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Title: Vision by radio, radio photographs, radio photograms
Author: C. Francis Jenkins
Release date: June 16, 2024 [eBook #73845]
Language: English
Original publication: Washington, D.C: National Capitol Press, 1925
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Charlene Taylor, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VISION BY RADIO, RADIO PHOTOGRAPHS, RADIO PHOTOGRAMS ***
RADIO PICTURES
[Illustration: [JENKINS]]
Vision by Radio
Radio Photographs
Radio Photograms
C. FRANCIS JENKINS
WASHINGTON
COPYRIGHTED, 1925, BY
JENKINS LABORATORIES, INC.
WASHINGTON, D. C.
¶_To the splendid young folks, Sybil L. Almand, Florence M. Anthony,
John N. Ogle, James W. Robinson, Stuart W. Jenks, and Thornton P.
Dewhirst, who so efficiently assisted in the attainment of Photographs
by Radio, Radio Vision, and Radio Photograms, this book, in grateful
appreciation, is dedicated._
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins
Born in the country, north of Dayton, Ohio, in 1868, of Quaker parents.
Spent boyhood on farm near Richmond, Indiana. Attended country school; a
nearby high school; and Earlham College. “Explored” wheatfields and
timber regions of Northwest, and cattle ranges and mining camps of
Southwest United States. Came to Washington, D. C., in 1890, and served
as secretary to Sumner I. Kimball, U. S. Life Saving Service. Resigned
in 1895 to take up inventing as a profession. Built the prototype of the
motion picture projector now in every picture theatre the world over;
developed the spiral-wound paraffined all-paper container; and produced
the first photographs by radio, and mechanism for viewing distant scenes
by radio. Has over three hundred patents; and maintains a private
laboratory in Washington. He is a member of the Franklin Institute, the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, and founder of the
Society of Motion Picture Engineers. Has several times been honored by
scientific and other bodies for original research and attainment.
Foreword
The rapid development of apparatus for the transmission of photographs
by wire and by radio may now be confidently expected, because the public
is ready for it. At this very moment it is going through the same
empirical process by which motion pictures arrived, and out of which
finally the long film strip was born.
In the motion picture development there appeared the spiral picture
disc; the picture “thumb book”; picture cards radially mounted on drums
and bands; and the picture film continuously moved and intermittently
illuminated.
But finally the development resolved itself into a single, long,
transparent picture film, intermittently moved in the exposure aperture
of the projecting machine; and upon this has been built one of the large
industries of the world.
Doubtless this will be the history of the development of electrically
transmitted photographs, and of radio vision, for many schemes have
already been tried and more may yet be seen before the final, practical
form shall have been evolved, and this new aid to business and to
entertainment shall have taken its place in human affairs.
The transmission of a photograph electrically, a portrait, for example,
is not so much a matter of mechanism, once the tools are perfected and
their operation understood; it is more a matter of blending of line and
tone, just exactly as it is with the artist. The great portrait
photographer uses the same tools the amateur uses, but an acquired
technique of high order enables him to produce a superior portrait, free
of chalky contrasts, and soft in tone and blending. Just so in radio
photography, it is a matter of simple mechanism, and an acquired skill
in its use.
The author expects to see, very soon, the radio amateurs using
flash-light lamps and electric pens where they now use headphones; and
halftones or potassium cells where they now use microphones, for the
radio problem between the two is practically the same—if anything rather
more simple with light than with sound. And new means for modulating
electric current by changing light values may be expected when the
American boy starts to play with this new toy.
There has been a veritable army of engineers engaged in the development
of radio as a service to the ear, while relatively few engineers have
been developing radio as a service to the eye.
It is believed that the distant electric modulation of light for many
purposes will soon become a common phenomena and eventually of
inestimable service in science, in engineering, in industry, and in the
home.
Nor will this service be confined to radio. Present metallic channels
now employed for other purposes, _i. e._, high tension power lines,
railroad rails, city lighting wires, and water pipes, can be made a new
source of revenue, and at a ridiculously insignificant cost.
Radio is none the less valuable by reason of its application as such a
rider on the present metallic grids of every city, and of interurban
connections. There are many channels where only space radio can be
employed, but the neglect of the application of high frequency currents
to metallic channels which lead into every place of business, and into
every home, is unnecessary waste.
The author confidently believes the application of these several ideas
to the control of light at distant points is the next great advance in
electricity, and to hasten such development the information in the
following pages is set down to assist the research worker and the
application engineer. The mechanisms and circuits herein disclosed may
be accepted with assurance.
With a radio photographic technique, the result of ten years of
concentration on this subject, it may be asserted with confidence that
the requirement of a particular application rather than a particular
machine is the governing factor in each case; for with full working
knowledge of the art, and the special application requirements known,
the design of the machine best adapted to that service is a simple
matter.
Contents
Page
Amstutz Machines 73
A. T. & T. Co. Pictures 85
Baker’s Scheme 77
Belin Machine 83
Braun Tube Receiver 91
Capillary Pen 46
Circuits, radio 117
Code Pictures 89
Color by Radio 93
Control Fork 29
Corona Lamp 51
Dot Pictures 88
Duplex Machine 105
Electrograph of 1900 75
Electrolytic Receivers 46
Engraving Receiver 73
Eye Radio Service 39
Filament Lamp 28, 50
First Radio Channel 67
First Picture Machine 120
Fournier and Rignoux 81
Galvanometer 48
Genesis of Radio 127
Glow Lamp 29
Halftone, filled in 41
High Speed Camera 125
Historical Sketch, Jenkins 118
Hook-ups—Jenkins 117
Initial Activities 25
Ink Pen Receivers 46
Korn, Dr., Machine 79
Lens Drum Machine 116
Lens Disc Machine 114, 115
Light Cell 42
Light Sources 112
Light Wedge 48
Mechanisms employed 40
Medals 121–126
Motion Picture Projector 120
Multiple Signals 30
Nipkow & Sutton 71
Oscillograph Receiver 47
Patents, list of 132
Perforated Strips 43
Photographic Receiver 47
Pneumatic Valve 49
Prismatic Ring 25, 98, 110
Prismatic Ring Machines 95
Radio Circuits 117
Radio Corp. Pictures 87
Radio Motor 30
Radio Vision 33
Radio Vision Machines 109
Receiving Machines 45
Receiving Methods 26
Sending Machines 40
Sources of Light 112
Spark-Gap Source 50
Strip Machine 103
Stroboscopic Lamp 30
Sutton & Nipkow 71
Swelled Gelatin 41
Synchronizing Forks 101
Talking Machine 107
Transmitting Methods 25
Washington 133
Zinc Etching 40
Illustrations
Page
A. T. & T. Co. example 84
Amstutz Machine 72
Baker Machine 76
Belin Machine 82
Code Picture 89
Comments 52–66
Control Fork 100
Dot Picture 88
Duplex Machine 104
Electrograph 74
Examples Photograms 35–38
Examples Radio Photos 17–23
Experimenter’s Machine 106
First Picture Projector 120
High Speed Camera 124
Korn Example 78
Light Sources 112
Loomis Wireless 68
Medals 121–126
Photograms 35–38
Prismatic Band Ring 99
Prismatic Disc Ring 97
Prism Combinations 110, 111
Radio Color Example 92
Radio Corp’n Picture 86
Radio Hook-up 117
Radio Photographs 17–23
Radio Photo Camera 96
Radio Photo Transmitter 94
Radio Picture Scheme 113
Radio Vision Machines 108
R. V. Mechanisms 114–116
Seeing by Radio 80
Seeing by Wire 70
Story World 122
Strip Machine 102
Vision by Radio
C. FRANCIS JENKINS
The earliest attempts to send pictures and to see electrically date back
some fifty years, being practically coincident with efforts to transmit
sound electrically.
At first a metallic circuit was employed to carry the impulses
representing picture values, but when radio was available several
workers immediately began the adaptation of their apparatus to radio
circuits.
Some remarkably fine examples of pictures transmitted by both wire and
radio have been produced in recent months; most of them showing the
lines, but some of them without lines at all, _i. e._, true photographic
results.
And as the transmission of images from living subjects in action differs
from “still” pictures only in that they are more rapidly formed, it
naturally followed that the solution of this problem should also be
undertaken.
When radio service to the eye shall have a comparable development with
radio service to the ear, a new era will indeed have been ushered in,
when distance will no longer prevent our seeing our friend as easily as
we hear him.
Our President may then look on the face of the King of England as he
talks with him; or upon the countenance of the President of France when
exchanging assurances of mutual esteem.
The general staff of our Navy and Army may see at headquarters all that
a lens looks upon as it is carried aloft in a scouting airplane over
battle front or fleet maneuvers.
And from our easy chairs by the fireside, we stay-at-homes can watch the
earth below as a great ship, like the Shenandoah, carries our flag and a
broadcasting lens, over the mountains and plains, the cities and farms,
the lakes and forests, of our wonderful country.
In due course, then, folks in California and in Maine, and all the way
between, will be able to see the inaugural ceremonies of their
President, in Washington; the Army and Navy football games at Franklin
Field, Philadelphia; and the struggle for supremacy in our national
sport, baseball.
The new machine will come to the fireside as a fascinating teacher and
entertainer, without language, literacy, or age limitation; a visitor to
the old homestead with photoplays, the opera, and a direct vision of
world activities, without the hindrance of muddy roads or snow
blockades, making farm life still more attractive to the clever
country-bred boys and girls.
Already audible radio is rapidly changing our social order; those who
may now listen to a great man or woman are numbered in the millions. Our
President recently talked to practically the whole citizenship of the
United States at the same time.
When to this audible radio we add visible radio, we may both hear and
see great events; inaugural ceremonies, a football, polo, or baseball
game; a regatta, mardi gras, flower festival, or baby parade; and an
entire opera in both action and music.
Educationally, the extension worker in our great universities may then
illustrate his lecture, for the distant student can see as well as hear
him by radio.
It is not a visionary, or even a very difficult thing to do; speech and
music are carried by radio, and sight can just as easily be so carried.
To get music by radio, a microphone converts sound into electrical
modulation, which, carried by radio to distant places, is then changed
back into sound and we hear the music.
To get pictures by radio, a sensitive cell converts light into
electrical current, and at radio distances changes these currents back
into light values, and one may see the distant scene; for light is the
thing of which pictures are made, as music is made of sound.
To further show the close relation, it might be added that in receiving
sets these same electrical values can be put back either into sound with
headphones or into light with a radio camera; although it may be
admitted that such radio signals do not make much sense when with
headphones one listens to the pictures.
Already radio vision is a laboratory demonstration, and while it is not
yet finished and ready for general public introduction, it soon will be,
for it should be borne in mind that animated pictures differ from still
pictures only in the speed of presentation, and the sending of “still”
pictures by radio is now an accomplished fact, radio photographs of no
mean quality, examples of which appear as illustrations in this volume.
Just as is done in radio photographs the picture surface is traversed by
a small spot of light moving over the picture surface in successive
parallel adjacent lines, with the value of the lines changed by the
incoming radio signals to conform to a given order, the order being
controlled by the light values of the scene at the distant sending
station.
In sending pictures electrically, there have been but two methods
employed, perhaps the only methods possible; namely (_a_) a cylinder
mechanism; and (_b_) a flat surface.
Without exception, every scheme which had attained any degree of
success, before the author adopted flat surfaces, has depended upon
synchronous rotation of two cylinders, one at the sending station with
the picture thereon to be sent; and the other at the receiving station
where the picture is to be put.
Perhaps the very obviousness of the cylinder scheme, and that there are
no patents to prevent, explains why it has been employed by so many. And
there have been many workers in this line of endeavor; for example, in
England, Lord Northcliff, Sir Thompson, Mr. Evans and Mr. Baker; in
France, MM. Armengaud, Ruhmer, Rignoux, Fournier, and Belin; in Germany,
Paul Nipkow, Dr. Anchutz, and Dr. Korn.
In America, Mr. Ballard, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Amstutz, the latter
deserving particular mention, for, from a distant picture, a swelled
gelatine print, he engraved a printing plate which could be put directly
on a printing press for reproduction.
All these many workers have adopted the cylinder method of sending and
receiving, and all have arrived at approximately the final stage of
development permitted by concurrent science.
It may be well to explain that, in these older schemes, the picture to
be sent is wrapped around the cylinder, usually a cylinder of glass
where light sensitive cells are employed, mounted on a rotating shaft,
which also has longitudinal displacement.
The light values which make up the picture are converted into electric
current of corresponding values and put upon a wire or other channel
which delivers them to the distant receiving station.
At the receiving station a suitable film-like sheet (paper, for example)
is wrapped around a cylinder similar to that at the sending station. As
this cylinder is rotated and longitudinally advanced under a stationary
point in contact with the paper on the cylinder, a spiral is traced
thereon. As the incoming electrical current represents picture values,
and as the two cylinders are turning in exact synchronism, a picture
duplicate of that at the sending station appears thereon. After the
picture is completed the paper sheet can then be taken off the cylinder
and flattened out for such use as may be desired.
It is quite obvious that vision by radio and radio movies can never be
attained by a cylinder method, for as the picture must appear to the eye
complete, by reason of persistence of vision, it naturally follows that
the eye must make up the whole picture from a single focal plane.
The attainment of “television” or Radio Vision, as it is now coming more
commonly to be called, requires that the sending shall be from a flat
plane, and reception on a flat plane, and a modulation which will give
not only the high-lights and shadows but the halftones as well.
These “flat planes” may, of course, be the focal planes of the lenses
employed at the receiving station, and from the focal depth of the lens
at the sending station where the picture may perhaps be taken from
living actors in the studio or from an outdoor scene.
At the receiving station the “flat surface” may be a photographic plate,
a white wall, or a miniature of the usual “silver sheet” of the motion
picture theatre.
