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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. |
