A hundred years ago this month, the April 1923 issue of Science and Invention contained a description of the work in television being done in France by Édouard Belin.
His system consisted of a mechanical television camera using what could be called a Nipkow disk. The receiving end consisted of an oscillograph reflecting an image from a mirror and projecting it on a screen.
Eighty-five years ago this month, the March 1938 issue of Practical Mechanics discussed the state of the art in British television prior to the War. Shown here was a method for projecting a television image to an auditorium audience of hundreds.
As shown below, Tat the receiving end, a continuous loop of film was used. The image was exposed onto the film, which passed through a developer and dryer, after which it was projected. Then, the emulsion was washed off the film and a new layer added so that the film could be again exposed.
The following year, on September 1, 1939, television in Britain was shut down for the duration.
Eighty five years ago, they didn’t know it wasn’t going to catch on, but it looked like the next big thing was going to be facsimile. The January 1938 issue of Radio Retailing carried a feature discussing the state of the art. It acknowledged that television was right around the corner (and it was, with only a world war serving to delay it), but the magazine incorrectly predicted that facsimile equipment might find its way into American homes before television.
The idea seemed reasonable, since a number of stations were already licensed to send fax transmissions, as shown by the list at the right. In the Upper Midwest, both WHO Des Moines and KSTP Kansas City held licenses to broadcast with the new mode, on their standard broadcast frequencies.
The magazine acknowledged that standards had to be fixed before facsimile service became common. And testing needed to be done to see how well it worked in outlying areas. And it still wasn’t know if the receivers would be standalone units, or if a printer would plug into the loudspeaker output of a standard broadcast radio.
Shown above is a pioneer of facsimile transmission, W.G.H. Finch of Finch Telecommunications, Inc. Other contenders for a market share were R.C.A., Radio Pictures, and Fultograph. Facsimile service was seen as a way in which radio stations could take on the competition of newspapers. But when the War ended, television took off a lot faster than many people imagined, and radio facsimile service is relegated to a footnote in the history of radio.
For a snapshot of the state of television in the United States 75 years ago, this map shows stations on the air, as well as construction permits and pending applications.
This map appeared in the January 1948 issue of Radio Retailing, which also showed the following selection of sets that were on the market.
Seventy years ago, television was spreading around the nation, but not all areas could yet receive a signal. But that didn’t stop Crosley dealers from taking orders and making sure the town was ready for TV the day the first station signed on.
They could accomplish this with the Crosley Mobile Television Demonstration Unit, which would roll into town weeks before the first station came on, complete with a television studio on wheels, two cameras, monitor boards, and 800 feet of coaxial cable. It was as exciting as a circus, and would give the people their first taste of live TV.
The photo appeared in a Crosley ad in the December 1952 issue of Television Retailing.
Sixty years ago, the December 1962 issue of Radio-Electronics showed how to make this converter to listen to TV sound in high fidelity. Of course, one way to do it would be to simply tap into the audio detector of the TV set, and feed that to the hi fi. But that, according to the article, left a lot to be desired, since it usually resulted in buzz, distortion, and background noise that would stand out like a sore thumb in a good audio system.
The solution was to build this converter, and feed it into the FM receiver. And most of the circuit was available off the shelf, in the form of the TV tuner. When these needed repiar, the local repairman typically removed them and traded it in for a rebuilt unit, making the rebuilt units readily available. Ads in the same issue of the magazine showed complete tuners for about $9.95. This tuner had a 44 MHz IF, meaning that the sound IF was 41.25 MHz.
To be able to tune this in on an FM receiver, the builder first tweaked the slugs and trimmers inside the tuner to bring it up to 44 MHz. This was fed into an amplifier-doubler, with the grid tuned to 44 MHz and the plate tuned to 88 MHz. The result was that the output showed up on 88 MHz, at the bottom of the FM dial.
With a reasonably good antenna, the little converter was said to provide good sound reception for stations up to 75 miles away.
