 kc. or 20 m. The corporation also has been granted construction permits for 2XBV, 4500-4600 kc. or 66 m. and for 2XBS, 4600-4700 or 64 m.
PITTSBURGH, PA., 8XAV, Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., 2000 watts, 4700-4800 kc. or 63 m. and 15,100-15,200 kc. on 16 frames per second, 60 lines per frame.
WASHINGTON, D. C., C. Francis Jenkins, 5000 watts, 4900-5000 kc. or 61 m. (Under construction).
Standard scanning refers to the standard adopted by the Radio Manufacturers Association—48 lines per picture, 15 frames per second.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1928
MOTION PICTURES ARE BROADCAST BY CHICAGO STATION
CHICAGO, Dec. 17. (AP)—Virgil A. Schoenberg, chief engineer of Radio Station WCFL, owned by the Chicago Federation of Labor, announced today that the station which has been experimenting with television, has succeeded in televising motion pictures.
The movies that were broadcast, he said, were not black and white silhouette film but the same celluloid yardage used in the movie shows. More than $100,000 has been spent in experimental work and Schoenberg is using his own money to carry on and try to perfect his experiments.
Officials of the station said that talking movies, theatrical performances and musical programs might be broadcast and televised simultaneously on a large scale if the indicated results of the investigation and experimentation this far are borne out by later work. Representatives of the Television Corporation of America witnessed the demonstration.

Television Adds to Jam in Radio Wave Channels
WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 17—Serious problems on the highways of radio broadcasting as a result of the rapid strides made by television are forecast by the annual report of the Federal Radio commission made public today. The commission ventures the opinion that the problem must be faced soon and says it has not yet determined upon a policy with respect to television, although a few broadcasting stations are being allowed limited experimentation so conducted as not to cause interference with adjacent channels.
"It has been urged upon the commission," says the annual report, "that it should permit regular television service in the broadcast band (as well as in the high frequency band) because of the fact that a large audience is already at hand and in some cases the ordinary receiver can be adapted to receive television by the addition of certain apparatus. Television signals, however, will subject the broadcast listener to objectionable noises. The International radio convention limits the broadcasting band to telephonic signals." (Binghamton Press, Dec. 17)
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1928
PLANS TELEVISION STATION
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (AP)—Boyd Phelps, of Jamaica, N. Y., today applied to the radio commission for a permit to construct a television station in Jamaica.

GIVES TELEVISION EXHIBIT AT Y. M. C. A.
A television exhibit was given at Central Young Men’s Christian association dormitory last night [18], a receiving set made by Richard Ackerman and Harry Pearson of 128 Union street being used. The image [from WGY], which was projected through a magnifying glass, was about 2 ½ inches by 2 ½ inches in size. Mr. Ackerman has already given a number of demonstrations with his set which he declares is the best one in the city. Although his home is at Brockton, he is at present employed by the Sager Electric company.
Speaking of the success of television, Mr Ackerman said last night that on cloudy nights the reproduction is distorted, but on clear nights it is generally good. (Springfield, Mass., Republican, Dec. 19)

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1928
Television Broadcast Restricted
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22—Transmission of television on the regular broadcast bands will end on January 1, it was announced to-day by the Federal Radio Commission. Thereafter picture and television transmission will be restricted to a special short-wave band which the commission engineers have not as yet decided on.
Among the few stations broadcasting television are WGY, the General Electric Company station, Schenectady, and WIBO, Desplaines, Ill. These stations have been asked by the commission to report the result of their experience. O. H. Caldwell, commissioner of the first zone, which includes New York, is not in agreement with other members of the commission. Mr. Caldwell, it is said, favors continuing the practice of permitting stations to use their regu1ar broadcast channels for this type of program, provided, of course, they adhere to the general order in this regard, now in effect.
This order permits stations which have an assigned frequency between 550 and 1,500 kilocycles, upon authority from the commission, to broadcast television daily for periods of one hour, except between 6 and 11 p. m. (New York Herald Tribune)

Band Set Aside for Television Radio
Radio Commission Decides Interference Is Caused in Regular Channels.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22—(AP)—The Radio Commission decided today to set aside a special broadcast band for television experiments and development. The commission also decided it would not renew licenses of individuals or companies who have been conducting television experiments in the regular broadcast bands. These licenses expire Jan. 1.
Radio engineers have found that television experiments in the regular broadcast bands have caused interference. The frequencies to be set aside for television purposes have not been selected.