It may aid in a clearer and quicker understanding of the text if the
words telephone and television be limited to metallic circuit service,
while radio phone and radio vision is applied to radio carried signals,
and this designation will be employed in the following pages.
[Illustration: [Projector]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
This and succeeding pages are examples of photographs received by radio
from a distance, by the Jenkins system, some of them from Washington to
Philadelphia, and represent the best work done in 1922, 1923, and 1924.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
INITIAL ACTIVITIES:
The author’s work began with the publication in the _Motion Picture
News_, of October 4, 1913, of an article entitled “Motion Pictures by
Wireless.” This contemplated the employment of a flat receiving surface,
but in the light of subsequent experience the scheme proposed therein is
believed to be impractical. It did, however, provoke discussion of the
subject and initiated the work which was thereafter rather continuously
prosecuted, except for interruption to aid in the great World War.
After failure to find a practical, workable mechanism made up of devices
already in use in applied science, diligent effort was made to discover
the necessary, missing part.
PRISMATIC RING:
At length a device described as a prismatic ring was developed, a new
contribution to optical science. In use it is comparable to a solid
glass prism which changes the angle between its sides, giving to a beam
of light passing therethrough a hinged or oscillating action on one side
of the prism while maintaining a fixed axis of the beam on the other
side of the prism.
As a convenience in fabrication this prismatic ring is ground into the
face of a glass disc of suitable size, of selected mirror plate, which
gives the ring its own support on the rotating shaft upon which it is
mounted.
TRANSMITTING METHODS:
Success in sending pictures by radio from flat photographs and receiving
them on flat photo negative plates (and subsequently of radio vision),
really began with the perfection of automatic machines for the making of
these prismatic rings, for by means of these prisms and a light
sensitive cell at the sending station the light values which make up the
picture are converted into electrical values, and broadcast.
So to put this picture on a radio carrier wave we simply slice up the
picture (figuratively) into slices one-hundredth of an inch in width, in
the best pictures, by sweeping the picture across the light sensitive
cell by means of these rotating prismatic rings. With each downward
sweep the picture is moved one-hundredth of an inch to the right until
the whole picture has crossed the cell, the cell converting the light
strengths of the different parts of each such slice into corresponding
electrical values.
The process very much resembles a bacon slicer in the market, each slice
showing fat and lean. Similarly these imaginary slices of our picture
show light and dark parts, and these lights and shadows moving across
the sensitive cell produce corresponding strength of electric current,
modulating the radio carrier wave of the broadcasting set accordingly.
Further, of course, it is immaterial whether the current modulation is
taken directly from a flat photograph, from a solid object, or from an
outdoor scene at which the transmitter is pointed.
RECEIVING METHODS:
To put these light values back together again at the distant receiving
station to make up a negative of the picture being broadcast from the
sending station, it is only necessary to reverse the process; first,
with a point of light to draw lines across a photographic plate, which
the rotating prismatic rings do; and, second, to vary the density of the
different parts of the successive lines corresponding to lights and
shadows of the picture at the sending station, and this the varying
strength of the incoming radio signal does by varying the intensity of
the light.
Dense areas in the negative are built up where the light is successively
very bright at the same place in adjacent lines; halftones where the
light is less intense; while where the light is very faint, little or no
exposure occurs, and shadows will result.
It is thus the lights and shadows which make the picture are built up,
line by line, for when this negative is developed, and paper prints made
therefrom, the dense areas produce high-lights in the picture; the less
dense areas the halftones; and the thin areas the shadows of the
picture, person or scene broadcast at the sending station. It is simply
that a photographic negative has been made of what the lens at the
sending station is looking at.
So, then, to receive pictures by radio, it is only necessary (1) to
cover a photographic plate in parallel adjacent lines, and (2) to vary
the density of the lines, to build up the shadows, the halftones, and
the high-lights of the picture.
If one puts a nickel under a piece of paper and draws _straight_ lines
across it with a dull pencil, a picture of the Indian appears. And that
is exactly the way photographs by radio are received, except that a
photographic plate is used instead of a piece of white paper, and a
pencil of light instead of the pencil of lead, the light pencil changing
the exposure in various parts of the successive adjacent parallel lines
by reason of the variation of the incoming radio signals.
The scheme is just a long camera with miles instead of inches between
lens and plate. For example, the lens in Washington and its photographic
plate in Boston; with this exception, that the one lens in Washington
can put a negative on one, ten or one hundred photographic plates in as
many different cities at the same time, and at distances limited only by
the power of the broadcasting station, radio instead of light carrying
the image from lens to plate.
The time for transmitting a picture depends upon the size of the picture
and strength of light, say, from three to six minutes, using a filament
lamp as a source.
The radio photograph receiving instruments are rather simple and
inexpensive and, like a loudspeaker, can be attached to any standard
amplifying audio-radio receiving set.
FILAMENT LAMP:
For the light source for radio photographs a filament lamp is employed,
and in a single turn coil enclosed in a hydrogen atmosphere. This
miniature filament coil is imaged on a photo negative plate, and the
variation in the light is caused by putting the incoming radio signals
through this lamp, perhaps after the filament has been brought to a red
glow by a battery current. By adjusting the speed of the motor to the
temperature change of this filament soft gradations of light and shade
are obtained which probably can never be equaled by any other device, a
photograph of true photographic value, entirely free of lines.
The author wishes to take this occasion to express his appreciation of
the splendid assistance of the General Electric Company, under the
personal supervision and hearty cooperation of Mr. L. C. Porter, who
from the very first has shown his confidence in the ultimate successful
conclusion of this development.
GLOW LAMP:
For the high speed radio photograms, where only blacks and whites are
needed, a corona glow lamp of very high frequency has been developed.
This lamp is lighted by the plate current of the last tube of the
amplifier; and as the lamp can be lighted and extinguished a million
times a second, it is obvious that the permissible speed is almost
limitless, and a thousand words per minute is believed ultimately
possible.
This lamp has been developed for the author by Professor D. McFarlan
Moore, an expert in lamps incorporating this phenomena, and who some
years ago, it may be remembered, produced a lamp of this type more than
two hundred feet long. It is probably safe to predict that no other lamp
will ever be able to compete in speed.
As photography is the quickest means of copying anything; and radio the
swiftest in travel, it seemed logical that the two hitched together
should constitute the most rapid means of communication possible.
CONTROL FORK:
Of course, the sending machine and the receiving machines must run in
exact synchronism. This synchronous control of the sending and receiving
motors is maintained by the vibration of a rather heavy fork at each
station, and adjusted to beat together, with such slight automatic
correction by radio as may be required to keep all receiving forks in
step with the fork of the station which at the moment is sending. It is
a very simple and dependable mechanism, by which any number of motors,
of any size, separated by any distance, can be made to run in
synchronism.
RADIO MOTOR:
Another scheme of the rotary type, perhaps even better adapted to the
distant control of large motors, is a small synchronous radio motor
driven by power carried by radio from the broadcasting station to the
receiving stations. It is, of course, rotated partly by radio power from
the distant station, and partly by local current, just as a loudspeaker
is operated. These small motors, rotating in synchronism with the motor
at the sending station, control the rotation of a larger motor in each
receiving camera, and so all stations keep in step.
STROBOSCOPIC LAMP:
Of course, it would be fatal if it were necessary to wait until the
picture was developed before it could be discovered that the receiving
camera was getting out of control. So a special “neon” lamp is located
to shine on a revolving marker on the motor shaft of the receiving
instrument, and flashed by the incoming radio signals, which latter bear
a definite relation to the rotation of the sending station motor.
SAME WAVE:
It should be noted that the same radio wave carries both the picture
frequency which builds up the photograph and the synchronism frequency
which controls the motors, and also that it lights the stroboscopic
lamp.
MULTIPLE-SIGNAL RADIO:
A further advance step was made when an audible message was added to the
same radio wave which carried the picture. This is done by modulating
the carrier wave to give audibility, while interrupting the same carrier
wave at a frequency far above the audible range, say, two hundred
thousand cycles, to make our picture.
By means of this duplex employment of the same radio wave, it is
possible to get, for example, both the gesture and the voice of an
inaugural address; the play and the cheers of a national sport; or the
acting and song of grand opera.
Perhaps it might be explained that synchronism in visual-audible radio
reception is accomplished by the simple expedient of keeping the radio
picture “framed,” exactly as this is done in the motion picture theatre.
But continuing the description of the still picture processes a little
further, before taking up Radio Vision and Radio Movies, it might be
added that while photographs by radio is the more interesting and
impressive process, there is little doubt but that radio photo letters
will be of much greater immediate service in business.
Commerce, like an army, can go forward no faster than its means of
communication. The history of industrial advance in all ages shows that
with every addition to communication facilities the volume of business
has increased. Obviously a third electrical means of communication will
enlarge business, and speed up commerce and industry.
As an aid in national defense the chief of staff of the Signal Corps of
the Army, in a recently published report to the Secretary of War, said
(_Washington Star_, November 22, 1924):
“Looking into the future of signal communication for a moment, it
appears that the basic method of breaking messages up into words,
words into letters, letters into dots-and-dashes, and then passing
these through the wrist of an operator, as has been the practice since
Morse’s fundamental invention of the electric telegraph, seems to be
nearing the end of a cycle. Mechanical transmitters with higher speed
qualities are becoming stabilized and American invention seems to be
making further and rapid progress in associating photography with
radio, which bids fair to revolutionize fundamental methods of
transmission.
“The message of the future, whether it be written, printed, of mixed
with diagrams and photographs, including the signature of the sender,
will, it seems certain, soon be transmitted photographically by radio
frequency at a rate tens of times faster than was ever possible by the
dot-and-dash methods of hand transmission.
“Military messages of the future, particularly in active operations,
may contain diagrams and sketches, or even entire sheets of maps, all
transmitted as part of the same message and by means of which
detection or listening-in will be reduced to a very low minimum.”
The author suggests that it might be added that the newcomer, the radio
photogram, has merits distinctly its own, e. g.:
(1) It is autographically authentic; (2) it is photographically
accurate; (3) it is potentially very rapid; (4) it is little effected by
static; (5) it is not effected by storms; and (6) it is automatic and
tireless.
It can also be used to enlarge the individual newspaper’s influence and
prestige by the establishment of photostat branch printing plants at
strategic points, like summer camps, and winter resorts, and at
ridiculously little cost.
Such copies of the news, financial and market report pages of the paper
could be distributed in these distant places before they could possibly
appear on the streets of the home city of the paper.
Of course, produce market reports, stock market news, and similar matter
could be so distributed very much quicker than could be done by any
other system, certainly so to the farmer and gardener.
RADIO VISION:
Radio Photographs and Radio Vision, when both are done by the flat-plate
method, are identical in principle, the difference being only in the
speed of the apparatus, with such modification in the apparatus as will
permit of the required speed.
Just as in the Radio Photograph the picture surface of the Radio Vision
is covered with a small spot of light moving over the picture surface in
successive parallel lines, with the light value of the lines changed by
the incoming radio signals to conform to a given order, the order being
controlled by the distant scene at the sending station.
And as the whole picture surface is covered in one-twelfth to
one-sixteenth of a second, persistence of vision of the human eye is
sufficient to get the picture from the white receiving screen—a
photographic plate is not necessary.
When the machine of Radio Vision is turned over slowly, the little spot
of light on the screen which makes up the picture looks for all the
world like a tiny, twinkling star as it travels across the white surface
of the screen in adjacent parallel lines, changing in light value to
correspond in position and intensity to the light values of the scene
before the lens at the broadcasting station.
But when the machine is speeded up until the succession of lines recur
with a frequency which deceives the eye into the belief that it sees
_all_ these lines _all_ the time, then a picture suddenly flashes out on
the white screen in all the glory of its pantomime mystery.
To accomplish this, the apparatus must be speeded up until a whole
picture can be assembled on the screen, say, in one-sixteenth of a
second, to be seen by the eye directly.
It was necessary to modify the Radio Photo apparatus to permit this
increase in speed. So a lens disc is substituted for the fast pair of
prismatic plates. Each lens draws a line while the relatively slow
rotation of the prismatic plates distributes the lines over the whole
picture surface, just exactly as the plates do in the Radio Photo
Camera.
The Radio Vision receiving set and the Radio Movies set are identical,
and one may, therefore, see in one’s home what is happening in a distant
place, an inaugural parade, football, baseball, or polo game (and we
call it Radio Vision); or one may see the motion picture taken from the
screen of a distant theatre (and we call it Radio Movies).
The Radio Vision receiving set, as now designed, is very simple; namely,
a mahogany box, or small lidded cabinet, containing, beside the radio
receiving set and a loudspeaker, only a small motor rotating a pair of
glass discs, and a miniature, high frequency lamp for outlining the
pantomime picture on a small motion picture screen in the raised lid of
the cabinet, synchronism being maintained by the simple expedient of
“framing” the picture on the screen exactly as this is done in a moving
picture theatre.
The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to his friend,
Professor D. McFarlan Moore, for a word name for this new device, i.e.,
“telorama” for the radio vision instrument, and “teloramaphone” for the
instrument when it includes simultaneous reproduction of the music or
sound accompanying the living scene.
[Illustration: COL. PAUL HENDERSON, OCTOBER 1, 1924. ASSISTANT
POSTMASTER GENERAL, WASHINGTON, D.C. MY DEAR COL. HENDERSON:—THIS IS AN
EXAMPLE OF OUR NEW RADIO-PHOTO LETTER, A METHOD OF TRANSMITTING MESSAGES
BY RADIO INSTEAD OF BY STEAMSHIP. WASHINGTON TO PANAMA IN FIVE MINUTES.
