This was a step up from the Iconoscope in it’s light sensitivity, but it was a remote camera and still needed daylight, or stadium lighting. The Orthicon was a hybrid of sorts, needing the added utility of Philo Farnsworth’s Image Dissector tube technology, which was finally incorporated into the Image Orthicon a few years later. More in the text block below. -Bobby Ellerbee

June 8, 1939…The First Orthicon Camera

On this day in 1938, two experimental RCA Orthicon cameras were put into service along side two RCA Iconoscope cameras at Ebbets field for a daytime game between the Dodgers and the Reds. This was televisions first ever broadcast of a major league baseball game and was only a month after the first ever college baseball game broadcast.

On top, we see the Orthicon camera which still did not have an electronic viewfinder, but the optical system shared with the studio style Iconoscopes…the field Iconoscopes had a gun sight. Notice also the wedge plate sticking our from under the camera…this mount is all new too as the field Iconoscope cameras slid onto the pan head from the side with the use of built in brackets.

Below, we see an article from Broadcasting Magazine that, although it describes the broadcast of the first night game in June of 1941, it features a photo from the June 8, 1939 game that shows the Orthicon and Iconoscope cameras in use together for comparison purposes. Remember, visit this page for a better experience of this great history. Thanks! -Bobby Ellerbee

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