TO STOP TELEVISION IN BROADCAST BAND
Radio Board Acts on Complaints of Inteference by Experiments.
TWO STATIONS AFFECTED
WASHINGTON, Dec. 22.—That a special broadcast band will be set aside for television experiments and developments was indicated today by the Radio Board when it decided to revoke the licenses of two television stations which have been conducting experiments in the regular radio channels. The two stations affected are WGY of Schenectady and WIBO of Des Plains, Ill.
This action followed reports by radio engineers that the television experiments caused considerable interference in the regular channels.
The stations experimenting with television are working under an order by the commission which provided that picture and television transmission for general reception by the public would be permitted on frequencies above 1,500 kilocycles. This order, however, was to be in effect only from the time it was issued, on Oct. 31 to Jan. 1. (New York Times, Dec. 23) Note: there is no mention of WRNY, which also operated on regular radio channels.

First Television Station Being Built Near Washington
C. Francis Jenkins Gets Broadcasting Permit from Radio Commission.
By ROBERT HEINL.
WASHINGTON, December 22.—What is declared to be the first broadcasting station ever built strictly for the sending of television is now being erected about five miles north of the National Capital by C. Francis Jenkins, veteran radio and motion picture inventor.
The new station, which it is thought will be ready for operation shortly after the first of the new year, is only one of series that are to be constructed. Locations of the other stations have not yet been selected.
"It is our purpose to set up television broadcasting stations of adequate power for the territory said Mr. Jenkins discussing his future plans.
"To these stations motion picture stories will be distributed for broadcast over the territory served by each particular station," he continued. "Radio receivers for the home will be distributed in these territories for the reception of this new type of entertainment in the home. Receivers will reproduce pictures amply large enough to entertain the entire family, and friends of the family. Although the price of the instrument has not been definitely fixed, it is proposed to make it so reasonable as to insure a picture entertainment service to the greatest number.
Like Building Other Stations.
Jenkins stated that the erection of the new television station is very similar to the building of any other broadcasting station. The apparatus is almost identical. However, in sending out the pictures the station has to have a wave of 100 kilocycles, with which Jenkins states it is possible to do a good job, even at the present time. Later it is believed that this width can be narrowed.
The station which is now being erected near Washington will have from 2000 to 5000 watts power and it will be operated on from 4900 to 5000 kilocycles. At the present time Jenkins has a laboratory, and has had for a number of years, where he has been experimenting and using 46 meters for distance transmission of pictures and 186 meters within the City of Washington.
In addition to the television licenses that have been granted to Jenkins by the Federal Radio Commission, there are a number of others outstanding, including those to the General Electric Company, the Radio Corporation of America, the Westinghouse Electric and others. The commission also has on hand a number of other applications for television licenses.
In connection with the intensive work which is now being done by Jenkins, a new corporation has come into existence known as the Jenkins Television Corporation, which has purchased all of the sets of the Jenkins Laboratories, which in turn has controlled number of the Jenkins television patents.
Years of Experimenting.
For several years Jenkins, with a staff of assistants, has been experimenting with television and while there is some dispute as to who first actually transmitted pictures by radio, it is a known fact that Jenkins some years ago transmitted pictures radio from the Naval Research Laboratory to one of the local hotels, which was witnessed by government officials, including Secretary of the Navy Wilbur. This was followed by the transmission of motion pictures between the Jenkins laboratory in one part of the city to his home in another part of the city, which was also witnessed by government radio experts.
The Jenkins laboratories was formed in 1921, to develop and perfect the ideas and Inventions of Jenkins and his associates. For many years he has been a recognized authority, inventor and active worker in image transmission and television. He was also the inventor of the first practical motion picture projector.
During the past few years of television experimenting, Jenkins has gathered a vast fund of practical experience. Suitable television transmitting and receiving equipment have now been developed. It is as the result of this pioneering work, which is virtually completed, that the new corporation has been organized to manufacture and market the new machine.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1928
Cedar Rapids Youth Gets Foretaste Of Pleasures Which Television Promises To Bring To All In The Near Future
'Amateur Builds His Own Set And Sees Scenes 1,000 Miles Away.
BY ADELINE TAYLOR.
"I SEE YOU!"
And it isn't of hide a game and seek around the rocking chair for the “I” sits in Cedar Rapids, and the "you" in Washington, D. C. Across span of a thousand miles one holds the magic binoculars of television to his eyes and looks into the Jenkins station at Washington—3XY [sic].
This is what Leo Hruska, 2619 Bever avenue, is doing with the amateur television set he has constructed in his radio room.
Francis Jenkins, called the inventor of practical television, has asked to add this boy's name to the honor roll of pioneer workers in television. These pioneers are entitled to historical credit for their assistance development of this science, he says.
In this room papered with cards of radio stations with whom Leo Hruska has talked—cards from Canada, Chile, Brazil, France, Germany, Australia and innumerable others—he showed us the receiving set he has constructed to bring in these pictures. It must be such that it will amplify the entire range of sound waves transmitted. When music coming over the air sounds tinny it is because everything is not coming in. The lower notes are missing. Such a set will not work with television.
MARVELOUS DEVICE IS SIMPLICITY ITSELF.
With wonder—and with little doubt—we looked at this outfit which the operator claimed would show us what was happening hundreds of miles away. There was a pasteboard disc with forty-eight holes arranged in spiral form along the edge and attached to this circle of paper was a motor to rotate it. Back of the disc was a neon gas lamp. That was all.