IT HAS THE AUTHENTIC CHARACTER OF AN AUTOGRAPHED LETTER, AND THE SPEED
OF RADIO. IT IS THE BEGINNING OF A RADIO SERVICE TO THE EYE, WHERE
HERETOFORE RADIO HAS BEEN AN ADDRESS TO THE EAR ONLY. WILL THE TIME SOON
COME WHEN THE POST OFFICE DEPARTMENT WILL DELIVER BY RADIO PHOTOGRAPHIC
COPIES OF OUR BUSINESS LETTERS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT RATHER THAN THE
LAGGARD DELIVERY OF THE ORIGINALS BY MAIL-PLANE. SUCH AN EXCHANGE OF
INTELLIGENCE WOULD WONDERFULLY SPEED UP INDUSTRY BECAUSE, LIKE AN ARMY,
INDUSTRY CAN GO NO FASTER THAN ITS MEANS OF COMMUNICATION. Jenkins]
COL. PAUL HENDERSON, OCTOBER 1, 1924.
ASSISTANT POSTMASTER GENERAL,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
MY DEAR COL. HENDERSON:—THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF OUR NEW RADIO-PHOTO
LETTER, A METHOD OF TRANSMITTING MESSAGES BY RADIO INSTEAD
OF BY STEAMSHIP. WASHINGTON TO PANAMA IN FIVE MINUTES.
IT HAS THE AUTHENTIC CHARACTER OF AN AUTOGRAPHED LETTER, AND
THE SPEED OF RADIO. IT IS THE BEGINNING OF A RADIO SERVICE
TO THE EYE, WHERE HERETOFORE RADIO HAS BEEN AN ADDRESS TO
THE EAR ONLY. WILL THE TIME SOON COME WHEN THE POST OFFICE
DEPARTMENT WILL DELIVER BY RADIO PHOTOGRAPHIC COPIES OF OUR
BUSINESS LETTERS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT RATHER THAN THE LAGGARD
DELIVERY OF THE ORIGINALS BY MAIL-PLANE. SUCH AN EXCHANGE
OF INTELLIGENCE WOULD WONDERFULLY SPEED UP INDUSTRY
BECAUSE, LIKE AN ARMY, INDUSTRY CAN GO NO FASTER THAN ITS
MEANS OF COMMUNICATION.
Jenkins
[Illustration: Maj. Mauborgne, Washington When a radio message is
received as a photo copy of an autographed order, it is known to be
authentic and can be obeyed at once. In war this is vital. Combined with
simplicity, ruggedness and speed the radio photo deserves attention.
Jenkins Oct. 20, 1924.]
Maj. Mauborgne, Washington
When a radio message is
received as a photo copy of
an autographed order, it is
known to be authentic and
can be obeyed at once. In
war this is vital. Combined
with simplicity, ruggedness
and speed the radio photo
deserves attention.
Jenkins
Oct. 20, 1924.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
RADIO SERVICE TO THE EYE:
Since the initiation of broadcasting, a veritable army of engineers have
been devoting themselves to the development of radio as a service to the
ear.
The author for several years has been, rather lonesomely, devoting his
efforts to the development of radio as a service to the eye.
Incidentally it is suggested that there are undreamed of possibilities
in radio in the unlimited frequencies above audibility, in which speed
transmission is greatly accelerated by the tolerance of eyesight, not
possible in an appeal to the ear. Witness, the motion picture theatre
screen upon which a picture is taken off and put back again forty-eight
times per second without discovery by the eye; while the slightest error
in a note in the orchestra is detected at once and grates harshly on the
ear.
Just as the motion picture depends for success on the fact that the eye
is easily deceived, so in Radio Vision the eye is fooled into the belief
that it sees the radio picture as a whole, though in fact the eye sees
at any one moment only the tiny spot of light by which, with almost
lightning like speed, the picture is made up.
Audio radio engineers have been working in the very limited
audio-frequency band below, say, ten thousand cycles, whereas the
workable range where light instead of sound is employed goes away up to
millions of cycles. It is confidently predicted that the next great
development in radio is in this area.
When the “teloramaphone” is made generally available, then pictures at
the fireside sent from distant world points will be the daily source of
news; the daily instructional class; and the evening’s entertainment;
and equally the long day of the sick and shut-ins will be more
endurable, and life in the far places less lonely, for the flight of
radio is not hindered by rain, or storm, or snow blockades.
MECHANISMS EMPLOYED:
The successful study of the problem of the transmission of light effects
electrically (vision, pictures, light signals, etc.) might well begin
with the division of the subject into its elements and sub-elements.
The major division is, naturally, into (_a_) the sending station
apparatus; and (_b_) the receiving station apparatus. A great variety of
devices have been invented for analysis of the picture at the sending
station, and the translation of the light values (which make up the
picture) into electrical modulation; and likewise a variety of methods
for receiving these electrical signals at a distant place (or places)
and there changing the electrical modulations back into light values
with which the picture is built up.
SENDING MACHINES—ZINC ETCHING:
Before the refinement of light sensitive cells, actual electrical
contact was oftenest employed in sending the impulses which represented
light gradations in the picture.
Usually, therefore, a zinc etching of a pen and ink picture was made,
and curved into a cylinder. This picture cylinder was then slipped onto
a rotating mandril, which was also moved axially by a screw thread on
the mandril shaft; or the cylinder rotated and a contact arm moved along
by the screw, like the old wax cylinder phonograph.
A delicately suspended arm, moved along by the screw as just described
and carrying, instead of the phonograph sound box, a very small and
smooth point which was lifted by the high parts of the zinc etched
picture. When so lifted the arm makes electrical contact with an
adjustable point and current is put into the inter-station wire circuit.
By this means the values of the picture are converted into corresponding
duration values of an electric current, and put onto a wire connecting
the sending machine with a distant receiving machine (described in
detail later in the text).
It will thus be seen that the electric impulses sent out over a wire
attached to the contact point represent the value of the light and dark
portions of the picture.
The electric impulses are similar to letter-code dots-and-dashes, for
the picture actually opens and closes the circuit, like a telegraph key,
the dark portions of the picture sending dashes and the light portions
of the picture sending dots. With the point set at one end of the
cylinder, and the contact arm advancing longitudinally by reason of the
thread on the shaft, the point traverses a spiral around the cylinder
until the whole picture is covered.
SWELLED GELATINE PRINT:
In another process a swelled gelatine picture print was used to raise
and lower the contact-making arm, and a carbon contact button was
employed, but otherwise the sending machine was much the same.
FILLED-IN HALFTONES:
Somewhat later halftones of photos were available, and these were
similarly bent into cylinders. The interstices between the metal points
of the halftones were filled with an insulating wax, and the whole
smoothed off until the bright metal points (of different size and
representing the different values of the picture) were exposed.
When this picture cylinder was rotated under a contact point, the
cylinder and the point being parts of an electric circuit, current
flowed in the circuit whenever the point touched the metal parts of the
picture, but no current flowed when the insulation passed under the
point.
Because the point does not jump up and down, but has a smooth surface to
ride on, greater speed and accuracy is possible with the filled-in
etching.
LIGHT SENSITIVE CELLS:
As is quite generally known there are certain “semi-metals” which have
the property of changing their resistence to an electric current when
light falls thereon.
Of this group selenium is typical, although there are several others,
thallium, strontium, barium, etc.
More recently it was discovered that some of the rarer alkali metals had
the property, under certain conditions, of actually converting light
into electric current. In this group are potassium, sodium, caesium,
rubidium, etc.
These light sensitive cells vary the electric current quite
accurately in proportion to the intensity of the light falling
thereon, and when available were quickly seized upon by the workers
in “pictures-by-electricity.”
When these light sensitive cells were employed, a modification of the
previous picture-translating methods and mechanisms was made, for now a
modulation instead of an interruption of the electric current was
possible, the modulation representing the values of the halftones of a
picture transparency as well as its blacks and whites.
The rotating cylinder now employed was of glass, around which the
picture, on transparent film, was wrapped. Inside the cylinder a light
was put to shine through the passing picture film as a minute point of
light falling on the light sensitive cell located in a dark box.
Just as in the other cylinder schemes the picture is made to traverse
this point of light until the whole picture is converted into electric
current of corresponding values, which, as before, can be put on a wire,
or can be made to modulate a radio wave.
PERFORATED PAPER STRIPS:
One of the oddities of picture analytical translation consists of
running a perforated paper strip between a source of light and a light
sensitive cell, the paper ribbon perforated with a series of groups of
holes.
It is intended that the number of holes in successive groups along the
ribbon shall represent successive values of light in the different parts
of the picture to be transmitted.
While it is possible to perforate such a ribbon it is quite likely that
the experienced engineer would adopt some of the simpler forms of
picture translation, for there are enough of them which may be used
without hesitation, such basic patents as have ever existed having long
since expired.
An unusual scheme consists in writing the message in ink made of
saltpeter, and then setting fire to the ink line. The ink line of the
message burns itself out leaving the paper intact. Thereupon the paper
is carefully laid on the metal cylinder of the sending machine, or on
“silver paper” which is put on the sending cylinder. The contact point
drops through the burnt lines making contact, and the out-going signals,
received on a like cylinder at a distant station, make a duplicate of
the original message.
A more satisfactory scheme is to put a thin coating of hard wax on a
thin sheet of metal, or metal coated papers. These sheets as wanted are
laid on an electric hot-plate and the message, picture, or sketch, is
written through the warm wax coating with a lead pencil or stylus. Then
the paper with its message etched therein, is wrapped around the sending
cylinder and rotated under the contact-making finger, which sends out
the electrical impulses.
One may also take the sketch, line drawing, or pen picture, to the zinc
etcher (halftone engraving plant), and have him make a print on very
thin metal, and develop and harden it, but not etch it. This will give a
photographically accurate copy. This copy on the metal sheet can then be
bent around the cylinder of your sending machine, and sent out by wire
or radio, to be received at all stations tuned in. If etched the etching
may be filled in with hard wax and this put on the cylinder, and run
under the contact finger.
It is possible to write on paper with copper sulphate (blue vitral)
solution, for the acidulated line carries the current through the paper
to the metal cylinder beneath, and completes the circuit. The acid may
even be strong enough to eat through the paper exposing the metal
cylinder underneath.
Salt water with a little glycerine to keep it from drying up too fast
will also perform.
Another method which has been proposed is to print or write on paper
with sticky material, like Japan drier, and sprinkle thereon a fine
powdered wax, battery sealing wax, for example. This will stick to the
tacky lines and can be melted over a hot plate or in an oven. The melted
wax leaves standing lines which will raise a contact-closing pen passing
over it. If the lines are sprinkled with metallic powder a double
contact pen can be used and the mechanism is still simpler, less
delicate, and more dependable.
One of the newer methods of photogram transmission is to use a rotating
table, like a talking machine table, with a rectangular piece of paper
thereon (tucked under at the corners), from which to send a
communication; market bulletins, for example, broadcast by a progressive
newspaper to the farmers and truck gardener patrons in their vicinity.
The contact point is advanced from the outer edge to the centre by a
spiral cut on the under side of the table; or by a threaded edge of a
detachable tabletop and a reducing gear to move the contact arm across
the message, or other scheme.
(Of course, the receiving machine should be a duplicate of the sending
machine, with suitable receiving surface.)
The bulletin sheet can not be advantageously used to the very centre,
any more than a music record can, but this space can be employed by the
broadcaster for printed announcements (as music disc records are so
used), the receiving paper being furnished by the broadcaster.
But of all the schemes it is very doubtful if any will ever equal the
writing of the message or sketch in lead pencil on paper, and rotate it
under a two-contact collector. The graphite of the lines makes contact
across the twin-blade terminals, effecting the transmitter as would a
telegraph key in the circuit.
RECEIVING MACHINES:
Coming now to the design of a suitable receiving machine, it will be
found that an even greater variety of schemes have been tried.
INK PEN RECEIVERS:
Upon a rotating and longitudinally moving cylinder, similar to that of
the sending machine first described, a paper is put, and upon this
paper, as the cylinder rotates, an ink pen, mounted on a pivoted arm,
touches intermittently, being drawn down to ink the paper with every
incoming electrical impulse, and lifted off the paper by a gentle
spring.
CAPILLARY PEN:
In another ink and pen scheme the electric current is passed through a
capillary ink tube to make it flow and black the paper; no lifting of
the pen arm is necessary.
As the order of these dots-and-dashes is controlled by the impulses put
into the line by the picture at the sending station, a picture is built
up on the paper on the receiving machine cylinder, a copy of the picture
on the cylinder of the sending machine.
ELECTROLYTIC RECEIVERS:
In another and similar scheme a chemically treated paper is put on the
cylinder, and upon this, as it rotates, a metallic point is gently
pressed.
When the incoming electric current from the sending station passes
through the paper under the contact point an electrolysis occurs which
appears as a discoloration of the paper.
And as these discolored dots-and-dashes appear, as before, in an order
controlled by the distant station, a picture is again built up on the
paper, a copy of the picture at the sending station.
One of the best solutions for the purpose is made up of Iodide of
Potassium one-half pound; Bromide of Potassium two pounds; Dextrine or
Starch one ounce; and Distilled Water one gallon. (Use an iron contact
needle). There are other solutions made of Ferricyanide, but are not so
satisfactory.
Still another scheme, the simplest of mechanisms, consists of a metal
disc upon which electrolytic paper is clipped. This plate is then put on
the rotating table of a talking machine. A rubbing electrical contact is
made with the disc, and the other wire attached to the tone arm to
complete the circuit through the steel needle of the sound box.
As no groove is available to carry the arm toward the centre of the
disc, a spurred-wheel is attached thereto, so as to engage the paper on
the disc. The wheel can be adjusted diagonally of the tone arm to give
any separation required in the convolutions of the spiral line.
One of the schemes employed, and with considerable success for its time,
consisted of an engraving tool, moved up and down radially of a coated
cylinder, cutting a groove of varying width in the soft coating of the
cylinder.
