The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1927-08-19
TELEVISI0N
AT .FIRESIDE
VERY REMOTE
Engineers Have Yet to Find
Wav TO Adapt Invention to
Popular Use

New York, Aug. 19.-(AP-Forty
thousand electric impulses q second.
ding wireless waves which travel
1000 miles a second--that is radio
television today. and still it is not
last enough to be practical.
Now that trans Atlantic beam radio
transmission and television have been
accomplished, laymen may regard ii
as a short step to the time when
scenes and speeches from Geneva
peace conference can be carried into
their homes.
But the scientists and engineers
who are entrusted with the task Of
bringing about something of that sort
are doubtful. They point out null
titude of obstacles, and say that gen.
eral use Of television, especially for
big scenes. may never be practical.
Yet while they doubt they are indus
triously attempting to remove the
obstacles of television for such prac-
tical organizations as the Radio Cor
poration of Ameria and the Ameri-
can Bell Telephone company.
In Actual Use
Beam transmission for messages
and photographs is not only prac-
tical; it is in actual use for messages
from London to Cape Town, Canada
and Australia. This autumn the
Radio Corporation will put a beam
line into operation between London
and New York, in addition to its
"undirected" broadcasting lines.
But the beam, which takes only
about one-fOurth as much power as
generally radiatcd broadcasting. is
not the slim pencil Of energy visu.
allied by amateur prophets. II is
rather cone, which spreads so much
in travelling 5000 miles across the
Atlantic that nobody really knows
how broad it is at the base.
The power picked up at the end
of the line is too weak to overcome
interference sufficiently for flawless
work in the delicate task of trans
hitting scenes of persons and things
in motion--but that is probably one
Of the minor obstacles which will be
dissolved with time. Increased speed
Of transmission may prove to be the
real solution of the problem.
Speed Gives Secrecy
The Radio Corporation has ma
chimes which can send and receive
$50 words per minute, about eight
times as many as human operators
can send and receive, over ether
waves that travel with the speed of
light. This speed of transmission
gives secrecy to messages.
But television requires a speed that
makes $50 words a minute seem moth
ing at all. Using a transmitter that
would fill fair sized room-and
size Of equipment is one Of the minor
obstacles to commercial television at
prssentA-thc best availale apparatus
of the Bell Telephone laboratories
manages to transmit over wires or
ether waves picture about three
inches square. Engineers consider
this far too small a space to portray
kings coronation or q football
game.
The three-inch picture consists of
$500 dots Of light and darkness,
flashed on the screen separately, but
so fast that the eye seems to see
them all ut once. To get motion into
ferent scenes must be flashed on the
screen eacn second, making q total
of 10000 dots, each reproduced from
impulse. The dots have been en-
iafged to a maximum that gives a
blurred picture two feet square, but
the picture loses clarity with each
amplification.
Large Facilities Needed
To transmit these dot" impulses,
energy for synchronization of ma
chimes and for a conversation, re-
quires facilities that would carry
four to six telephone conversations.
Engagements would be possible by
dividing scene, for instance, into
quarter sections. transmitting each
section rs separate picture and
then recombining them as a single
view. But this would require four
transmitters, with transmission ia
cilities for Is to 20 telephone con-
versations, or. if sent by air. it would
occupy the ether wave bands sOf rs
radio stations. and il would trans
NIT scenes one way only
Greeter speed in transmission, a
speed so nearly incomprchensibl
that it mSY never be attainable, II
perhsl tlIo secret Of television on
q 'broSd @icale. One hundred and
sixty thousand impulses per second,
each r1eoducing a spot Of light or
dsrknsSE would theoretically give q
pictures FOUR times as large. and more
dots w99d give larger scenes in pro-
portion. hut cautious scientists re-
fuse tQ.aay more than that it might
be: posi- LEI" and that II might solve
th3s particular part Of the whole
problem" Meantime experts in the
telephone laboratories are trying to
find out just what needs to be done
and what can be done to make televi-
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