Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

HEW DEVICE PUTS MOVIES OK THE AIR This apparatus is the heart of the television motion picture transmitter developed by Westinghouse. It is used at kdka for the broadcasting of radio motionpicture programs What Prospects of Television Abroad? By LAWRENCE W. CORBETT IN DISCUSSING the progress of television the technical press of the United States and Great Britain appears to take turn in deploring the lack of initiative of its own countrymen and in praising that of its rivals across the Atlantic. Yet, if we take the opinion of no less an authority than Sir Oliver Lodge, we must admit that the leading exponents of the art in both countries are equally up against a stone wall and that the limitation of the apparatus they are using at present will not permit further improvement. But Sir Oliver Lodge, and other equally famous scientists whose opinions incline in his direction, are by no means pessimistic of the ultimate success of television. His criticism applies only to that apparatus now commonly used by many of those who claim recognition in the art. Mechanical contrivances, Sir Oliver believes, are limited by certain physical restrictions which it will be inordinately impossible to surmount. To use his own words: Cathode rays or moving electrons are the only things likely to be sufficiently docile and controllable to be used as the agents for television. No material things are likely to be able to move quickly enough, but electrons respond so instantaneously that, if devices can be invented for utilizing them, the theoretical difficulties with the required rapidity of motion would begin to disappear both from the sender and the receiver, especially as photoelectric response is almost infinitely rapid. A. Campbell Swinton, whose early apparatus was described in an article on television which appeared in Radio Broadcast for July, 1928, by R. P. Clarkson, appears to have realized the limitations that mechanical equipment would impose upon television, as The British Situation By Norman Edwards Managing Editor, Popular Wireless and Modern Wireless FOR months past the question of television has been agitating the minds of the British public, and day by day the Press in all parts of Great Britain has been persisting in dinning into the public ear that "television is here." The Baird International Television Development Co., backed by British capital, invested for the development of television in England, now definitely has promised a television service by the end of the current year, despite the fact that the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has a monopoly on broadcasting in England, has refused to cooperate with Baird and his associates because, in the opinion of the Chief Engineer of the B. B. C, and his advisers, the Baird system is not developed sufficiently to warrant it being utilised as a public service: and the Chief Engineer and his associates in the British Post Office having investigated the Baird system believe it to be in a state of experimental infancy and unfitted for offering a means of service to the public. Furthermore, the Wireless Telegraphy Act, which governs the use of radio in England, legally has been interpreted to cover television, and as the British Post Office refused to licence the Baird system as a public utility service, the question now arises in the public mind as to what Baird will do. The Baird people definitely seem to believe that they can find a legal flaw in the Act of Parliament which governs the use of radio in Great Britain, and propose 'o start a service, without receiving the permission of the British Post Office. But it is believed that the Post Office will take steps to prevent Baird giving an unauthorised service. The position at the moment is complicated. The reason why the British Post Office and the B. B. C. will not cooperate with Baird is not due to any prejudice but simply to the technical fact that the experts concerned do not consider Baird' s system likely to be successful in satisfying the public demand for a television service. Baird still adheres to the mechanical system which experts have pointed out repeatedly — experts which include Sir Oliver Lodge: Dr. Lee de Forest: Captain Eckersley, the Chief Engineer of the B. B. C, and A. A. Campbell Swinton, F. R. S. — shows no likelihood of being developed in such a way as to provide a commercially possible television service, and in fact, not even a service which would warrant the authorities in England granting the Baird Company facilities for exploiting it to the public. I can say in conclusion that Mr. Corbett's article sums up both technically and legally, with excellent succinctness, the television situation in Great Britain. far back as thirty years ago, and to have recommended the utilization of cathode rays. As stated in the July article, the proposed equipment originally devised by Mr. Swinton offered possibilities which many of our so-called "advanced" present-day systems do not. At the time of writing this article (early in August and in London) much is being said about Baird's statement that he will market in September a home television receiver which will cost $125.00 The inventor has told the writer that he is already well in production with these receivers and that there will be no shortage when the instruments are released. In fact, the writer has already seen a finished model in the Baird laboratories. The cabinet houses both the television receiver and a electrodynamic loud speaker of American pattern. An eight-inch diameter circular glass screen is to the left of the cabinet, and through this screen, but on a smaller-sized square, is seen the actual imagine. When questioned as the availability of service to purchasers of these sets (bearing in mind that the B. B. C. has refused to cooperate with Baird at the present time) the inventor informed the writer that he will transmit pictures from a 4-kw. (input) transmitter on the roof of his laboratories in the heart of London. These transmissions, it is planned at the time of writing, will take place on 200 meters (1500 kc.) Mr. Baird has no license for this transmitter, since, says he, one is not required for television transmissions. Here is raised an interesting point. An English editor of a group of radio publications who has studied the British TelegraphyAct very thoroughly tells the writer that by no possible inter 1 1