Nighttime sky waves carried TV signals for hundreds or thousands of miles. Even areas without stations could receive pictures. Across the US, Canada and Mexico, the viewing audience numbered thousands of people. Yet few TV sets sold. The Depression prevented purchases. Fortunately kits, parts and plans were reasonable. In basements and on kitchen tables, handy folks dabbled with this thrilling, new technology. Hugo Gernsback’s science magazines provided instructions and promoted television. These magazines’ dramatic color covers portray the thrill of pulling in pictures on a homemade TV. Meanwhile, inventors demonstrated mechanical TV phone booths, widescreen theater TV, color TV, and 3-D TV.

Despite these innovations, we think of mechanical TV as a dead technology. It isn’t. Graphic scanners, plasma TVs, fax machines, fiber optics and DVD players include mechanical TV technology. DLP projection sets are mechanical TVs. Inside some of these sets is a revolving color wheel. Studies of mechanical TV “ghost” reception (reflected image signals) assisted radar developers.

Unlike many early stations, W2XAB left its own special legacy: TV programming and production conventions that we still find in today’s TV programming. Chicago stations W9XAP and W9XAO and Boston station W1XAV also televised regular, scheduled programming. Despite their FCC designation as “experimental,” these stations were really entertainment programmers. You might read that only English stations were true programmers. As you can see, this statement is untrue. Another untrue statement is that mechanical TV was incapable of entertaining audiences. W2XAB disproves that idea.

I’ve published more about mechanical TV at http://www.hawestv.com.

They got some good press for their attempts at programming, notably in the NY Times. Hobbyists wrote in from as far away as Colorado. They played with a multi lens turret, scenery slides, even news bulletins typed on a reel of ticker tape. However, most of the broadcast was limited to talking or singing heads because that’s what televised best.

W2XAB went dark in 1933 after a bad financial quarter at CBS.