ETF - Mechanical TV Sets of the 20s and 30s

Mechanical TV Sets of the 20s and 30s

The first mechanical television systems that produced real television images were developed by John Logie Baird in England and by Charles Francis Jenkins in the U.S. in the mid 20s.

Broadcasting began in the United States on the AM radio band (550-1500 kHz). In 1930, the Federal Radio Commission allocated channels in the 2 mHz band for experimental television transmission to allow higher resolution (45 and 60 line pictures) to be transmitted.

Picture quality was very poor, and the screens were only an inch or so wide and were usually made up of only 30 to 60 lines (compared to 525 lines in the present U.S. system). Most of these sets used a motor to rotate a metal disk to produce the picture, with a neon tube behind the disk to provide the light. Later mechanical systems used the lens disk, mirror screw and mirror drum. The Scophony system was the only mechanical system capable of high definition pictures, but it was developed at a time when the cathode ray tube had already been demonstrated as a better method of displaying television pictures.

By 1931, television was being broadcast from about 25 stations in the U.S., not only from the major cities such as New York and Boston, but also from Iowa and Kansas. Several manufacturers were selling sets and kits.

The frequencies used for TV broadcasting at that time could travel long distances, so reception was possible hundreds of miles from the station. However, the pictures suffered from not only poor resolution, but also fading and ghosting.

In Columbus, Ohio, Murray Mercier, born in 1912, was one of the first people to watch television. Click here for his story.

In England, regularly scheduled 30 line television programming was first broadcast by the BBC in September of 1929. At first, only the picture was transmitted for a few hours a week, after regular radio broadcasting was completed for the day. By March of 1930, sound and pictures were transmitted together. Most countries in Europe had at least one mechanical station.

Because of the poor picture quality, mechanical television was not a success. By 1933 almost all stations were off the air in the United States. Mechanical television transmission by the BBC continued until 1935, and in the Soviet Union until 1937.

Gallery of mechanical sets

Database of surviving mechanical sets

American mechanical TV stations

European mechanical TV stations

More on Mechanical Television
Another early Columbus, Ohio experimenter	Magazine articles about mechanical television
Baird's instructions to television actors	Mechanical transmission standards
Bell Labs	Mechanical TV replicas
California Television Society	Murry Mercier, Columbus TV experimenter
Corona discharge in mechanical television	Online films and videos
CRT receivers for mechanical transmissions	Peter Yanczer's site
Don Lee Broadcasting - making a disk	Program schedule of Baird TV
Dutch 1932 television booklet	Radio supply catalogs with mechanical television
Early recordings of TV images	Radium notes for television performers
Felix the Cat	Russian homemade mechanical TV
First British reception of U.S. TV	Sarnoff report on the status of television - ca 1931
First vaudeville show broadcast in Chicago	Scanning belt receiver
How television came to Boston	Mechanical theater projection systems
Hollis Baird - a Canadian?	Television demonstrations
How we display pictures on mechanical sets	Television training schools
James Thurber's comments on TV in 1931	TV across the Atlantic in 1928