IN CHICAGO, U.A. Sanabria transmitted 48 and 45-line television starting in 1928. Shortly thereafter, Clement Wade, Sanabria, and several associates formed Western Television. Two Western stations aired periodic entertainment telecasts from Chicago. Chicago television wasn't just local entertainment. Viewers hundreds of miles away reported picking up the Western broadcasts. The Western equipment was so good that some two dozen stations started using it. Western Television stations spread across the Midwest, the South, Canada and Mexico.

WESTERN-EQUIPPED STATIONS. Here are a few of the callsigns for stations that used Western's 45-line equipment...

THE PARTY DIDN'T LAST. Chicago's last two mechanical television transmitters, W9XAO and W9XAP, shut down by 1934. In the US, most other mechanical TV transmitters followed suit. Only educational television stations persisted, but even they finally closed in 1939. In England, John Baird's 30-line service quit on September 11, 1935.