Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-26
RADIO CHAIN PLANS
TELEV|S|ON TESTS
Columbia to Extend Its Work
OF Experimental Sending.
Premiere Disappoints.
BY ROBERT MACK.

An intensive campaign for television
development. to cover perhaps a half
dozen different visual broadcasting
processes. has been outlined by the
Columbia Broadcasting System and will
extend far beyond the air experiments
in New York inaugurated this week.
While the primary work now will be
undertaken at Columbia headquarters
over its new station, W2XAB. the net
work will subject to practical tests
various other visual transmitting Sys-
tens. either through its own stations
or stations afflliated with 1t. In New
York. Philadelphia. Chicago. Los An
geles. st. Louis and Washington these
experiments will be conducted in the
effort to speed up public offering OF
practical television.
Columbias engineers admit freely
that much development work remains
before real television can be offered
the public. The New York station, en-
ploying r. C. A.-Victor Co. apparatus,
is but a beginning. Systems using
scanning discs, and the more modern
methods employing cathode ray tubes
as the heart" Of both the visual trans
mitter and receiver. will be studied.
Premiere Disappointing.
Technically. Columbia'S television
appointing Although standard scan
ming of so lines, with 20 pictures per
second. was used. there was a notice
able flicker in the received images
picked up on the "peep-hole" type tele-
visorS within the studio. This system
employs the scanning disc. 1t is not
unfair to say that the quality OF the
images was much inferior to several
other recent public television demon
STATIONS and even to some Of the reg
ularly scheduled visual broadcasts Of
fered eXperimentally by several stations.
This. however. is not lettering the net
work in its television campaign.
OF significance Is the disclosure that
Station WCAU. at Philadelphia closely
allied with Columbia. will experiment
with the FarnSworth System, which
employs no moving parts and is de-
clared to eliminate sidebands. thereby
conserving valuable space in the ether
WCAU's new studio has been fitted
for television pickup. The Levy Bros.
owners of WCAU, also are officials of
Columbia.
Philo T. Farnsworth, 24-year-old in
ventor, recently became associated with
the Philco Radio Corporation and de-
velopment of his novel system will be
carried on in the Laboratories OF that
company with WCAU to put expert
mentS on the air Synchronized with It's
sound transmissions. A system origin
ally developed by Farnsworth will be
used by Don Lee, Incorporated, operat-
ing station XIII at Los Angeles,
Columbia network station. once its
pending application for an experimental
station is granted. Since there are no
televiSion experimenters on the Pacific
Coast, 1t Is expected the commission
will approve the favorable examiners
report on the application.
WMAL to Join W3XK.
In Chicago. Columbia Is watching
closely the WetSern Television Corpora
ton system, originally developed by u.
s. Sanabrta, being used by station
WMAQ. aflliated with Columbia. Sta
ton KNOX, at st. Louis, has asked
the commission to hold in allegiance q
hearing on its pending application to
give it opportunity to explore the tele-
vision field. In Washington, station
WMAL, Columbia outlet. this Fall plans
to synchronize with the Jenkins tele-
vision station, W3XK, at Wheaton,
Md.
Engineers are rallying to the view
that in the nalfi analysis television Of
fered the public will be in the ultra
high frequencies, with the cathodS ray
tube rather than the scanning disk as
the televising medium.
(Copyrieht. 1879