page_title: Fred Bechly
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Fred Bechly / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: The RCA MI-40206 color monitor was the prototype for color television in the 20th century.
context_page_description: Fred Lorin Bechly was an American electrical engineer and inventor in the field of color television broadcasting.
context_section_description: Fred Bechly began his career at RCA Corporation in Camden, New Jersey in 1944, and he worked there for 40 years in the field of color television broadcasting.
  Bechly was recognized early in his career, along with engineer H.J. Benzuly, for development of the Tri-color Kinescope Monitor. This development offered significant advantage over the RCA prior technology that used three kinescopes which combined three images using a mirror system to produce a single color picture. The RCA 'mirror system' had been judged inferior to the CBS 'mechanical method' by the Federal Communications Commission. The new Tri-color Kinescope technology was considered to be the RCA "secret weapon" vs. competitor CBS during establishment of the NTSC standard for color television by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 1953. RCA assigned model MI-40206 as the prototype which used the NTSC standard as its input.  RCA ultimately prevailed with the NTSC standard on December 17, 1953. The Tri-color Kinescope Monitor was then commercialized to become the RCA TM-10A Color Monitor, which was the prototype for subsequent versions of the cathode ray tube color monitor in common use thereafter.
  In 1975, Bechly received a special achievement award for outstanding contribution to the RCA TR-600 (color video recorder) program.
  Bechly was confirmed as a Life Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
caption: Identification plate for the original RCA MI-40206 color monitor designed by Fred Bechly in 1953.
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