A curtain was dropped on the inside works of this long distance telescope to confine the light and we sat down to look through the magnifying lens to the screen on which a picture would be projected with the space conquering machine. We know now how grandma felt when they told her men could fly.
The room was darkened. The switch was turned on. The motor started spinning the disc. A square of rose light formed on the screen and black clouds started moving swiftly across it. Accompanying the weird shadows came a peculiar sound—it was the picture which sends out different waves according to its shape before the transmitter. The trained ear can hear whether it is an inanimate object, a front view of a person or what not being transmitted.
As the operator turned the rheostat on trying to adjust the vision he murmured things about synchronism, fluctuations, distortions and interference and the doubting Thomas in us rose even closer to the surface.
BEHOLD! A SCENE A THOUSAND MILES AWAY
Then gradually the splashes of blackness stopped racing so quickly after one another in the rose light. And there it was. The patches and lines turned into the silhouette of a woman playing with a baby. She picked the child up and kissed her and then, putting her on the floor, continued to play with her.
True, the picture was small and the edges were jagged. One must strain his imagination a trifle just as he does when he watches the flapper neighbor entertain her davenport date in a lighted room behind a drawn window shade. But those adventurers in the land of science who used to tread on the clouds in 1920 after hearing a grunt and a squeal from the earphones would go into perfect rhapsody of delight at this silhouetted image in a home television receiver.
After seeing a picture that was sent through space, the operator showed us what sound looks like in this television set. As the saxophones and drums and horns sent out their syncopated music, the tunes made a fantastic array of changing designs in checkerboard and modernistic effects on the little screen.
Television "programs" differ—from Washington come radio movies of a child hanging up clothes or bouncing a ball; from Boston, Schenectady or Chicago come profiles of the technicians; or California sends the page from some magazine.
TRANSMISSION OF COLOR POSSIBLE.
The black and white television picture, yet in its infancy, has already spread itself to the field of color. The Baird laboratory in London has transmitted action in actual colors. Leo Hruska points out that three slides are used back of the revolving disc—a green, red and violet one.
The thing this sketchy half-tone, produced by motor-propelled disc and neon lamp, spells for the future seem unbelievable—a football game in progress in the Bowl of Roses watched in the front room an Iowa home; the Metropolitan opera not only heard but seen on a miniature stage in a Cedar Rapids drawing room; and business men will not have to rush home for board meetings—they will see and talk with each other electrically from whatever part of the world they may be in. All of these unbelievable things are not only possible but probable in the future of television.
While sound coming through the air is merely a succession of signals, one after the other, making it one-dimensional, the picture must be dimensional, having both length and width. Since a whole picture cannot be transmitted at once television works on the same principle of retentivity of vision that the moving pictures do. Because of this optical illusion, when several pictures are flashed before the eye in a second, each one different from the one it follows, we see movement.
The pictures are cut up into a large number of dots by a disc, the scanner, and sent through the air as straight line radio signals, then pieced before the eye in such a short time that they appear in one picture.
SYNCHRONISM IS PICTURE'S SECRET.
Synchronism is one of the worries of the amateur television operator. This means keeping the discs at the transmitting and receiving stations going at precisely the same speed. "It's like guiding a car with a faulty steering wheel down a crooked icy path," said Leo Hruska, as he adjusted the rheostat so that exact synchronism he could be reached and a clear image would stay on the screen.
Fluctuations of the electrical current make the picture blur. And distortion will occasionally swell a poor man's face quite out of shape on the screen. But there is one thing that does not trouble the looker-in—that is static. Occasionally static will take the form of a few dots on the screen but it does not noticeably bother the reception. Static to television is merely a snow flurry, not the grating howling screech with which the listener-in has had to contend.
The lamps that are used to receive cannot be the ordinary electric light globe variety because they must not glow for even the smallest fraction of a second when the current is off. For transmitting photoelectric cells are used which permit varying light waves vary, an electric current in accordance with their own intensity. Such globes are now also used to sort beans, count automobiles and measure sunburn as well as transmit vision over space.
Like most of these modern inventions which we proudly credit to the modern twentieth century but which belong to less recent years, television had its birth in 1884 with Paul Nipkow, a German experimenter. Fifty years ago a native Scotchman, Alexander Graham Bell, later an American citizen, showed the world how to hear by electricity. Today another of that nationality, John L. Baird, demonstrated to the world how to see by electricity.
In the clamor speed—for news while it was happening—word pictures of events beat the wheels of time by progressing from letters to telegraph to telephones to radio. But the ears were not enough while the eyes were functioning. As the Chinese say: "A picture is worth 10,000 words." Photographs, the moving pictures, then photo-telegraphy brought pictures of these happenings within minutes after their actual occurrence. Now the eyes of communication are keeping pace with Father Time. With television we see what is happening at a distance and while it is happening.
There are still three other senses to be satisfied. Raymond Y. Yates, former editor of Popular Radio, contends that touch transmitting is not impractical. He says in a recent article in a magazine: "Just as we now employ a scanning device at a television transmitter so we might devise some sort of an exploring 'feeler' that would, for instance, electrically register or impress equivalent impulses on an electromagnetic wave. At the receiver we simply need a membrane sensitive and pliable enough to be 'modulated' with the received impulses of varying intensity." When taste and smell are added, the cycle will be complete. (Cedar Rapids Sunday Gazette and Republican)