When this coating was stripped off the cylinder, laid out flat and
hardened, it was mounted on a printing block, inked, and impressions
taken therefrom on a suitable printing press.
PHOTOGRAPHIC RECEIVERS:
But doubtless photographic paper, wrapped around the cylinder, has been
used oftener than any other medium. With photo paper or film a point of
light is usually employed to expose the film.
OSCILLOGRAPH RECEIVERS:
The point sources of light used and methods of modulation have been
almost as varied as the temperaments of the several workers. One of the
first was the employment of a steady light source which, reflected in
the tiny mirror of an oscillograph, is caused to vibrate at a high
frequency across a minute aperture which in turn is imaged on the film
on the cylinder. As the amplitude of vibration of the mirror determines
the amount of light passing through the aperture and falling on the
film, it will readily be understood that the strength of the incoming
electric signals, representing light values of the picture at the
distant station, reproduce duplicate values on the exposed film. When
this film is developed a copy of the picture on the cylinder of the
sending machine is obtained.
LIGHT WEDGE MODULATION:
Another scheme for modulating the light falling on the film on the
cylinder, consists in placing a light wedge against the face of a lens
which images the vibrating mirror (or light source) on the film.
As the light is constantly imaged on the film by the lens its slight
displacement toward the dark end of the light wedge by the vibration of
the mirror decreases the strength of the light falling on the film,
while displacement toward the thin edge of the light wedge gives greater
exposure on the film.
It is obvious, therefore, that the vibration of the mirror determines
the exposure at successive positions on the film; and as these
displacements follow the varying strength of the incoming electric
current, and the latter in turn is determined by the light values of the
picture at the sending station, it naturally follows that when the film
is developed a duplicate of the distant picture results.
SILVER WIRE GALVANOMETER:
Another method of varying the light falling on the photo film on the
cylinder consists in mounting two very minute overlapping shutters one
on each of the two wires of an electric circuit suspended in a strong
magnetic field. On these overlapping shutters a light source is focused,
so that greater or lesser displacement of the shutters, by reason of
varying strengths of current in the adjacent runs of the wire, allows
more or less light to pass there between.
Another lens images these tiny shutters onto the film covered cylinder,
so that when the shutters are opened by the incoming currents in the two
wires, the light is concentrated on the film.
As the exposure depends on (_a_) the shutter openings, and the shutter
opening on (_b_) the incoming current strength, and the incoming current
strength on (_c_) the light values at the sending station, development
of the film again gives a duplicate of the picture at the sending
station.
PNEUMATIC VALVE:
An interesting scheme of picture reception is known as the pneumatic
light valve, the vibration of which causes a shadow band to oscillate
across a lens opening into the camera.
In a circular center opening in a magnetized iron diaphragm is suspended
an iron disc somewhat smaller than the opening. This small disc is
magnetically held by its edge to the inside edge of the opening in the
diaphragm, with its plane in the plane of the magnetic field of the
diaphragm.
Upon the disc is mounted a tiny mirror, and as the suspension of the
disc is in the magnetic field held there by the strength of the field
itself, it is extremely easily disturbed, so that a small beam of light
reflected from the mirror can be vibrated with a very little current
through great amplitude.
As the beam of light has a transverse shadow band therein of a width to
normally close the lens opening into the camera, the varying
amplification of the vibration of the mirror, and therefore, of the
shadow, admits a proportional amount of light.
SPARK GAP:
One of the very simplest light sources for exposing the film on the
receiving cylinder consists of a minute spark-gap located in contact
with the moving film.
The strength of the incoming current charges a small condenser until the
gap breaks down and the passing spark exposes the film (or perhaps
perforates it). If the current is strong the sparks pass the gap at a
high frequency, while if the current is weak the frequency is less. The
range may be from 500 to 5,000 per second perhaps, depending on the
current strength, and, of course, the film exposure correspondingly
varies, and the different degrees of density of the picture results.
This scheme requires about as small current as is likely to be
practical, perhaps, especially when the spark is in a suitable degree of
vacuum, and, of course, the incoming radio signals require
correspondingly small amplification.
FILAMENT LAMP:
The direct source of light which in the author’s laboratory has produced
the most perfect photographic effects, i. e., photographs absolutely
without lines, consists of a lamp about an inch in diameter and two
inches long, fitted with a standard screw base. The tube contains a .6
mil filament with a small single turn coil in a hydrogen atmosphere.
The coil is offset until it almost touches the glass wall. Such location
of the coiled filament permits the effective placing of a minute
aperture in very close relation to the filament; whereas an aperture on
the outside of a bulb with the light source in the centre of the bulb
acts like a pin-hole camera, and sharpness of image is practically
impossible (unless a lens is used).
The lamp described above will respond to fluctuations in current well
above a thousand times per second, but requires voltages about four
times normal. It was made for the author by courtesy of the General
Electric Company, under the direction of Mr. L. C. Porter, of Harrison,
N. J.
CORONA LAMP:
But the lamp that really elicits the author’s unqualified admiration is
the corona glow lamp made for the author by Professor D. McFarlan Moore.
It consists of a small glass bulb containing a neat-fitting metallic
cylinder, one terminal of an attached circuit. Inside and concentric
with the cylinder is a second cylindrical capsule made of a solid rod
drilled to a predetermined depth.
The electron stream from the outside cylinder to the capsule naturally
takes the long path, and as the longest path is down into the capsule,
the result is that the small central opening of the capsule glows with
great intensity while the other parts of the lamp remain dark. This
lamp, Professor Moore advises, has a light and dark frequency of a
million per second.
[Illustration: WESTERN UNION TELEGRAM NEWCOMB CARLTON, PRESIDENT GEORGE
W. E. ATKINS, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT 153W 1W 1 EXTRA OF TELEPHONED MESSAGE
P ROCHESTER NY 114P OCT 12 1922 C FRANCIS JENKINS 1519 CONN AVENUE NW
WASHINGTON DC SOCIETY MOTION PICTURE ENGINEERS REGRETS YOUR ABSENCE FROM
THE CONVENTION BEST WISHES FOR YOUR SUCCESS IN RADIO TRANSMISSION OF
PICTURES A R DENNINGTON SECY 225P]
WESTERN UNION
TELEGRAM
NEWCOMB CARLTON, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. E. ATKINS, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT
153W 1W 1 EXTRA OF TELEPHONED MESSAGE
P ROCHESTER NY 114P OCT 12 1922
C FRANCIS JENKINS
1519 CONN AVENUE NW WASHINGTON DC
SOCIETY MOTION PICTURE ENGINEERS REGRETS
YOUR ABSENCE FROM THE CONVENTION
BEST WISHES FOR YOUR SUCCESS IN RADIO
TRANSMISSION OF PICTURES
A R DENNINGTON SECY
225P
[Illustration: GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY In Reply Refer to WEST LYNN,
MASS. November 28, 1922. Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, 1519 Connecticut Ave.,
Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Jenkins: I am in receipt of yours of November
25th, enclosing the radio picture, for which I thank you. It certainly
shows a successful result. When I first read of your prismatic ring
arrangement in the “Scientific American”, I recognized that it was the
solution of a problem which I had often thought of as possible, and I
can well understand that it may have applications which we do not even
now think of. It is perfectly possible, as you say, to employ the method
of radio transmission of pictures on a very considerable scale, which
would hardly be possible in transmitting them by the ordinary telegraph.
With best regards, and gratification to know that you are progressing, I
am, Very truly yours, Elihu Thomson]
GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
In Reply Refer to
WEST LYNN, MASS.
November 28, 1922.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
1519 Connecticut Ave.,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
I am in receipt of yours of
November 25th, enclosing the radio picture,
for which I thank you. It certainly
shows a successful result.
When I first read of your prismatic
ring arrangement in the “Scientific
American”, I recognized that it
was the solution of a problem which I
had often thought of as possible, and
I can well understand that it may have
applications which we do not even now
think of. It is perfectly possible, as
you say, to employ the method of radio
transmission of pictures on a very considerable
scale, which would hardly be
possible in transmitting them by the
ordinary telegraph.
With best regards, and gratification
to know that you are progressing,
I am,
Very truly yours,
Elihu Thomson
[Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON December 5, 1922. Dear Mr.
Jenkins: Please accept my thanks for the radio photograph which you were
good enough to send to me. The production of a picture in this fashion
is certainly one of the marvels of our time and I am under obligation to
you for sending me this handsomely mounted copy which will be preserved
as a very much prized souvenir. Gratefully yours, Warren G Harding Mr.
C. Francis Jenkins 1519 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C.]
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
December 5, 1922.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
Please accept my thanks for the
radio photograph which you were good
enough to send to me. The production
of a picture in this fashion is certainly
one of the marvels of our time
and I am under obligation to you for
sending me this handsomely mounted
copy which will be preserved as a very
much prized souvenir.
Gratefully yours,
Warren G Harding
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins
1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington, D.C.
[Illustration: Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company East
Pittsburgh, Pa. Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, 1519 Connecticut Ave.,
Washington, D.C. March 7, 1923. My dear Jenkins: I have been reading
with much interest the newspapers giving an account of your success in
sending photographs by Radio from Washington to Philadelphia. After my
visit to your laboratory a few weeks ago when you told me of this
proposed transmission, I have been looking forward to it feeling assured
it would be fully as successful as the papers have related, and I want
to add my congratulations to the many you must have already received,
and which you so well deserve. May your success continue. With kindest
regards, I am, Yours very sincerely, John]
Westinghouse Electric
& Manufacturing Company
East Pittsburgh, Pa.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
1519 Connecticut Ave.,
Washington, D.C.
March 7, 1923.
My dear Jenkins:
I have been reading with much
interest the newspapers giving an
account of your success in sending
photographs by Radio from Washington
to Philadelphia. After my visit to
your laboratory a few weeks ago when
you told me of this proposed transmission,
I have been looking forward
to it feeling assured it would be
fully as successful as the papers have
related, and I want to add my congratulations
to the many you must have already
received, and which you so well
deserve. May your success continue.
With kindest regards, I am,
Yours very sincerely,
John
[Illustration: THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
PHILADELPHIA March 8, 1923. Mr. Francis Jenkins, 5502 Sixteenth
Street,N.W., Washington, D.C. My dear Mr. Jenkins: I want to say to you
how delighted I was to receive your letter of March 6th, accompanied by
the beautiful examples of your success in transmitting photographs by
radio. I enjoyed very decidedly the opportunity that you gave me of
seeing the process of receiving these pictures and have found since that
a number of those whose attention I called to your work, took advantage
of the opportunity and were greatly pleased with the results. I can only
say that I appreciate to a certain extent, at least, the tremendous
energy and persistence that you have put into the development of this
new art and most heartily congratulate you on the success that you have
obtained. I am promising myself that if I come to Washington at any time
in the near future to make a visit to your laboratory and see you in
your own private lair. Hoping that such an opportunity will not be too
long delayed. I am, Sincerely yours, Geo. A. Hoadley. S. and A.
Assistant.]
THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE
OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
PHILADELPHIA
March 8, 1923.
Mr. Francis Jenkins,
5502 Sixteenth Street,N.W.,
Washington, D.C.
My dear Mr. Jenkins:
I want to say to you how
delighted I was to receive your letter of
March 6th, accompanied by the beautiful
examples of your success in transmitting
photographs by radio. I enjoyed very decidedly
the opportunity that you gave me
of seeing the process of receiving these
pictures and have found since that a number
of those whose attention I called to
your work, took advantage of the opportunity
and were greatly pleased with the
results.
I can only say that I
appreciate to a certain extent, at least,
the tremendous energy and persistence that
you have put into the development of this
new art and most heartily congratulate you
on the success that you have obtained.
I am promising myself
that if I come to Washington at any time
in the near future to make a visit to your
laboratory and see you in your own private
lair. Hoping that such an opportunity
will not be too long delayed. I am,
Sincerely yours,
Geo. A. Hoadley.
S. and A. Assistant.
[Illustration: CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS 232 SOUTH 7TH STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PENNA. March 12th, 1923. Charles Francis Jenkins,
Washington, D.C. Dear Friend: The receipt of the Journal of the English
Historical Society a few days ago, in which is given a list of Friends
who have achieved distinction through inventions and in which your name
is given, shows that we have another point of contact in addition to our
exactly similar names, and that is, we are both Members of the Society
of Friends. If you ever get to Philadelphia, I hope you will stop in and
see me and arrange to have lunch with me, if possible. I have been much
interested in the considerable amount of publicity given your work
lately and I enclose a page from the Evening Bulletin, although I think
it more than likely you have seen it. With best wishes, Very truly,
Charles Francis Jenkins]
CHARLES FRANCIS JENKINS
232 SOUTH 7^{TH} STREET
PHILADELPHIA, PENNA.
March 12th, 1923.
Charles Francis Jenkins,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Friend:
The receipt of the Journal of
the English Historical Society a few days
ago, in which is given a list of Friends
who have achieved distinction through inventions
and in which your name is given,
shows that we have another point of contact
in addition to our exactly similar
names, and that is, we are both Members
of the Society of Friends.
If you ever get to Philadelphia,
I hope you will stop in and see me and
arrange to have lunch with me, if possible.
I have been much interested in
the considerable amount of publicity
given your work lately and I enclose a
page from the Evening Bulletin, although
I think it more than likely you have seen
it.
With best wishes,
Very truly,
Charles Francis Jenkins
[Illustration: NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY “BELLEVUE,” ANACOSTIA, D. C. 21
August 1923. Mr. C. F. Jenkins, 1519 Connecticut Ave., Washington, D.C.
My dear Jenkins: Thanks very much for the samples of your recent work.
They look very good. I was particularly interested in what you said
concerning the Chinese and Japanese methods of transmitting telegraphy.