We don’t believe that this gentleman was permanently stationed up on the roof. Instead, he’s doing some experiments to figure out the best spot for the TV antennna. Presumably, someone is watching the TV down below, and shouting reports as to how the picture looks.
The November 1952 issue of Popular Science carried a number of pointers on how to ensure the best TV reception, and this was one of them. It suggested putting the antenna on a broom handle, raising the antenna as high as possible, and then lowering it. Somewhere within that range you would find the sweet spot for best reception. The magazine cautioned that you should check all channels before settling on the final position.
Seventy years ago this month, the October 1952 issue of the British Wireless World carried this illustration showing possible methods of linking American and European television. The diagram had actually first appeared two months earlier in the August 1952 issue of Tele-Tech as part of an open letter to the President of the United States (which would have been Harry S Truman) imploring action on TV networking with Europe and South America. According to the magazine, American homes would be able to view the great events of Europe, live, but “the underprivileged of Europe can be shown the wonderful richness of life in America.”
The diagram showed the potential methods, the first of which being an “airplane-relay between a dozen or more express planes continuously flying a regular route across the ocean,” presumably carrying 16-mm film.
The next idea was Stratovision, the use of a string of aircraft aloft, each relaying the signal to the next plane. As we previously showed, this system was tested, and even used to a certain extent, in the United States. But doing it over the Atlantic would require a set of aircraft carriers on which the planes could land, which would likely make the idea much less feasible.
The next idea was a string of VHF relay stations through Labrador, Baffin Island, Greenland, Iceland, the Faeroe Islands, and the Shetland Islands. The longest link would be 290 miles, meaning that the idea might be feasible. If this idea sounds familiar, it’s because it’s similar to one we talked about earlier, one proposed by David Sarnoff in 1951, although his plan envisioned the link going the other way, over the Bering Strait. Other ideas included a submarine coaxial cable, or scatter transmission, essentially the use of brute force to propagate VHF signals over the horizon. It also mentioned “miscellaneous marginal proposals,” such as use of moon reflections, which of course depended on the moon being visible over both continents, which would happen for about five hours per day.
One of the first transatlantic broadcasts was the coronation of Queen Elizabeth the following year. It was first seen on American television courtesy of 16-mm film flown by the RAF to Gander, Newfoundland, to the CBC, which was then picked up by American networks. The first live transatlantic broadcast didn’t take place until 1962, and it relied upon a method not anticipated by the 1952 article, namely, the use of the Telstar 1 satellite. While Telstar was the first transatlantic use of satellite, it should be pointed out that it wasn’t the first television transmission by satellite. Those honors go to Echo 1, which successfully relayed signals via a passive reflector between the east and west coasts of the U.S.
Seventy-five years ago this month, this viewer was undoubtedly the first on her block to have a television, courtesy of a design contained in the September 1947 issue of Radio News.
The magazine contained detailed plans, and suggested that the set could be constructed in one of three ways. The experienced constructor could employ the usual method of following the schematic, aided by photos of the completed set. For larger groups, it could be done with a series of step-by-step instructions prepared by an instructor. Finally, it could be done by a group using typical factory production methods.
Whichever way they decided to make the 18-tube set, the builders would become acquainted with the basic requirements of both video and FM sound reception. The schematic was shown in the magazine, but for those desiring factory-sized blueprints, they were available from the author for $1 per copy.
Shown here is 1962’s answer to the Google Glass. The cover of the September 1962 issue of Radio Electronics shows this wearable CRT display, dubbed a “television monocle.”
The picture tube is directed through a light-splitting lens, which allows the viewer to see the picture superimposed over the actual view ahead. One possible application suggested was for air traffic controllers, who could continually watch one screen while looking at other things. An officer on the bridge of a ship could view radar screens and other displays while also viewing their surroundings. In industry, complex instructions could be displayed.
Some links on this site are affiliate links, meaning that this site earns a small commission if you make a purchase after using the link.
