It’s pretty amazing to read about the early days of television. Building a TV without a Cathode Ray Tube is like building a computer without transistors. You CAN do it, but man is it a pain in the ass. The “primitive” models he describes with their “flickering red images” remind me of the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

Where Television Stands Today

In this article the well known owner of station WDGY and the owner-operator of the largest private television station, W9 ICI, gives you a resume of the past year’s progress in this fascinating new development.

by DR. YOUNG – Operator, WDGY

IF YOU were one of the comparatively few men who saw the first few television demonstrations, you no doubt were one of the men who said that television would take some time to perfect.

Doubtless you therefore have an avid curiosity about the progress of television in the last twelve months.

From the first crude, flickering red images—the best that were available at this time last year—we have made the following progress:

Kaleidoscope Paints Television Screen
Kaleidoscope pictures have gone on the air. Just as musical selections fill interludes in sound broadcasting, the eye-pleasing patterns of light entertain “lookers-in” between television features from the National Broadcasting Company’s station W2XBS. To transform a kaleidoscope from a child’s plaything into a scientific novelty of 1940, engineers first photograph a simple design upon movie film. The film then passes through a studio projector tube lined with mirrors, which multiply the design eight times to produce a symmetrical image. Two auxiliary projectors make a frame for the pictures, and superimpose any desired words or symbols upon the designs.

TV Tubes Get Bigger…And Tuners Cross the Room

Larger TV screens are featured in most current telesets, with 14- to 19-inch tubes getting the biggest play. General Electric promises a 24-inch set for this fall, and Du Mont is showing the giant 30-incher above. It’s the largest direct-view set to date, has 536 square inch picture area, and is suitable for restaurants, clubs, schools, and other public places.

Plastic Makes Strong TV Cabinet
Seven men demonstrate the strength of this new all-plastic cabinet for a console television set by standing on it. The cabinet is molded in a single, 35-lb. piece by a huge shell-case press originally built for the Russian Government. Molded Products Corp., Chicago, produces it for a new 10-in.-screen Admiral set that retails for about $250.

Wheel Weaves Colors Together for Television

COLOR television for which the Columbia Broadcasting: System has gone to bat began last winter with transmission of movies; direct transmission of street scenes by means of a live color television camera is promised this summer.

Actually, persons gathered around a Columbia ultra-high-frequency television receiver are seeing an extremely rapid series of one-color pictures—first red, then blue, then green. The pictures are seen through a rapidly revolving color filter, which is mounted in front of the set’s viewing tube, and the persistence of vision within the watcher’s eyes causes the images to appear in their natural colors.

PAY AS YOU LOOK. Small television receivers will shortly be made available for home use by Tradio Inc., of Asbury Park, N. J., at no initial cost to the subscriber. Payment is made by feeding a coin meter fifty cents for each half hour of operation. The receiver may later be offered on a fixed rental basis, and will also be installed in hotels and, other public places. It is said to be the world’s smallest television set.

You’d think that if their owners were really so swinging they could think of something better to do at the beach than watch TV…

TV Goes Out

A GROWING demand for TV sets that, like their swinging owners, go-go anywhere has led Exide to produce the Personal Power Pack. The unit contains a lead/acid storage battery and a charger. The output is 12 volts DC. The new carry-around TV sets being offered by Philco, Sony, Panasonic and others operate on either 117 volts AC or 12 volts DC. A home-type portable that operates on AC only also can be powered by Exide pack if an inverter (costing about $60) is put between pack and set to change the DC to 117 volts AC. Exide now is working on a pack that will include an inverter. One charge runs a small TV set about eight hours; battery life is put at 1,000 hours. The price is $39.95.

Rectangular TV Tube Cuts Cost

After years of trying to squeeze a rectangular television picture into a round tube, TV manufacturers have come up with the obvious solution—a rectangular tube.

The new tubes, such as the Hytron shown at right above, are much smaller, making possible more compact, cheaper sets. Typical of the large-screen receivers now being marketed by several makers is the Motorola combination console above, which shows a 16-inch picture and sells for about $400. A 16-inch table model is less than $300.