Early Color Television
George H. Fathauer
George Fathauer founded a number of companies in the electronics business. Here are some quotes from a booklet he wrote in 1995:
In the late 40s, after a short time working for RCA, Fathauer moved to Indiana. At this point in time, television was just becoming a significant consumer item, and television transmitting stations were being constructed in the major cities of the U.S. Because of limited coverage of the transmitters and relatively poor sensitivity of television receivers, there were large fringe areas where reception was very poor. (I was) able to develop a device which could be connected between the television antennae and the receiver and significantly boost the signal and make TV reception satisfactory in fringe areas. This appeared to be a marketable device, and it was decided to .... manufacture it under the name of Regency. This quickly became very successful, and Regency ended up as a fairly substantial manufacturing operation, producing over 400 TV boosters per day... The unusual success of the Regency TV booster I think gave the company a false sense of prosperity and gave me concern because the development of television was resulting in a proliferation of television stations and at the same time, and improvement in performance of television receivers. The result of these things was starting to impact the market for TV boosters and would appear to completely eliminate the need for these devices as this development progressed. |
Fathauer then founded Dage Electronics Corporation (Fathauer said the name Dage came from the first two letters of his brother's name Dave, and his first name George. However, an email from Fathauer's neice claims that the first two letters were from Dan Meadows).
(I) became quite interested in the technical challenge and potential of closed-circuit television, utilizing recently developed camera tubes known as vidicons produced by RCA....(I) formed a company called Dage Electronics Corporation to develop and manufacture television cameras and related equipment aimed at the industrial market. |
In 1954 Fauthauer developed the color monitor we have in our collection. Here is a newspaper article describing the equipment: |
In 1954 Fathauer sold Dage. After starting several other companies, he founded Antique Electronic Supply, now a major supplier of parts for antique radio restoration. In 1994 he sold the company. He now operates a firm that serves collectors with antique radio tubes.