Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

vision transmitters for large and small broadcasters. "Aside from the program itself the most important element in the television system insofar as the public is concerned is, of course, the receiving set," Mr. Folsom said. "Improvements in receivers are comparable to those made in trans- mitters and cameras. Pre-vt^ar re- production of television pictures in the home was limited to the face of the Kinescope tube; the size of the picture depended upon the size of the tube. To overcome this limita- tion, RCA developed and demon- strated prior to the war a new pro- jection-type receiver for the home that reproduced a black-and-white picture 15 x 20 inches. Today, the brilliancy of these large-size pic- tures is such that they can be viewed under ordinary room light- ing conditions." Home Receivers Ready in 1946 Home television receivers, Mr. Folsom stated, will begin to come off the RCA Victor production line in the late spring or early summer of 1946, according to present plans. These instruments, he said, will be table models of the direct viewing type, that is, the observer will see the pictures directly as they appear on the face of the Kinescope, or pic- ture tube. These sets retailing from less than $200 to $300, will have screens ranging in size from 4% x 6 inches to 6 x 8 inches, and they will feature black - and - white pic- tures of improved contrast and brilliancy. Larger models in this line will also provide standard broadcast reception. "Sometime later," said Mr. Fol- som, "television receivers featuring pictures projected by lenses and mirrors on at least 15 x 20-inch screens will be available for about $500. These deluxe consoles will provide standard and FM broadcast programs as well as worldwide shortwave reception. The instru- ments will be all-electronic in oper- ation with no moving parts. They will be as simple to operate as pres- ent-day sound broadcast receivers." VISITORS TO RCA LABORATORIES EXAMINE DETAILS OF RCA VICTOR TELEVISION RE- CEIVERS. DIRECT VIEWING AND PROJEC- TION TYPE MODELS WERE SHOWN. Trammell States NBC Plans Niles Trammell, President of the National Broadcasting Company, announced the plans of NBC in re- gard to television as follows: 1. NBC will install early in 1946 a new and improved transmit- ter at its pioneer television station WNBT, atop the Em- pire State Tower in New York City. . . . NBC also will build a station in Washington, D. C, in 1946, followed by stations in Los Angeles, Cleveland and Chicago; sub- ject to the FCC granting licenses for which applica- tions have been filed. 2. NBC will operate a network between New York and Wash- ington in 1946 . . . and a New York-Boston network in 1947. As soon as practicable other regional networks will be es- tablished, using Chicago, Cleveland and Los Angeles as key stations. 3. NBC will improve and en- large its program service in New York, which currently in- cludes on-the-spot views of news and special events alter- nated with major sports events and a wide variety of studio programs. 4. NBC will solicit the support and cooperation of sponsors and their advertising agen- cies in producing programs to serve the television audience. 5. When a color television sys- tem has reached the stage of practicability and availability that is now true of the black- and-white television system, NBC will bring color to the American home. Dr. JoUiffe On Techniques Dr. C. B. Jolliffe, Executive Vice President in charge of RCA Labora- tories, said that color television al- ways has been a goal of RCA scien- tists and engineers, and added: "The possibilities of producing color television were first demon- strated by RCA to the Federal Com- munications Commission on Febru- ary 6, 1940, at Camden, N. J. A year later, on February 20, 1941, NBC broadcast through the air the first color television pictures from its transmitter atop the Empire State Building. A color system, using a projection type receiver producing a picture 15 x 20 inches was shown to the FCC by RCA in December 1941. "War then stopped television re- search for civilian purposes. Re- search efforts were concentrated on the war applications of television techniques. The many new electron tubes and techniques developed dur- ing the past five years for ultra- high-frequency military uses now are available for television and other phases of radio communica- tion." The mechanical color demon- strated at Princeton, Dr. Jolliffe continued, "has been accomplished through constant development and improvement of the devices em- ployed in black-and-white televi- sion and not through any basic dis- coveries in color television which still uses a mechanical system of many limitations. "For example, the new RCA [RADIO AGE 5