June 13, 1925…First US TV Demonstration
June 13, 1925…First US TV Demonstration
91 years ago today, Charles Francis Jenkins presented the first public demonstration of television in America, with a synchronized transmission of images and sound. Using an electro-mechanical Nipkow spot scanner, the silhouetted image of a toy windmill was broadcast wirelessly over a five mile path from a naval radio facility in Anacostia, to Washington DC, where it was viewed by members of the Federal Trade Commission, the navy and patent office officials.
Two months earlier, Charles Logie Baird had done almost the same at Europe’s first public demonstration at Selfridge’s Department Store in London. The Jenkins system used only “shadowgraph” images, which were silhouetted images, while Baird’s system used lifelike subjects (a dummy’s head) lit with and arc light. For more, here’s a good link. http://www.bairdtelevision.com/jenkins.html -Bobby Ellerbee
My grandfather was friends with Baird.
My family had the first television in their village.
The TV transmitters of the time in the 1930’s, could only transmit for 2 hours at a time before they overheated.
As we come closer to the 100th. anniversary of television, experimenters (myself included) are reviving the Nipkow disc!
Wasn’t Secretary Hoover a participant in an earlier experiment in 1923