I had heard something of this before but never realized how complicated
it would make the process for them. As soon as I can get this laboratory
well started I will certainly find time to look in on you and I hope
arrangements may be made for continuing some cooperative work with you.
We have designated a section of our organization to work on methods of
secret communication but just now we are unable to put anyone on that
work. I hope you will keep me in touch with your developments and let me
know in particular what progress you are making towards high speed work.
One of the best arguments that I can make for the Navy taking up such
work will be the matter of saving time in handling coded messages. With
best regards, I am, Very truly yours, A. Hoyt Taylor Physicist, USN]
NAVAL RESEARCH LABORATORY
“BELLEVUE,” ANACOSTIA, D. C.
21 August 1923.
Mr. C. F. Jenkins,
1519 Connecticut Ave.,
Washington, D.C.
My dear Jenkins:
Thanks very much for the samples of your
recent work. They look very good. I was
particularly interested in what you said
concerning the Chinese and Japanese methods
of transmitting telegraphy. I had heard
something of this before but never realized
how complicated it would make the process
for them.
As soon as I can get this laboratory
well started I will certainly find time to
look in on you and I hope arrangements may
be made for continuing some cooperative
work with you. We have designated a section
of our organization to work on
methods of secret communication but just
now we are unable to put anyone on that
work.
I hope you will keep me in touch with
your developments and let me know in particular
what progress you are making towards
high speed work. One of the best
arguments that I can make for the Navy
taking up such work will be the matter of
saving time in handling coded messages.
With best regards, I am,
Very truly yours,
A. Hoyt Taylor
Physicist, USN
[Illustration: POPULAR RADIO 9 EAST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK KENDALL
BANNING, _Editor_ _Vanderbilt 9985_ September 11, 1923. C. Francis
Jenkins,Esq., 1519 Connecticut Avenue, Washington, D.C. My dear Mr.
Jenkins: I certainly appreciate your interesting letter of September
10th, as well as the three photographic enclosures. I am tremendously
impressed, not only with what you have accomplished in the transmission
of pictures by radio, but also with the limitless possibilities that you
are opening up. It is entirely conceivable that the work you are doing
right now may have an effect upon civilization that will be almost
revolutionary. You must have had a corking good time on your airplane
trip from Omaha to Chicago. Yes, we have been, undoubtedly backward in
the development of our airplane commercial traffic. Some day we will
make up for lost time. Cordially, Kendall Banning]
POPULAR RADIO
9 EAST 40^{TH} STREET, NEW YORK
KENDALL BANNING, _Editor_ _Vanderbilt 9985_
September 11, 1923.
C. Francis Jenkins,Esq.,
1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington, D.C.
My dear Mr. Jenkins:
I certainly appreciate your interesting
letter of September 10th, as well
as the three photographic enclosures.
I am tremendously impressed, not only
with what you have accomplished in the
transmission of pictures by radio, but
also with the limitless possibilities
that you are opening up. It is entirely
conceivable that the work you are doing
right now may have an effect upon civilization
that will be almost revolutionary.
You must have had a corking good time
on your airplane trip from Omaha to
Chicago. Yes, we have been, undoubtedly
backward in the development of our airplane
commercial traffic. Some day we
will make up for lost time.
Cordially,
Kendall Banning
[Illustration: IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY INSPECTORS’ OFFICE ONE MADISON
AVENUE New York City October 6, 1923. Dr. C. Francis Jenkins, Radio
Pictures Corporation, Washington, D.C. Dear Dr. Jenkins: Thank you for
your kind note of October 4th enclosing some splendid reproductions of
the message I wrote when I called upon you at your Laboratory. Upon my
return to Japan, I shall inform our Home authorities about the merits of
your high speed camera and radio apparatus and will also present the
fine samples you sent me. By the way, kindly accept this expression of
gratitude for the courtesies you extended to me and my associates during
our recent visit to Washington. Very truly yours, T. Kuroda
ENGINEER_CAPTAIN, I. J. N.]
IMPERIAL JAPANESE NAVY
INSPECTORS’ OFFICE
ONE MADISON AVENUE
NEW YORK CITY
October 6, 1923.
Dr. C. Francis Jenkins,
Radio Pictures Corporation,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Dr. Jenkins:
Thank you for your kind
note of October 4th enclosing some
splendid reproductions of the message
I wrote when I called upon you at your
Laboratory.
Upon my return to Japan,
I shall inform our Home authorities
about the merits of your high
speed camera and radio apparatus and
will also present the fine samples you
sent me.
By the way, kindly
accept this expression of gratitude
for the courtesies you extended to me
and my associates during our recent
visit to Washington.
Very truly yours,
T. Kuroda
ENGINEER_CAPTAIN, I. J. N.
[Illustration: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Governor’s Office HARRISBURG
October 23, 1923. Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, 5502 Sixteenth Street,
Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Jenkins: My heartiest thanks for your letter
of October 17th and for the copy of my first photograph by radio. I
appreciate it more than I can easily say, and think it is a perfectly
marvelous piece of work under the circumstances. Also it is more than
pleasant to have it from you, in view of our long association, and so
beautifully mounted. With renewed appreciation, and heartiest thanks for
all the trouble you took in getting it up. Sincerely yours, Gifford
Pinchot]
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
Governor’s Office
HARRISBURG
October 23, 1923.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
5502 Sixteenth Street,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
My heartiest thanks for your letter
of October 17th and for the copy of my first
photograph by radio. I appreciate it more than
I can easily say, and think it is a perfectly
marvelous piece of work under the circumstances.
Also it is more than pleasant to have it from
you, in view of our long association, and so
beautifully mounted.
With renewed appreciation, and heartiest
thanks for all the trouble you took in getting it
up.
Sincerely yours,
Gifford Pinchot
[Illustration: 1339–1351 DIVERSEY PARKWAY CHICAGO December 21, 1923. Mr.
C. Francis Jenkins, Radio Pictures Corporation, Washington, D.C. Dear
Mr. Jenkins: I was delighted to receive your letter of the 19th.
Heartiest congratulations on making such wonderful progress with the
Radio Pictures. I am sure that I am going to be one of those fellows who
can proudly say “I knew him when—”. With all good wishes for a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year, I am, Sincerely, Rothacker Film Mfg. Co.
W. R. Rothacker WRR:GLD]
1339–1351 DIVERSEY PARKWAY
CHICAGO
December 21, 1923.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
Radio Pictures Corporation,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
I was delighted to receive your letter
of the 19th. Heartiest congratulations
on making such wonderful progress
with the Radio Pictures. I am
sure that I am going to be one of
those fellows who can proudly say
“I knew him when—”.
With all good wishes for a Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year, I am,
Sincerely,
Rothacker Film Mfg. Co.
W. R. Rothacker
WRR:GLD
[Illustration: EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY ROCHESTER, N.Y. February 18, 1924.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Jenkins: I am in
receipt of your letter of February 6th enclosing the copies of
photographs sent by radio. Your feat seems marvelous to me and I
heartily congratulate you upon its accomplishment. With kindest regards,
I am, Sincerely yours, Geo Eastman]
EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
ROCHESTER, N.Y.
February 18, 1924.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
I am in receipt of
your letter of February 6th enclosing
the copies of photographs sent by
radio. Your feat seems marvelous to
me and I heartily congratulate you
upon its accomplishment.
With kindest regards,
I am,
Sincerely yours,
Geo Eastman
[Illustration: 'WILLIAM]
W. J. Bryan'
WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
VILLA SERENA
MIAMI, FLORIDA
July 29, 1924.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
I thank you for the Radio Photograph—it
is wonderful! What is
there left to be discovered?
Appreciating your friendly
interest, I am,
Very truly yours,
W. J. Bryan
[Illustration: Department of Commerce OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY WASHINGTON
February 1, 1924. Mr. C. Francis Jenkins, 1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Jenkins: I wish to express my appreciation for
the photograph which you so kindly sent me. It represents a very
startling development in radio and sometime when I have some leisure I
would be interested in discussing the method with you. Yours faithfully,
Herbert Hoover]
Department of Commerce
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY
WASHINGTON
February 1, 1924.
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins,
1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
I wish to express my
appreciation for the photograph which
you so kindly sent me. It represents
a very startling development in radio
and sometime when I have some leisure
I would be interested in discussing
the method with you.
Yours faithfully,
Herbert Hoover
[Illustration: CARL AKELEY 77TH STREET AND CENTRAL PARK WEST NEW YORK
CITY March 16, 1925. Dear Mr. Jenkins: You are perfectly welcome to
publish anything I may have written you. I think few people realize or
appreciate the practical possibilities of the transmission of radio
photographs and the high development to which you have brought this art.
I congratulate you on your success and wish a speedy realization of your
dreams. Sincerely yours, Carl Akeley Mr. C. Francis Jenkins Jenkins
Laboratories 1519 Connecticut Avenue, Washington D C]
CARL AKELEY
77TH STREET AND CENTRAL PARK WEST
NEW YORK CITY
March 16, 1925.
Dear Mr. Jenkins:
You are perfectly welcome
to publish anything I may have
written you.
I think few people
realize or appreciate the practical
possibilities of the transmission of
radio photographs and the high development
to which you have brought this
art. I congratulate you on your success
and wish a speedy realization of
your dreams.
Sincerely yours,
Carl Akeley
Mr. C. Francis Jenkins
Jenkins Laboratories
1519 Connecticut Avenue,
Washington D C
The First Radio Channel
While perhaps not singly applicable to the subject of pictures by radio,
it is certain that without the discovery that signals could be
transmitted through the air without wires, we should not now have either
audible or visual radio.
While in 1832 Professor Joseph Henry discovered that electrical
oscillations could be detected a considerable distance from the
oscillator, it remained for a dentist, Dr. Mahlon Loomis, of Washington,
D. C., to actually send the first radio messages. In 1865 he built an
oscillating circuit, and connected it to a wire aerial supported in the
air by a kite. One station was set up on the top of Bear Den Mountain,
in Virginia, not very far from Washington; a duplicate station being set
up on top of Catoctin Spur, some fifteen miles distant.
Messages were sent alternately from one station to the other station, by
dot-and-dash interruption of a buzzer spark circuit; while reception was
attained by deflecting a galvanometer needle at the station which was at
the moment receiving.
In _Leslie’s Weekly_ (1868) Frank Leslie personally describes these
“successful experiments in communication without the aid of wires.”
Later (1869) a bill was introduced in the U. S. Congress to incorporate
the Loomis Aerial Telegraph Company (though nobody would buy the stock,
and it remained for others, years later, to reap the reward of radio
broadcasting).
In speaking on the bill, Senator Conger repeated, he said, the
explanation that Dr. Loomis made to him, that—
[Illustration:
This Illustration of Dr. Mahlon Loomis’s Wireless Telegraph Set Was
Made from His Original Drawings of His Invention Which Are on File
in the United States Patent Office at Washington.
]
“The system consists of causing electrical vibrations, or waves (from
the kite wire aerial) to pass around the world, as upon the surface of
some quiet lake into which a stone is cast one wave circlet follows
another from the point of disturbance to the remotest shores; so that
from any other mountain top upon the globe another conductor which shall
receive the impressed vibrations may be connected to an inductor which
will mark the duration of such vibration, and indicate by an agreed
system of notation, convertible into human language, the message of the
operator at the point of first disturbance.”—_From Congressional Globe,
Library of Congress._
Perhaps it may be a coincidence, or perhaps a blood strain of the
pioneer, that the first radio school ever set up by a woman should have
been founded by his granddaughter, Miss Mary Texanna Loomis, Washington,
D. C.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Nipkow and Sutton
One of the most interesting examples of the attempts to see by radio was
made the subject of a patent by Nipkow in 1884. The proposed transmitter
consisted of a selenium cell and an objective lens, with a spirally
perforated disc rotating between the cell and lens “to dissect the
scene.”
The receiving device employed the polarizing light valve used by Major
George O. Squire, and Professor A. C. Crehore, to measure the flight of
gun shells at Fort Monroe, Virginia, in 1895.
The Nipkow scheme was preceded by Shelford Bidwell’s device for “the
telegraphic transmission of pictures of natural objects,” described in
_Telegraphic Journal_ 1881, Vol. 9, page 83; and later almost exactly
duplicated by M. Henri Sutton, and rather fully described in _Lumiere
Electrique_, Vol. 38, page 538, 1890.
[Illustration: [Machines]]
The Amstutz System
Of all the mechanisms which have been designed for the transmission of
pictures electrically, that of N. S. Amstutz, of Valparaiso, Indiana, U.
S. A., in the author’s opinion, stands out as the most conspicuous, not
only for fine work, but for the cleverness of its accomplishment, the
first successful picture being sent in May, 1891, over a 25-mile wire in
eight minutes.
“Mr. Amstutz was not the first to send pictures over wire, but he was
the first to send pictures with halftones, the others were simply line
drawings. In this first method Mr. Amstutz used a relief photograph. The
amount of relief was in direct proportion to the amount of light which
had acted on the sensitive gelatine, resulting in an irregular surface,
representing in elevation all the variations of light and shade in a
regular picture.
“The picture received is actually a phonographic spiral around the
receiving drum carrying the celluloid sheet. When finished it is removed
from the cylinder and flattened out and a stereotype or electrotype made
from it for relief printing; or the engraved celluloid sheet can be
inked and printed immediately on the intaglio press.” (_From exhibit in
U. S. National Museum._)
[Illustration: THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN FROM THE RECEIVING MACHINE AFTER
HAVING BEEN TRANSMITTED EIGHT HUNDRED MILES OVER A TELEGRAPH WIRE. THE
INTERNATIONAL ELECTRO-GRAPH CO. NOV. 1ST, 1900. CLEVELAND, O.]
THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN FROM
THE RECEIVING MACHINE AFTER
HAVING BEEN TRANSMITTED EIGHT
HUNDRED MILES OVER A TELEGRAPH
WIRE.
THE INTERNATIONAL
ELECTRO-GRAPH CO.
NOV. 1ST, 1900. CLEVELAND, O.
The Electrograph
From the accompanying illustration and title it will readily be seen
that rather good pictures were reproduced with pen and ink method in
1890.
The original of this picture was given the author by Mr. T. A.
Witherspoon, who at the time of the experiment (1900) was a principal
examiner in the U. S. Patent Office, and detailed in charge of the
Patent Office Exhibit at the Buffalo Exposition, where, also, these
machines were on exhibition.
It may be a coincidence of passing interest that from Cleveland
twenty-four years later the American Telephone and Telegraph Company
sent their first wire pictures.
[Illustration: 1910.—Baker. 1. PHOTOGRAPH WIRED FROM PARIS TO LONDON]
The Baker Machine
The machine of the opposite illustration, “the telestereograph,” is the
invention of T. Thorn Baker, Esq., of England, and “was used by the
_London Daily Mirror_ in July, 1909, and was worked by wire rather
regularly between London and Paris, and London and Manchester.” The
picture to be sent was “a halftone photograph printed in fish glue on
lead foil, and wrapped on a sending cylinder, rotating once every two
seconds with a metal point riding on it.”
The receiving cylinder carried “an absorbent paper impregnated with a
colorless solution which turns black or brown when decomposed by the
incoming electric current.”
What electrolytic solution was employed is not stated in the report, but
was probably sodium iodide or potassium bromide judging from the
description of its color and behavior.
To synchronize, the receiving drum turns faster than the sending drum,
and is caught each revolution until the other catches up. (_Smithsonian
Report_, 1910.)
[Illustration: 2. FASHION PLATE TRANSMITTED BY PROFESSOR KORN’S
TELAUTOGRAPH.]
2. FASHION PLATE TRANSMITTED BY PROFESSOR KORN’S
TELAUTOGRAPH.
The Dr. Korn Machine
The accompanying illustration shows the work of a machine developed by
Dr. Korn, of Germany, and first used by the Daily Mirror between London
and Paris in 1907. “On a revolving glass cylinder” a transparent picture
was put. He used a Nernst lamp and “selenium cells on opposite sides of
a Wheatstone bridge” to overcome the inherent lag of the selenium cell.
Signals were sent over a wire and received on photographic film on a
cylinder, using “two fine silver strings free to move laterally in a
strong magnetic field.” A light was focused on the obstructing “silver
strings,” which the incoming electric signals, passing through the
“strings,” separated to a greater or lesser degree “to widen or thin the
photographed line.”
“When the film is developed it is laid out flat, and the spiral line
becomes resolved into so many parallel lines.” The sending and the
receiving machines were synchronized by “well calibrated clocks which
released the cylinders at end of every five seconds.” (_Mr. Baker in
Smithsonian Report_, 1910.)
[Illustration: [Machines]]
Rignoux and Fournier Scheme
One of the early suggestions had for its fundamental principle a surface
studded with thousands of “selenium cells” each a part of an individual
circuit, and upon which a picture was projected. The idea was that the
different cells would transmit a different value of current with each
different intensity of light which made up the picture.
At the distant station a given surface had a corresponding number of
tiny lamps, each attached to its respective cell at the sending station,
and being lighted thereby the ensemble would reproduce the distant
picture.
The scheme is possible but hardly practical, for if only fifty lines per
inch each way were sufficient on a picture but one foot square, there
would have to be three hundred and sixty thousand cells at the sending
end, and a like number of lamps at the receiving end, each but
one-fiftieth of an inch in diameter. Such a problem would seem to
present difficulties, though the author himself in the bravery of
ignorance suggested this very scheme in the _Electrical Engineer_, of
July 25, 1894. (_Illustration by courtesy of Science and Invention._)
[Illustration: [Machines]]
The Belin Machine
The “Belinograph” is the invention of Edouard Belin, of Paris. With
these machines “the first step in transmitting a picture is to convert
the latter into a bas-relief. Or a drawing can be made in a special ink,
which, when dry, leaves the lines in relief. The picture when ready for
transmission has an uneven surface, the irregularities of which
correspond with the pictorial details. The transmitter resembles the
cylinder of a phonograph. The picture is wrapped around this metal
cylinder, and a style presses down on the picture cylinder as it is
rotated by clockwork. As the style moves up and down over the
irregularities of the picture, a microphone varies the strength of an
electric transmitting current.
“At the receiving end another cylinder in a light-tight box carries a
sensitized paper upon which a point of light is reflected from the
mirror of a galvanometer actuated by the incoming current from the
distant station.”
Two very accurately regulated chronometers are employed to keep the
machines in synchronism, one chronometer for the sending machine and one
for the distant receiving machine. (_From Review of Reviews_, 1922.)
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
American Telephone & Telegraph Company Machine
The picture opposite is one of those sent by the A. T. & T. Company on
May 20, 1924, by wire from Cleveland to New York. Some of the pictures
sent were from photographs taken earlier, and some were taken only a few
minutes before being transmitted.
In the sending machine, “the film picture is inserted in the machine
simply by rolling it up in a cylindrical form and slipped into the drum.
During operation a very small and intense beam of light shines through
the film upon a photo-electric cell within.”
In the receiving machine, “the sensitive film is put on a rotating
cylinder and turns like the cylinder record on a phonograph. On this
film falls a point of intense white light varied constantly.”
For synchronizing “two separate currents were sent over the wires, one
is called the picture channel, the other the synchronizing channel.”
“Forty-four minutes elapsed from the time the picture was taken in
Cleveland until it was reproduced in New York.” (_New York Times, May
20, 1924._)
It seems unlikely that returns from the daily wire transmission of
pictures can equal the day-by-day revenue from the wires used for the
transmission of speech when balanced up for the principal circuit,
phantom circuits, and carrier circuits.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Radio Corporation Machine
The accompanying “photoradiogram” is a development by the Radio
Corporation of America, and was transmitted from London to New York on
November 30, 1924.
“The transparent picture film is placed on a glass cylinder. An
incandescent lamp inside the cylinder is focused in a minute beam onto
the film as the cylinder rotates, and this transfers the light values of
the picture into electrical impulses, in a General Electric Company
photo-electric cell.
“The receiving cylinder has white paper placed thereon, and the incoming
dots-and-dashes, amplified in passing through a bank of vacuum tubes,
are recorded in ink on this paper with a special vibrating fountain pen,
drawn down by magnet coils to record the picture much in the style of an
artistic stippled engraving.” The cylinders of both the sending and the
receiving machines are “rotated back and forth, the electric camera
itself advancing down the length of the picture one notch at a time.”
“The necessary synchronism of the two machines is maintained by the use
of special driving motors, and a special controlling mechanism based on
the constant pitch of a tuning fork.” (_See Radio News, February,
1925._)
[Illustration:
By courtesy of “The World,” New York.
A RADIO CODED PHOTOGRAPH.
How the picture looked after being sent from Rome by radio and decoded
on Professor Korn’s machine.
]
The above is an example of one of the rather odd methods of “sending
pictures by radio.” The picture to be sent is divided into many small
squares with varying values of dark in the squares. Seventeen different
grades of light in these squares are translated into seventeen letters
printed on a tape.
This coded picture is transmitted to a distant place and there decoded
into dots of sizes corresponding to the seventeen values, and each dot
placed in its corresponding square on a white paper. The collection of
large dots builds up the dark areas; a similar collection of smaller
dots makes up the halftones; and still other collections of very minute
dots make up the light areas. (_From the New York World._)
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
A telegraphic code scheme in which points in a picture are determined by
the crossing of straight lines, ordinates and abscissas, and in which
the shades of light, of gray, and of black which make up the picture are
also indicated by letters.
This coded information is telegraphed to the distant stations where the
receiving artist determines the location of these points and shades by
(1) a similar pair of crossed straight lines, and (2) letters indicating
the light values to be washed in on paper.
The process depends for its success largely on the skill and cleverness
of the receiving artist, and is hardly more than a “filler-in” pending
the adaption of the directly photographic process. (_Courtesy Science
and Invention._)
[Illustration: [Schematic]]
The Braun Tube Receiver
One of the theoretically attractive forms of receivers is the Braun
oscillograph tube, for it is so very easy to wobble the cathode ray spot
about over the fluorescent screen, to form figures. It has an
imponderable pencil of light which can be moved over the picture screen
with very little electrical energy. Its use has been proposed by many.
But the feature of the system which is most often overlooked in this
scheme is the necessity for an analytical picture machine at the sending
station, and no such device in satisfactory workable form has yet been
suggested.
The Braun tube system awaits, therefore, the attention of the
practical-application engineer before it can compete with other forms of
receivers.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Pictures by Radio in Natural Colors
It is well known that pictures in color are in common use in magazine
printing, in window transparencies, decorations, etc. The process
consisting in making three negatives, one through a red screen, a second
through a green screen, and a third through a blue screen. When
transparencies from these three negatives, each stained in its
complementary color, red, green and blue, are superimposed and viewed by
transmitted light, the resultant picture is seen in its natural colors.
With this process generally well known, it is obvious that three such
negatives transmitted by radio or wire could be colored and combined to
make a “picture sent by radio in natural colors.” Of course, the picture
is not sent in color at all, and the author hesitates to claim for such
a feat more than that the resultant picture proves the excellence of the
synchronism of the machines employed in the transmission of the three
successive pictures which after their reception are to be colored and
combined into one.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Prismatic Disc Machines
These machines are principally used in radio transmission of
photographs; employ four overlapping prismatic discs or “rings” in both
the sending and the receiving machines. Either a transparent or an
opaque picture is used in the sending instrument; and in the receiving
camera a filament lamp, modulated by the incoming radio signals,
recorded on a photographic negative plate.
In the sending machine (first illustration) the picture is projected
with a magic lantern (1) through four overlapping prismatic rings, (2)
two of which in rotation sweep the picture vertically across the light
sensitive cell, at the same time the image is moved laterally by the
other pair of prisms. The different light values of the picture are
changed into electric values in light cell 4, and broadcast. A rotating
perforated disc, (3) interposed between the lens and light cell,
produces a pulsating direct current which can immediately be amplified
through the usual radio transformers, on its way to the broadcasting
set.
In the radio camera (second illustration) a photographic negative (1) is
used and a pencil of light from lamp 2. The rotating plates (3) draw the
lines and the radio signals vary the light intensities of the lamp to
give gradations of exposure on the negative plate. (See next page.)
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
The Jenkins Prismatic Ring
The prismatic ring or plate is a new contribution to optical science,
and was designed for use in a machine for the transmission of radio
pictures from a flat surface, and for recording them on a flat surface,
the only way in which radio vision and radio movies will ever be
produced; and a method which permits of the reception of portraits
having true photographic value, without lines, and having tone and
shading unequaled by any other known process to date.
The prismatic ring section is ground into the face of a glass disc, and
from one end to a point half around it has its base outward, and from
this midway point around to the other end having its base inward. The
warp from one end to the other is gradual.
A beam of light passing through this ring, in rotation, is caused to
oscillate, having its hinged action fulcrumed in the plane of rotation
of the prism ring. The oscillation is always in the plane of the
diameter of the disc from the point where the light passes through the
prismatic ring section.
The plates (made with the initial grinding machine) may have one, two,
or four prismatic sections to the ring, and may be made right or left
hand, and in 10 inch and in 7 inch sizes, and also in disc ring (first
illustration) or band ring form (second illustration).
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Jenkins Synchronizing Forks
The accompanying photographs show a vibrating-fork-control employed to
keep distantly separated motors in synchronism. This is the motor
control employed in the system developed by the author for the sending
and receiving of photographs and photograms, by radio and by wire.
The control unit is surprisingly simple and dependable, and is believed
might be found useful for many other purposes where it is desired to
keep motors in step with each other which are separated by long
distances, the control signals being sent by wire or by radio, and from
fixed or moveable stations, on land, on water, or in the air.
The fork illustrated is about fifteen inches long, mounted on a cast
brass frame with a bakelite cover plate upon which the fork, motor coil,
and binding posts are mounted. A single cell of dry battery keeps the
fork in vibration.
The device is designed on a new principle, and has a very sharp control
of the motor revolutions. Simple means are provided for easily verifying
the continuity of the motor control.
These fork motor units will control any number of motors of any size, at
any distance, and on moveable or stationary platforms.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
The Jenkins Picture-Strip Machine
In the transmission of news, market reports, etc., as a continuous
process a long strip of paper of typewritten copy is put into this
machine, and the blacks and whites of the letters and figures falling on
the light sensitive cell open and close a C. W. broadcast or wire
circuit; which at distant points is translated back into light and
recorded on a long strip of photographic paper.
This can be a continuous process if the sending strip is added too from
time to time, and the receiving photographic strip of paper, as it is
exposed, passes continuously through a developing, fixing, washing and
drying bath. This process might be required by the conditions of
service. A white strip and an electric pen may be used instead of photo
paper.
In the sending machine the rotating prisms sweep the image of the
typewriter line across the light sensitive cell; and the strip is moved
longitudinally by winding on a drum.
In the receiving machine the strip is drawn along while it is curved
around a rotating cylinder inside which the modulating light is located,
turned off and on by radio. A corona glow lamp is preferably employed
with the photographic paper.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Jenkins Duplex Machine
The Jenkins duplex cylinder type of machine was designed for
simultaneously sending and receiving photograms, letters, maps,
drawings, etc. The motor runs all day long, like an electric fan, in
control of the vibrating fork. The right hand (glass) cylinder sends;
and the left hand cylinder receives. The messages are put on and taken
off without stopping the machine, and without one function interfering
with the other.
