American television directory (1946)

BEYOND TOMORROW -WHAT? The “ether” is still a half-discovered wilderness with endless opportunities for exploration both in the vast¬ ness of space and within the infinitesimal electron. By BRIG. GENERAL DAVID SARNOFF. President, Radio Corporation of America Fifty years have passed since the epochal experiments of Marconi laid the groundwork for radio and in this time the world has been amazed by the continuous growth of radio communica¬ tions and by the benefits which peoples of all nations have gained from these expanding developments. Even greater and more spectacular advances should be made in the next fifty years. Cer¬ tainly, the prospects and promises, as we view them today, justify the highest optimism in this respect. Our vision of the future, sharpened particularly by the wartime perform¬ ances of radio, our faith in scientists who will create new instruments and new services, and our confidence in the American spirit of enterprise and ini¬ tiative will continue to lead the way to new and greater destinies in television, radio and associated fields. Television promises to take the lead in the radio industry as sound broad¬ casting did a quarter of a century ago after World War I. How rapidly this transition will occur is a subject always open to revision, for the problems of creating and maintaining a nationwide television service involve financial and political considerations as well as tech¬ nical. Long before V-J Day, science had laid the groundwork for the new tele¬ vision service. The end of the war was the go-ahead signal. The pace of prog¬ ress will quicken rapidly as facilities become available. By 1970 — 25 years from now — broadcasting may be known as telecasting because of the standard¬ ized combination of radio sound and sight. Eventually, television will reach every area of the globe now covered by sound broadcasting. Television Is Tomorrow's Radio More than 50,000,000 broadcast re¬ ceivers are now in American homes. The day will surely come when all of them will be replaced by receiving sets which can see as well as hear. Those who purchased a “radio music box” in the early days of broadcasting enjoyed concerts, lectures, music recitals and sports events which were adver¬ tised as “going on in the nearest city.” Within the next decade or two, those who acquire television receivers are destined to go sight-seeing by radio to cities across the continent and even across the seas. Through the magic “window” of television, rich and poor alike will see, not only the small world around them but the larger sphere of which they are a part. Television, faced from its inception with obstacles so formidable that some engineers doubted that a practical sys¬ tem could be developed in less than a quarter century, already has proved its technical soundness. The flickering, poorly illuminated peephole receiver of mechanical television in the late ’20s has developed into the latest model electronic television receiver with its large screen image, equal in brightness and resolution to 16mm. home movies. Television no longer is a scientific toy; it promises a new service of entertain¬ ment for the family, a service that will become as essential to the average home as the present broadcast receiver and the telephone. Radio broadcasting came of age when programs were made available to list¬ eners in distant cities through network lines. To provide similar network facili¬ ties for television, thousands of miles of interconnecting systems, using both radio relays and coaxial cable, must be established. Portable Television Sets Speeded by pressure of war, develop¬ ments in electronics will be reflected in new and better communication devices and systems. Television has been im¬ proved by the intense application of science to the perfection of radar and similar weapons. New types of tubes, the results of wartime research, will have their counterparts in television receivers. These will provide better pic¬ tures, ultimately in full color. They will decrease the size of television receivers, eventually, perhaps, making possible portable television sets which can be carried around as easily as the popular “personal” radio of today. Other radar research, applied to peacetime uses, will result in television cameras so sensitive to light that any scene which the human eye can perceive by day or night can be reproduced in the home with the same clarity and detail as the original. Exploration of the very high fre¬ quencies, an area which was a sort of electronic “no man’s land” before 1938, has shown the great use that can be made of that portion of the spectrum. It is probable that not only television but numerous other services as well, will find it advantageous to move to the very high frequencies and thus pro¬ vide improved service to the public. Now that radio can see as well as talk, the art promises most interesting employment opportunities. Directly and indirectly, the industry will need the minds and hands of many thousands of people, including technicians and arti¬ sans, business men and industrialists. It will call for producers, cameramen, directors, musicians, film experts, scenic designers, advertisers, merchandisers and many other skills. invitation to Youth But television does not exhaust the possibilities of radio today, any more than broadcasting marked its limit in 1920. There are still endless opportuni¬ ties for radio research and for the ex¬ ploration of space. The “ether” is still a half-discovered wilderness. It invites young men and women with new ideas to continue pioneering, to learn the secrets of Nature scattered in the vast¬ ness of space or hidden within the move¬ ments of the infinitesimal electron. Equally important are the by-prod¬ ucts of television. Much is still to be learned of the part which television de¬ vices will play in marine and aerial navigation, by permitting vision at night or in fogs through the use of infra-red rays; in metallurgical, chem¬ ical, physical, and biological research; in manufacturing processes as substi¬ tutes for human vision or for control processes; in national defense; for ad¬ vertising or display use in department stores, in showing goods exhibited at a central point throughout the store or in show windows ; for personal or business communication in transmitting visual intelligence as we now transmit the voice by telephone; in printing and copying devices; in new photographic or motion picture devices where “light amplification” may be used to advan¬ tage; and in many other fields where an automatic, never-failing substitute for the human eye will prove useful. ( Continued on page 140) 9