The History of TV

1923 - Charles F. Jenkins on June 14 made his first experimental wireless television transmissions with a mechanical system from the Navy radio station in Anacostia to his Jenkins Laboratories office in Washington D.C.; Vladimir K. Zworykin applied for a patent on his iconoscope cathode ray tube.

1924 - John Logie Baird used a Nipkow disc to make experimental transmissions in London; he made his first public demonstration March 25, 1925, at the Selfridges department store on Oxford Street.

1925 - June 13 Jenkins made his "first public demonstration of radiovision" with 48 lines per inch and synchronized sound over a 5-mile distance from Anacostia to Washington DC to members of the Navy and Commerce Department. He would begin broadcasting on his first TV station W3xk five nights per week in July 1928.

1926 - In January, John Logie Baird in London made a second demonstration at the Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, and began operation of a 30-line TV system at 5 frames per second.

1927 - Jan. 7 Philo T. Farnsworth applied for his patent on the image dissector tube that used cesium to reproduce images electronically. On April 7, AT&T transmitted a long distance television image of Herbert Hoover from its experimental station 3XN in Whippany NJ using a 185-line system developed by Herbert E. Ives; also, Edna Mae Horner, an operator at the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, assisted the transmission of Hoover and became the first woman to appear on U.S. television. On Sept. 7, Farnsworth transmitted his first successful electronic TV images in San Francisco.

1928 - May 11 GE began regular TV broadcasting with a 24-line system from a station that would become WGY in Schenectady NY; by the end of the year, over 15 stations were licensed for TV broadcasting; Dr. Ernest Alexanderson developed the Octagon mechanical TV set with three-inch screen that was manufactured and sold by GE for home use. In Germany, Denes von Mihaly demonstrated a mechanical 30-line system called Telehor with a picture rate of 10 frames per second at the Berlin Radio Show.

1929 - June 27 Herbert E. Ives demonstrated a mechanical color TV system of 50-lines from AT&T in NY to Washington DC; Zworykin demonstrated Nov. 18 his 120-line system of electronic television with its Kinescope tube at 24 frames per second.

1928 - May 11 GE began regular TV broadcasting with a 24-line system from a station that would become WGY in Schenectady NY; by the end of the year, over 15 stations were licensed for TV broadcasting; William S. Paley in September took over the failing United Independent Broadcasters network with its 16 affiliate stations and reorganized it as the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) for radio broadcasting.


1929 - The BBC began test television broadcasting for 30 minutes per day using the 30-line mechanical system of John Baird.

1931 - July 21 CBS began regular TV broadcasting of 28 hours per week on W2XAB in NY


1932 - Aug. 22 the BBC began regular broadcasting using Baird's 30-line system until Nov. 2, 1936, when it changed to an electronic 405-line system.


1934 - RCA had improved Zworykin's electronic system to 343 lines of resolution at 60 cycles with 30 interlaced fields reducing flicker.



1936 - June 15 the Don Lee Broadcasting network in California exhibited an electronic television system developed by the network's director Harry Lubcke. On June 29 NBC made a broadcast from the Empire State Building of a 343-line system; Philco demonstrated a 345-line system on a TV screen 9 1/2 by 7 1/2 inches. In August the Philco company made a seven-mile television broadcast. Germany broadcast the Olympic Games in Berlin with a 180-line electronic system. On Nov. 30, Frank B. Jewett of AT&T used the first coaxial cable to speak by telephone with FCC officials in Washington.

http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/recording/television1.html