The machine may be used on radio or on wire, and is an easily operated
machine, the perfect functioning of which can be determined by a glance
at the perforated rotating disc illuminated by the synchronizing signal
lamp.
It is believed to be the first duplex two-way service machine ever
built, and is complete as shown, except for the batteries and the radio
receiving set, which latter may be any standard set which will operate a
loudspeaker.
The illustration shows a machine in which a picture transparency and a
sensitive cell is used at the sending cylinder; and a high speed lamp
and photographic paper at the receiving cylinder.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
“Talking Machine” Photograms
The spring driven machine illustrated is probably the simplest device
possible for the experimental study of transmission of pictures and
picture messages by radio or by wire. A conducting ink or pencil line on
paper and put on one cylinder (or an insulating coating cut through with
a stylus) over which the sending point rides for sending; and an
electrolytic bromide (or photo) paper on the other cylinder under the
receiving pen for receiving; the contact points being attached to the
sending and the receiving sets respectively.
The upper illustration shows a machine electrically driven and equipped
to transmit and receive handwritings, maps, sketches, pictures, etc., of
an area of about 5 × 7 inches. The sending is from pencil lines on
paper, the reception on electrolytic paper.
The machine is also made with a glass cylinder to send from a picture
transparency, and to receive on photographic paper. It must, therefore,
be used in a dark or subdued lighted room to receive.
Each machine is capable of the very highest quality of work of its
particular kind, and is simple and easy to operate.
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
Radio Vision
The machines here shown are the laboratory models used in the
development of Radio Vision and Radio Movies for the reception in the
home of broadcast studio performances, i. e., dancing girls, public
speakers, pantomime, marionettes, motion pictures; and, by remote
control, outdoor events, sports, etc.
The lower illustration shows a 10″ disc rotating in front of a prismatic
ring, synchronized by a variable speed of the motor. The light is in the
round box at the top of the standard behind the lens carrier, and shines
through lenses and prism (onto a picture screen) as they pass, the light
fluctuating in value with the incoming radio signals to make up a
complete picture every one-sixteenth of a second.
The upper illustrated mechanism differs from the lower one in that it
has a second overlapping prism for optical correction.
The casing enclosing the mechanism is not very large, and contains,
besides the radio vision mechanism, the radio receiving set, and a
loudspeaker, so that an entire opera in both action and music may be
received.
[Illustration:
The prismatic ring can be rotated to follow any moving object; e.g., a
motion picture film; or if fitted with a high-reading automobile
speedometer the speed of an airplane or dirigible can be read
directly off a dial by the navigating officer.
]
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
[Illustration: glowing filament offset hollow cylinder filled with light
NEW LIGHT SOURCES FOR RADIO vibrating gold leaf electroscope for
blinking a constant light source spark plug light source]
glowing
filament
offset
hollow
cylinder
filled
with
light
NEW LIGHT
SOURCES FOR RADIO
vibrating
gold leaf
electroscope
for blinking
a constant
light
source
spark plug
light
source
[Illustration: [Drawing]]
[Illustration:
The rotation of the disc _A_ carrying lenses _b_, _c_, _d_, etc.,
sweeps
the image of the light source _C_ across the screen _F_ in a
horizontal
direction, while line displacement in a vertical direction
is effected by reason of the changing angle of successive prism
elements.
]
[Illustration:
The rotation of the disc _A_ carrying lenses arranged in a spiral
causes the light _L_ to sweep across the screen _M_. A revolution
every sixteenth second gives a motion picture screen effect.
]
[Illustration:
RADIO MOTION PICTURE MECHANISM
The rotation of the drum _A_ carrying the lenses _b_, _b′_, _b″_,
etc., causes the image of the light source _S_ to sweep across the
screen _Y_ in two directions. A complete rotation every sixteenth of
a second is motion picture speed.
]
[Illustration:
Radio Vision hook-up circuits. _A_ is the light cell. The upper
circuit puts a “chopper” frequency onto the radio carrier wave by
the inductive coupling.
The lower diagram shows an intermediate frequency oscillator to be
controlled by a light cell (not shown), the intermediate being put
on the carrier wave.
]
Historical Sketch of Jenkins Radio Photography
1894. Jenkins publishes article on transmission of pictures electrically
with illustration of proposed apparatus.—_Electrical Engineer, July 25,
1894._
1913. Proposes another mechanism, for “Motion Pictures by
Wireless.”—_Motion Picture News, September 27, 1913._
1920. Reads paper on the Prismatic Ring, a new contribution to
optical science (an essential element in transmission of radio
pictures).—_Transactions Society Motion Picture Engineers, Toronto
Meeting, May, 1920._
1922. Sends first radio photograph; sent from a photograph, and received
photographically; and predicts motion pictures by radio in the
home.—_Washington Evening Star, May 19, 1922._
1922. Sends photographs by telephone wire of American Telephone &
Telegraph Company, through his desk telephone, from 1519 Connecticut
Avenue (Washington) to Navy Radio Station, NOF, at Anacostia, D. C., and
there broadcast. The signals were picked up and recorded on a
photographic plate at 5502 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, D. C., in
presence of Commander A. Hoyt Taylor, of the U. S. Navy, and J. C.
Edgerton, of the Post Office; October 3, 1922.
1922. Makes official demonstration of his radio transmission of
photographs for Navy officials December 12, 1922, in presence of
Admirals S. S. Robison and H. J. Ziegemeier, Captain J. T. Tompkins,
Commander S. C. Hooper, Lt. Commanders E. H. Loftin and H. P. LeClair;
the report of which was later released for publication.—_Washington
Evening Star, January 14, 1923._
1923. Sends radio photographs of President Warren G. Harding, Secretary
Herbert Hoover, Governor Gifford Pinchot, and others, from U. S. Navy
Radio Station, NOF, Washington, to Evening Bulletin Building,
Philadelphia, by courtesy of Robt. McLean, Jr., March 2,
1923.—Reproduced in the _Bulletin_, and in the _Washington Star_, March
3, 1923.
1923. Makes his first laboratory demonstration of Radio Vision (the
instantaneous reproduction on a small picture screen of a distant
performer or a distant scene), and of Radio Movies (the transmission of
pictures from a theatre screen to a small screen in the home), June 14,
1923. See _Visitor’s Register_.
1924. Makes his first hundred-line photograph, June 15, 1924, portraits
of true photographic values in which no lines appear. Photographs of
President Calvin Coolidge, Dr. J. S. Montgomery, Chaplain of the House,
William Jennings Bryan, etc. See letters of congratulations from
subjects of these photographic tests.
1924. Sends message, in Japanese characters, from Charge d’Affairs, I.
Yoshida, of the Japanese Embassy, Washington, i.e., sending from the old
Navy Station, NOF, to Amrad Station, WGI, Medford Hillside,
Massachusetts; reported and reproduced in _Boston Traveler_, December 4,
1924.
1924. Apparatus bought and used experimentally by U. S. Post Office
Department, on night-flying section, Air Mail route, New York-San
Francisco, first message night of December 3, 1924. See James W.
Robinson’s telegram, December 15, 1924.
1925. Transmits Motion Pictures by Radio from standard motion picture
film to be looked at directly on a small motion picture screen in the
distant radio receiving set; Tuesday, March 31, 1925. S.L.A., F.M.A.,
J.N.O., J.W.R., T.P.D.
[Illustration:
This machine is the prototype of the motion picture projector in
universal use the world over, the result of experimentation begun by
Mr. Jenkins in 1890; the machine finished and publicly exhibited in
1893 and 1894. Later shown before the Franklin Institute, and
thereafter in the U. S. National Museum. When it has completed its
service in the Laboratory office, the Franklin Institute Museum will
be the final depository.
]
[Illustration:
The accompanying cuts show the Elliott Cresson Gold Medal, awarded by
the Franklin Institute, of Philadelphia, for a machine exhibited
before the Institute in 1895 by Mr. C. Francis Jenkins.
]
[Illustration:
Later, in making a second award, that of the John Scott Medal, “in
recognition of the value of this invention,” the Institute Committee
said: “Eighteen years ago the applicant exhibited a commercial
motion picture projecting machine which he termed the ‘Plantoscope.’
This was recognized by the Institute and subsequently proved to be
the first successful form of projecting machine for the production
of life-size motion pictures from a narrow strip of film containing
successive phases of motion.”
]
[Illustration: ANNO DOMINI MDCCCCXXIV In recognition of services
rendered to the screen by =C. Francis Jenkins——= as inventor of the
motion picture projector—— =S=tory =W=orld =M=agazine of =H=ollywood, in
a series of articles published in 1923–24 names =M=r. =J=enkins as one
of— =T=he =T=en =G=reatest =F=igures in— =M=otion =P=ictures—=I=t now
takes pleasure in making this formal acknowledgment of its judgment—
=S=tory =W=orld——Jay Brien Chapman September _First_ _Editor_]
ANNO DOMINI MDCCCCXXIV
In recognition of services
rendered to the screen by
=C. Francis Jenkins——=
as inventor of the motion
picture projector——
=S=tory =W=orld =M=agazine
of =H=ollywood, in a series of
articles published in 1923–24
names =M=r. =J=enkins as one of—
=T=he =T=en =G=reatest =F=igures in—
=M=otion =P=ictures—=I=t now takes
pleasure in making this formal
acknowledgment of its judgment—
=S=tory =W=orld——Jay Brien Chapman
September _First_ _Editor_
[Illustration: American Projection Society INCORPORATED ABILITY PROGRESS
SCIENCE MEMBERSHIP CERTIFICATE This is to certify that C. F. Jenkins
having proved his fitness has been duly received into The American
Projection Society Inc. as a Honorary Member, and is entitled to all
rights and privileges as such. In Witness thereof the Executive Officers
of the Chapter have hereunto affixed their signatures. President
Secretary Treasurer Date June 12, 1924]
American Projection Society
INCORPORATED
ABILITY PROGRESS SCIENCE
MEMBERSHIP CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that
C. F. Jenkins
having proved his fitness has been duly received
into The American Projection Society Inc. as a
Honorary Member, and is entitled to all rights
and privileges as such.
In Witness thereof the Executive Officers of the Chapter
have hereunto affixed their signatures.
President
Secretary
Treasurer
Date June 12, 1924
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
The Jenkins High Speed Camera
This camera was designed for the study of high speed motions; i.e., the
flight of birds, recoil of guns, the impact of shell on plate, muscular
activity of athletes, airplane behavior, mechanical motions, etc.
The normal rate of exposures is 1,000 to 3,000 pictures per second
(4,000 pictures per second have been made).
It uses standard motion picture super-speed negative film. Prints from
these negatives are made in any standard motion picture printer, and
developed in the usual way.
The prints may then be projected in any standard motion picture
projecting machine, giving an apparent reduction of 100 to 200 times in
the speed of movement of the object photographed, and therefore easily
studied.
The camera is fitted with 48 Zeiss Tessar lenses, F-3.5 and 2″ focus,
and is driven by an automobile starting motor.
It weighs approximately 100 pounds, and therefore easily moved from
place to place. (Weight of two 6-volt automobile batteries additional.)
Sunshine is adequate for illumination. If artificial illumination is
employed, it should be equal to sunshine.
(NOTE: The explanation of the unusual speed possible with this camera
lies in its lens system, for each lens may work as much as 150 per cent
of the time; that is, the exposures overlap.)
[Illustration: [Photographs]]
The Genesis of Radio
_A Broadcast from WRC, November 20, 1924_
C. FRANCIS JENKINS
The history of radio is unique—at first only a scientific curiosity, and
for years thereafter a boy’s plaything; when, all at once, without
warning, the public takes it up with a suddenness no one foresaw, and
for which no one was prepared.
An invention which behaves so peculiarly excites one’s curiosity to a
study of its strange attraction; and of the beginnings of the scientific
principles involved, now so knowingly discussed by mere youngsters.
Why, boys in the whole range of their ’teens discourse with fluency and
understanding such mysteries as inductance, impedence and capacities;
reactance, reluctance and rotors; harmonics, aerials, and mush;
choppers, chokes and cheese; heterodyne, neutrodyne, and iodine; and we
oldsters don’t know whether they are talking of medicine, music or food.
The only thing that saves us from everlasting embarrassment is that we
have the gumption to keep our mouths shut.
So, determined to be ready for these “kids” the next time they come into
my august presence, I start in to “bone up” on some of these funny
words, and for a start I turn to a musty volume printed by Congress in
1879.
It appears that on January 16 of that year the business of Congress was
stopped, and, in solemn procession, led by the Sergeant-at-Arms, the
Chaplain, and the Vice-President, the Senate proceeded to the House
chamber, where the Speaker handed his official gavel to the
Vice-President, who said: “The Senators and Members of the Congress of
The United States are here assembled to take part in services to be
observed in memory of the late Joseph Henry.”
And, as I read the addresses made on that memorable occasion, and look
up the references cited, I get the solution to my problem.
I find it was Joseph Henry who first discovered that breaking the
circuit in a coiled wire “gives a more intense spark than the same wire
uncoiled.” And so inductance was born, and later in his honor we name
its unit of measure a “henry.”
Then he put iron inside the coil and got the first magnetic field; next
he found that when he arranged a second similar coil near the first, the
spark appeared in a gap of the second circuit, and so we have the first
transformer.
He put parallel metal plates across the circuit, and he had a condenser;
and finally he separated the circuits by many hundred feet, and the
first radio signals were broadcast and picked up.
So we learn that to this modest but remarkable man we owe the simple
coupling coil that the boys of the past twenty-five years have been
using to telegraph to each other wirelessly.
And it is these American youngsters who have developed radio; who first
set up two-way communication half-way around the world; who, through
their Radio Relay League, kept Captain McMillan in touch with home
during his long winter night in the Arctic ice; who kept the
_Shenandoah_ in constant contact with headquarters in Washington during
her recent transcontinental trip, official acknowledgment of which was
publicly made by the Secretary of the Navy.
