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

Major TV Expansion Foreseen '. JoUiffc Tclh Princeton Studt RCA-SBC Tats with M ORE than a year of field test- ' J. iiiK by the Radio Corporation America and the National Broad- stinjr Company has shown that niajt>r expansion of tele%'ision :>adc-astintr is practical and pos- ile at ultra-high frequencies. Dr. B. JollifFe. Executive Vice Presi- [it in Charge of RCA Labora- •ies. declared in a lecture at the hool of Engineering. Princeton liversity. on April 17. "Our engineers have determined it practical L'HF television re- vers can be built and that pres- t television sets can be readily apted for use at ultra-high fre- encies." Dr. Jolliffe said. "This lans that sets now in use and jse being manufactured will not made obsolete by the new devel- meiit. Receivers and adapters 11 be available when UHF tele- ;ion transmissions are authorized. ultra-high frequencies are used, iny communities can have satis- .'tory television that could not ve had any television service thout this expansion in UHF, d existing service at very-high jquencies also can be extended." Dr. .Jolliffe's remarks concerning i success of RCA and NBC in )neering investigations of the iF were made to emphasize the portance of industrial research the progress of television and ler American industries, the «/.< tltat Public Will Benefit from UHF at Bridgeport. theme of his Cyrus Fogg Brackett Lecture before the Princeton engi- neering students. He recalled that at the time of the "freeze" in 1948, when the Fed- eral Communications Commission halted action on applications for new television stations, use of the UHF was proposed for the expan- sion of television. He added: "There was little information available at that time concerning the usefulness of these frequencies for television broadcasting, al- though some propagation tests had been made. To determine the prob- lem of television broadcast trans- mission and reception in the UHF, RCA inaugurated a full-scale field test. "A transmitter was built and in- stalled at Bridgeport, Conn., and test receivers were installed in a number of homes in and near that city. The station. KC2XAK. which is operated by NBC, began trans- missions in December. 1949. "The regular schedule of pro- grams of NBC's New York station WNBT has since that time been re- layed by microwave from New York to Bridgeport. This was the first UHF station in the United States to operate on a regular schedule. The Bridgeport area has been used as a testing ground for UHF re- ceivers by RCA and others." Recalling that the FCC has re- FROM THIS TOWER NEAR BRIDGEPORT, CONN., RCA-NBC HAVE BEEN CON- DUCTING EXTENSI\'E FIELD TESTS OF TELEVISION PROGRAMS TRANSMITTED ON l"LTRA-HIGH FREQUENCIES. BELOW: CONTROL CONSOLE AND TRANS- .MITTER SWITCHBOARD AT BRIIXJEPORT STATION. cently announced a proposed alloca- tion which involves the use of UHF, Dr. Jolliffe said the Commission's proposed channel assignments pro- \ide for nearly '2,000 UHF and VHF television stations in more than 1,200 communities. He pointed out that certain procedure steps by the FCC are necessary before the "freeze" can be lifted, but added that if production facilities are available for television at the con- clusion of this procedure, television broadcasting will expand rapidly and television broadcasting service can become a "really nation-wide service." UHF Converter for TV Proved Best by Test Large-scale experiments in the transmission and reception of ultra- high-freiiuency television signals, carried out by RCA, show that a converter is the best means of en- abling present TV sets to receive stations that may operate in the higher frequency channels recently proposed by the Federal Communi- cations Commission. A bulletin con- taining this information has been sent to distributors of RCA tele- vision receivers by W. A. Buck, Vice (Continued on page 29) £ V r