Science: Television Leaves the Laboratory

A wholesale grocer and a newspaper prepared last week to operate the first commercial television service in the U. S. Edward G. McDougall of Libby McNeill & Libby, food firm, has long been a television enthusiast. Like other television amateurs he has been impatient because the country’s 26 experimental stations have not reached a large public, because amateurs have had difficulty in buying proper receiving sets. He consulted William S. Hedges, president of the Chicago Daily News radio station WMAQ. He said that if the Daily News would construct a television broadcasting station, Libby McNeill & Libby would pay for the broadcasting. Last week the station, W₉XAP, was practically finished (cost $30,000). It is an experimental station, because the Government will not yet issue commercial television permits. Shrewdly did Mr. Hedges circumvent the rules. He has hooked W₉XAP to WMAQ. This week the first programs will go out.

Receiving Sets. Two large groups, Bell Telephone Laboratories and the General Electric-Westinghouse combination associated with R. C. A., are not yet ready to sell the television receiving sets which they are perfecting. But for the last three months, Western Television Corp. (Chicago), Jenkins Television Corp. (Jersey City), Short Wave & Television Laboratories (Boston) have been preparing sets for market. Within 30 days after the opening of the Daily News’s station, Western Television reported last week it would have 1,200 sets distributed in the Chicago vicinity, selling at from $125 to $200 each.

Inventors. Herr Nipkow, a German, although he conceived the idea of the scanning disc 50 years ago, lacked the neon lamp, the radio amplifier, could not bring his invention to completion. Since then the general principle underlying Nipkow’s invention has not been changed. Foremost U. S. workers on television: Herbert Ives, Bell Telephone Laboratories, who demonstrated the practicability of the use of color last year, of two-way television this year; Dr. Ernst F. W. Alexanderson, General Electric, who has worked for the past year in enlarging the size of the image, making it practical for theatre use; C. Francis Jenkins, Jenkins Television Corp., who began public demonstrations last spring in Jersey City; Vladimir Zworkyin, Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., who developed a new type of cathode ray tube which eliminates the usual scanning disc; Philo T. Farnsworth, San Francisco, who has also invented a tube to dispense with the moving disc.

Best known European name is that of John Logie Baird of London, a Scotsman whose company, Baird Television Corp., has been selling sets to Englishmen for four months, has established branches in many foreign countries (France, Germany, U. S.). Because owners have complained of the small size of televized images, Inventor Baird has, like Dr. Alexanderson of General Electric, spent the past year in enlarging his screen. Last fortnight, he gave a demonstration in the London Coliseum of his life-size images. English television programs are broadcast every day.

Frenchmen who have played a part in perfecting the picture-sending process are Inventors Belin, Holweck and Deauvillier In France, there is some broadcasting.

Germany’s two largest systems are the “Karolus,” product of Dr. August Karolus of Leipzig, and the “Mihaly,” developed by Denes von Mihaly, a Hungarian. A few months ago the German Government awarded the first broadcasting contract to Baird of England, affiliated in Germany with Zeiss Optical Co. and Bosch-Magneto.