Radio eventually will touch our lives at more points directly and
indirectly than any other discovery in the history of mankind, unless,
perhaps, I should make an exception in favor of fire.
And the delightful thing about it all is that the inaccessible places
are benefited the most by radio, those in the out-of-the way places are
less lonesome, and the long day of the sick and shut-in is more
endurable.
The farmer has his market reports on the minute, his weather forecasts
in time for action, and he sets his clock by radio and gets his
entertainment from the air.
Dispatched and guided by radio, the flying mail goes day and night with
such clocklike regularity that its remarkable performance is no longer
“news,” although industry has not yet waked up to the advantage and
economy which can be effected by a larger use of the airmail.
Ships are guided into harbor through fog by wireless direction, and the
captain was guided thereto by radio compass and radio beacon, and at sea
summons aid in case of mishap or danger.
In commerce one may send letters, telegrams, bank drafts, or engineer’s
drawings, as radio photographs of the originals, with photographic
accuracy and autographic authenticity.
Men on the ground talk with men in a flying machine out of sight in the
sky, an almost inconceivable fact.
This reason alone would warrant one in predicting that the defense of
our country is definitely going to pass from the limited activities of
the Army and Navy to an Air Department, for the plane has no boundary or
limit of range in offense or defense.
And in addition there is the wireless direction of bomb-dropping
airplanes, torpedo submarines, and floating mines, inanimate agencies
obeying the distant, unseen hand.
And ultimately power will be transmitted to populous areas, over
wireless channels, from the enormous unworked coal fields away up in the
Arctic Circle.
The applications of radio are coming so fast in industry that it is hard
to keep informed, but doubtless its most extended use will be in the
home.
The use of microphone modulated radio to carry music and speech to our
homes celebrated its fourth anniversary only two weeks ago.
And yet in this brief space (=1=) millions on millions have been
entertained with the very best the artist has to offer; (=2=) a singer
has been heard around the world; (=3=) and our President has addressed
his fellow Americans as a single audience.
When onto the boundless range of audible radio is grafted the world-wide
appeal of the picture, the ideal means of entertainment would seem to
have been attained, for the picture is without language, literacy or age
limitation.
By radio we shall see what is happening in a distant place; inaugural
ceremonies, football, baseball or polo games; flower festival, mardi
gras, or baby parade.
So when the development of radio as a service to the eye has progressed
to a like extent with ear-service radio, we will bring the entire opera
to your home in both acting and music, or even the Olympic games from
across the sea.
It has been most satisfying to have had a part in the development of
this wonderful medium of contact between individuals and between
nations. My part being principally visual radio, I expect great things
from Radio Vision.
And did you ever notice the curious fact that a great laboratory,
despite its inestimable contributions to science and engineering, has
never yet brought forth a great, revolutionary invention which has
subsequently started a new industry, like the telegraph, telephone, and
telescope; motion picture, typecasting and talking machines; typewriter,
bicycle and locomotive; automobile, flying machine, and radio vision.
It has always been a poor man to first see these things, and as a rule
the bigger the vision the poorer the man.
And, do you know, that is right comforting, too; for I sometimes think
that perhaps I myself may yet do something worth while if I only stay
poor enough, long enough.
Radio Patents of Interest
129,971 Loomis
235,469 Bell
571,463 Thompson
653,881 Pollack
660,199 Pollack
714,577 Gruhn
725,140 Roberts
841,387 DeForest
867,877 DeForest
879,532 DeForest
884,110 Stone-Cabot
929,930 Latour
934,969 DeForest
968,484 Kruh
980,356 Squire
980,357 Squire
980,358 Squire
980,359 Squire
1,015,881 Fessenden
1,030,240 Hoglund
1,059,763 Reisz
1,069,535 DeBernochi
1,097,871 Murphy
1,135,624 Rosing
1,141,850 Stille
1,161,734 Rosing
1,316,967 Moore
1,329,688 Voulgre
1,356,763 Hartley
1,370,504 Hammond
1,385,325 Jenkins
1,390,445 Jenkins
1,406,445 Culver
1,413,333 Jenkins
1,423,737 Sandell
1,434,064 Montielhet
1,436,676 Peterson
1,440,466 Jenkins
1,444,605 Heising
1,450,080 Hazeltine
1,454,532 Beatty
1,467,988 Hoxie
1,470,696 Nicholson
1,475,583 Hoxie
1,484,648 Jenkins
1,485,773 Espenshied
1,489,228 Hazeltine
1,505,158 Martin
1,521,188 Jenkins
1,521,189 Jenkins
1,521,190 Jenkins
1,521,191 Jenkins
1,521,192 Jenkins
1,521,205 Stephenson
1,522,305 Latour
1,525,548 Jenkins
1,525,549 Jenkins
1,525,550 Jenkins
1,525,551 Jenkins
1,525,552 Jenkins
1,525,553 Jenkins
1,530,463 Jenkins
[Illustration:
Note: As Washington is the birthplace of radio, and has been the
birthplace of more revolutionary inventions, upon which great
industries have been built, than any other ten-mile territory, it
may be interesting, and appropriate, to add here a recount by Mr.
Jenkins of Washington’s claims to intellectual stimulus.—EDITOR.
]
Washington, the City of Enchantment
_Broadcast from WCAP, September 26, 1924_
C. FRANCIS JENKINS
Washington is the home of our Federal Government; but it is more than
that—it is a delightful place to work, a stimulus to excellence in
mental activity. Those of us who had wandered about more or less
aimlessly before we discovered Washington well understand how its genial
climate called forth the Presidential praise of our honor guest from the
cool, green hills of Vermont.
Add to the delight of the climate, the charm of Washington’s setting,
and one appreciates why, from the Executive Mansion outward to the very
rim of federal activity, all remain, if they can, after leaving office.
Woodrow Wilson stayed here, until he passed away. President Harding was
hurrying home when his end came. The only living ex-president resides in
the District.
Abraham Lincoln was loath to leave Washington, it is said, and so
preferred a summer cottage in the Soldier’s Home Grounds, as did many of
his successors, rather than a more elaborate executive residence
elsewhere, while the White House was getting its annual dressing.
In the house now occupied by the Cosmos Club, Dolly Madison ruled social
Washington in such a scintillating setting that even the widows of
presidents, with few exceptions, have made their later homes here.
Nor is it strange, for this is the city the unequaled plan of which was
worked out with such loving care by Major Charles L’Enfant, as he leaned
over a drawing board in his home near the old Tudor Mansion; the parks
of the plan later beautified by the landscape gardener, Andrew J.
Downing.
And this magnificent dream city had the proper antecedents, too, for it
was from this very site the old Indian chief Powhatan ruled his own vast
territory before ever the white man had set up the capital of a nation
dedicated to peace and opportunity.
Many eminent statesmen and great orators have found Washington environs
so satisfying that they have spent their last years within this
forest-like city. The inimitable Henry Clay was buried here in 1852;
Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, lies in the
Congressional Cemetery; and John Lee Carroll, a former Governor of
Maryland, found his last resting place in a local graveyard.
It was in Washington as the head of the Federal Party that that
distinguished orator, Daniel Webster, made his indelible impress on
American history.
In the old “Union Tavern” on a site now occupied by a large apartment
building one could have found hobnobbing with resident genius, in that
early yesterday, such guests as Louis Phillipe, Count Valney, Lord
Lyons, Baron Humboldt, Charles Talleyrand, Jerome Bonaparte, Washington
Irving, Charles Dickens, General St. Clair, Lorenzo Dow, John Randolph,
and perhaps Charles Goodyear, when he was asking for a patent for
vulcanizing rubber.
Even the dashing Robert E. Lee, leaving his ancestral home overlooking
Washington, rode regretfully away to duty in his beloved south.
One may perhaps concede that associations would attract retired admirals
and generals to a residence here—Admirals Evans, Dewey, Schley, Sampson,
Peary, and Generals Greely, Crook, Wheeler, Miles and Pershing, within
my own unprompted memory, but what is the secret which brings back to
Washington those who have looked upon the enchanting spots of our
wonderful country; the three Johns, for example, John C. Freemont, the
great northwest pathfinder; John W. Powell, explorer of the Grand Canon
of the Colorado; John A. Sutter, discoverer of gold in California.
Even Governor Shepherd, who _made_ Washington, and afterward was
practically banished to Mexico, prayed that he might be brought back to
the city of his dreams, and his wish gratified, he lies at rest amid the
grassy slopes of Rock Creek Cemetery.
It was ever thus; even stubborn old Davy Burns must have thought well of
Washington for he brought from his native land not only a charming
daughter but the bricks with which he builded a cottage for her, and
from whose humble door this Scottish lassie later went to a haughty
family and a mansion as the wife of Major General Van Ness.
Not only from official life, but from all fields of activity, the
capital city attracts to itself an unusual aggregation of
mentality—scientific and literary and industrial.
Poets and great writers, noted scientists and renowned inventors have
done their best work in the invigorating atmosphere of the capital,
washed clear by the mist of the Great Falls of the Potomac.
It was here Francis Scott Key lived when he wrote “The Star Spangled
Banner,” a spot marked by the new memorial bridge just completed; here
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote that immortal story, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”;
Walt Whitman the first edition of his “Leaves of Grass”; James Bryce
“The American Commonwealth”; and Owen Meredith his “Lucile.”
In a rose-covered cottage on the heights overlooking the river, across
from the Arlington National Cemetery, Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
wrought; and in a less flowery abode impecunious Edgar Allan Poe wrote
much of his “spooky stuff.”
Looking down upon the city from the east, John Howard Payne, in tranquil
contentment, on his return from a sojourn in a foreign land, wrote the
one song which will never die, “Home, Sweet Home.”
In isolated serenity in Rock Creek Park stands the cabin of Joaquin
Miller, “the poet of the Sierras,” now the shrine of the artist as well
as the writer.
Across Lafayette Park, opposite the White House, George Bancroft, the
great historian, calmly laid down his pen in his 91st year and passed to
his great reward.
And it was here that the painter James McNeill Whistler began his climb
to an artistic, world-renowned fame.
As for science, why Washington is the scientific center of the world.
More revolutionary discoveries which have been the foundations of great
industries have been made in the District of Columbia than any other ten
miles square in all the world.
It was here that the great Joseph Henry spent the most prolific period
of his sixty years of usefulness.
On the bosom of Rock Creek, Fulton first floated the model of his
steamboat, the _Clermont_; and on the Potomac River, Professor Langley
tested out the aerodynamic principles upon which all airplanes are
built, and at a time when the “flying machine” was a subject not
mentioned in elite scientific circles.
In the observatory on Cathedral Heights, that great astronomer, Simon
Newcomb, worked; and nearby Cleveland Abbe, the famous meteorologist,
published the first daily weather reports.
Between Washington and Baltimore, Professor S. F. B. Morse, in 1844, put
his telegraph to work, the first telegraph operator being Theodore N.
Vail, late president of the A. T. & T. Company. Dr. Graham Bell
perfected his telephone here, Professor Tainter the wax cylinder
phonograph, and Mr. Berliner the talking machine.
Both the typecasting machines, the linotype and monotype, were invented
in the District; and here a stenographer in the Life Saving Service
invented the first motion picture machine, the prototype of the
projector used in every picture theatre the world over to this very day.
From the hills of Virginia, across the river, the first wireless message
ever transmitted was sent into Washington; and from Washington to
Philadelphia the first photographs by radio were sent.
When the Daughters of the American Revolution sought a permanent home no
place could successfully compete with the charm of Washington; and here
also the American Red Cross and the Pan American Union set up their
respective domiciles.
In Kendall Green Park, in the northeast section of the city, the
Columbia Institute for the Deaf was set up, the only Institution of its
kind in the world, the gift of Gallaudet to the afflicted.
It was in Washington that another philanthropist, William W. Corcoran,
built the Louise Home for Southern gentlewomen, as well as the Corcoran
Art Gallery, the latter a gift to the city. He was laid away in Oak Hill
Cemetery, the resting place of an unequaled gathering of distinguished
Americans.
In the north of the city is the Walter Reed Hospital, named in honor of
Dr. Walter Reed, who heroically risked his life to prove that yellow
fever germs were communicated by mosquitos.
The Carnegie Institute “for the encouragement of investigation, research
and discovery,” and the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory are both located
here.
In Washington the Geographic Society was established, and the unique
_Geographic Magazine_ is published; and here the beautiful home for the
National Academy of Science has just been dedicated.
So the atmosphere of Washington works its witchery on resident as well
as those who stop here but briefly, a mental stimulus of no uncertain
potency; and as for scenic beauty, it is unequaled and getting more
beautiful and more attractive all the time.
As I fly above the city its streets are hidden under a criss-cross of
green trees, with the superb white dome of the Capitol standing out
above the verdure in majestic splendor; and over to the west the Lincoln
Memorial, looking for all the world like a jewel box of alabaster. And
on the rim of the mist beyond stands a bowl-like marble amphitheatre
keeping watch over the grave of the Unknown Soldier, while still farther
around to the north looms the great National Cathedral on Mount St.
Albans, where lies “the man of peace.”
And it was this inspiring sight that greeted the homeward bound,
round-the-world flyers as they glided over the city to a landing in
Boiling Field.
An annual pilgrimage to this mecca of glorious past and wondrous
present, with its wealth of white buildings, its miles of park roads,
its spring cherry blossoms and autumn colors is always inspiring.
From whatever point of view, Washington well deserves the pride of
possession of all worthy Americans.
[Illustration:
Every normal man instinctively seeks a recreational activity—hunting,
fishing, riding, tennis, golf. The author’s relaxation from research
work is flying an airplane—and it’s delightful sport.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
● Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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