MECHANICAL TV, MECHANICAL TELEVISION HISTORY

INVENTION. The first mechanical television systems grew out of repeating telegraphs and clockwork. These early systems evolved over some 80 years. Machines capable of displaying moving pictures appeared by the middle 1920s. The work of the twentieth-century inventors involved improvements to Paul Nipkow's 1884 television patent. Nevertheless, some historians attribute television's invention to a Scot, John Logie Baird of England. Others credit U.S. inventor Charles Jenkins. Most historians overlook concurrent work by U.A. Sanabria in the U.S. In the mid-Twenties, all three demonstrated operating mechanical TV apparatuses. Inventors in several countries produced working devices at about the same time, but to little fanfare.

THE FACTS. Most early television devices emerged independently, yet during the same period. Happenstance? Hardly. Prior inventions provided all TV's building blocks, making parallel development both possible and likely. Television is a compound invention. Crediting the last contributor for the entire invention distorts the truth. We might as well celebrate the man who drove the last spike as the railway's father.

STATIONS. Pioneering telecasts originated all over the world. Several U.S. stations came on the air in 1928. Others followed over the next few years. Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. all had television transmitters. Today, few people remember educational programming from smaller towns: Iowa City, Lawrence, Kansas and West Lafayette, Indiana. Some experimental stations, such as Chicago's W9XAO and W9XAP, and New York's W2XAB, concentrated on programming. These stations followed published schedules. Other stations, such as W2XBS, RCA’s New York flagship, concentrated on technical experiments.

1928 QSL response card (skip reception report) for
US-based, Jenkins mechanical TV station.

QSL postcard from station W3XK, 1928. Viewer was in Manitoba, Canada. Mechanical TV station was in Washington, DC, USA. Card confirms viewer's written reception report. (Courtesy of R.L. Dean)

SHORTWAVE RECEPTION. The FRC (predecessor of the FCC) allocated shortwave “television band” frequencies in 1929. For ham radio operators, distance (DX) television reception became the rage. They even built their own sets. Receivers hundreds of miles from a station could pick up shortwave television pictures. Very few households could afford manufactured television receivers. Instead, bars, hotels and department stores displayed working sets. Despite ghost images and fading, the low-resolution pictures created a sensation.

END OF THE CRAZE. For many reasons, the public didn’t long adopt mechanical television. By 1934, most United States stations left the air. 30-line transmission by the BBC continued until 1935. British electronic television broadcasting succeeded it in 1936. What caused the end of the craze? Most historians cite two reasons...

Poor picture quality prevented mechanical TV from providing "entertainment value."
Mechanical devices can't produce pictures with over 60 lines of resolution.

Both of these notions seem plausible, but both are mistaken. See our “Demise of Mechanical TV” page for the real reasons.

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Drawing of Nipkow disc-based, mechanical television
(mechanisches Fernsehen)

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