Television - After 79 Years, It Is Still Kicking Ass!

[Hardrock69]

1928: W3XK, the first American TV station, begins broadcasting from suburban Washington, D.C.

The station was an outgrowth of the work done by Charles Francis Jenkins in devising a way to transmit pictures over the airwaves, a process he called "radiovision." He sold several thousand receiving sets, mostly to hobbyists, and, after receiving permission to start an experimental TV transmitting station, aired programming five nights a week until shutting down in 1932.

Jenkins essentially brought the wrong technology to the field: His receiving sets relied on a 48-line image projected onto a 6-inch-square mirror to create the picture, rather than using electronics, the technology that determined the future of television.

An interesting aside: Jenkins was also the first to air a television commercial. He was fined by the government for doing so, a practice that was discontinued, unfortunately, as the medium matured.

(Source: The Center for the Study of Technology and Society,

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/07/dayintech_0702

[ThrillsNSpills]

now it's Paris H. every other channel.

[Diamondjimi]

Originally posted by ThrillsNSpills
now it's Paris H. every other channel.

No shit.

[Dan]

We had Black and White T.V until 1974.

[Hardrock69]

Yeah we did not get color TV until the early 70s.

[chi-town324]

remember only having 3 channels??

[Hardrock69]

Yes. But it became 4 in about 1966-1968 when PBS hit the airwaves.

I bet the founding fathers of TV never thought PRON would be be something they could see on TV lol!

[BALLYJUNKIE]

I ALWAYS THOUGHT TELEVISION WAS 1ST INTRODUCED AT THE " WORLDS FAIR" IN 1939 .......... KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THAT?

[Dan]

[edit] United States
The first regularly scheduled television service in the United States began on July 2, 1928. The Federal Radio Commission authorized C.F. Jenkins to broadcast from experimental station W3XK in Wheaton, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. But for at least the first eighteen months, only silhouette images from motion picture film were broadcast.

Hugo Gernsback's New York City radio station WRNY began a regular, if limited, schedule of live television broadcasts on August 14, 1928, using 48-line images. Simultaneously, Gernsback published Television, the world's first magazine about the medium.

General Electric's experimental station in Schenectady, New York, on the air sporadically since January 13, 1928, was able to broadcast reflected-light, 48-line images via shortwave as far as Los Angeles, and by September was making four television broadcasts weekly.

CBS's New York City station W2XAB began broadcasting the first regular seven days a week television schedule on July 21, 1931, with a 60-line electromechanical system. The first broadcast included Mayor Jimmy Walker, the Boswell Sisters, Kate Smith, and George Gershwin. The service ended in February 1933. Don Lee Broadcasting's station W6XAO in Los Angeles went on the air in December 1931. Using the UHF spectrum, it broadcast a regular schedule of filmed images every day except Sundays and holidays for several years.