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1928
Board Awards 506 Short Wave Channels
WASHINGTON, Dec. 26.—The shortwave channels between 1,500 and 6,000 kilocycles, which have been in great demand by commercial organizations, press associations, newspapers, amateurs and others, were allocated to-day by the Federal Radio Commission. These include 456 high-frequency and fifty low-frequency channels.
Of the 639 channels available 308 were allotted to fixed stations, 148 to mobile services, ninety-five were reserved for government uses and eighty-eight were unassigned at this time. [...]
In general, seventy-three channels are reserved for marine services, sixty-four for aviation, five for railroad purposes, six to portable stations, including geophysical and police. Amateurs were given 134 channels, visual broadcasting 100 telegraph channels, which is equivalent to five television or ten picture channels; four are reserved for experimental ststaions and seventy are set aside for commercial point-to-point services. [...]
“Visual broadcasting was considered entirely experimental at the time both as to its technique and its importance to the public, and the bands set aside for this are entirely in the nature of an experiment [the commission explained].” (New York News Herald, Dec. 27)

Television Case Hearing Put Off
Inability of Dudley R. Hooper, 269 Washington avenue, to attend a hearing of the Federal Radio Commission at Washington, D. C., last week, caused a postponement in decision of the commission on his application to establish a radio television station in Rutherford.
The application will be heard at a later date, Mr. Hooper said last night [25]. If granted it will permit the Rutherford man to establish television transmitting apparatus for experimental work which will be the first of its type in New Jersey. (Passaic Daily Herald, Dec. 26)

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1928
SEE THEIR SON 900 MILES AWAY
First Indiana Couple to Have the Experience by Radio Television.
GARY, Ind., Dec. 26 (INS)—A Gary couple has the distinction of undoubtedly being the first couple in Indiana to see a son 900 miles from Indiana, by radio television in their Hoosier home.
Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Kell, of 448 Harrison street, Gary, sat at their home receiving set here and were able to see their son, Ray Davis Kell, first assistant to Dr. E. F. W. Alexanderson, who was in station WGY in Schenectady, N. Y.
Dr. Alexanderson is the pioneer television engineer of the General Electric Company.
The television program on which the Kells "looked in" is a regular Tuesday night feature broadcast by station WGY at Schenectady from 10:30 p. m. to 11 p. m.
A television set constructed by Mr. Kell and his son was hooked up with a high powered radio set.
The Kells said that the features of their son and of his wife as well as those of several other persons in the WGY laboratory were so distinct that a friend of theirs who also "looked in" and who had seen Ray Kell only once, at once recognized him when his picture appeared.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1928
Radio Service Bulletin
The Federal Radio Commission approved the following frequency revisions in December 1928:
Bound Brook, N.J. (W3XL, owned by RCA)—2,850 kcs. (105.3 metres) to 2,950 (101.7); 6,020 (49.83).
New York, N.Y. (W2XBS, RCA)—2,000 kcs. (150 metres) to 2,100 (142.9).
Portland, Ore.—(W7XAO, William Jerman)—2,750 kcs. (109.1 metres) to 2,850 (105.3).
Rocky Point, N.Y.—(W2XR, RCA)—strike out all particulars. The call letters were reassigned to John Hogan’s television station in 1929.
The Commission approved the following special station:
Jersey City, N.J. (W2XCD, DeForest Radio Co.)—1,604 kcs. (187 metres), 1,704 (176); 3,214 (93.34); 4,324 (69.38); 6,420 (46.72); 8,650 (34.68), 12850 (23.35); 17,300 (17.341), 25,680 (11.682); 34,240 (8.762); 51,360 (5.841).

October 1928

Sometimes, a first isn’t a first.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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