RCA began transmission in 1928 W2XBS on 2.0 to 2.1 megahertz from a
location at Van Cortlandt Park. In 1929, W2XBS moved their
transmitter and broadcast facilities to to the New Amsterdam Theatre
Building in New York, and began broadcasting 60-line pictures on the
frequencies of 2.75 to 2.85 megahertz.
The National Broadcasting Company, as a service of RCA, has been in the
vanguard of television pioneering and development since the earliest
days of experimentation, when about the best that could be produced were
barely recognizable pictures of Felix the Cat on screens the size of a
playing card, or smaller. NBC’S first experimental, on-the-air broadcast
was on July 7, 1930.
In 1931 the transmitter was moved to the Empire State Building, the
world’s newest and highest skyscraper and NBC erected the
transmitting
antenna for experimental station W2XBS.
In the course of extensive field tests, NBC and RCA engineers succeeded
in increasing the quality of transmitted pictures to 120 lines, to 240
lines, and then 343 lines.
It was 1935 before the CRT system was authorized as a "field test"
project and NBC converted a radio studio in the RCA Building (now the
GE Building) in New York City' Rockefeller Center for television
use. On June 29, 1936, NBC began field-test television transmissions
from W2XBS to an audience of some 75 receivers in the homes of
high-level RCA staff, and a dozen or so sets in a closed circuit viewing
room in 52nd-floor offices of the RCA Building. The viewing room often
hosted visiting organizations or corporate guests, who saw a live
program produced in the studios many floors below. Eventually these
transmissions were received on about 200 experimental
RR-359 receivers
scattered throughout the New York area.
For a more detailed description of the early days of W2XBS, see our page
on RCA field trials.
As a result of the continued tests, scanning was stepped up to 441
lines, and television programming was extended to include pickups remote
from the studio. NBC’s
mobile television vans, then a great curiosity,
appeared on the streets of New York for the first time on December 12,
1937.
In 1939, RCA introduced television to the American public at the
World's
Fair. At the same time, the station began
regularly scheduled
broadcasting, with both studio and remote programming. Click for
program schedules from
1939-41.
Popular Science, October 1940
The station began commercial television operations on July 1, 1941, the
first fully-licensed commercial television station in the United States.
The call letters were changed to WNBT and it originally broadcast on
channel 1. Soon after signing on that day, WNBT aired the first
television commercial. The Bulova Watch Company paid $9 for a commercial
aired during a baseball game of the Philadelphia Phillies at the
Brooklyn Dodgers.
During World War II, RCA diverted key technical TV staff to the U.S.
Navy, who were interested in developing a TV-guided bomb. WNBT's studio
and program staff were placed at the disposal of the New York Police
Department and used for Civil Defense training. Public programming
resumed on a small scale during 1944.
In 1946, the station changed its frequency from channel 1 to channel 4
after channel 1 was removed from use for television broadcasting.
(Channel 4 was previously occupied by WABD before moving to channel 5)
The station changed its call letters on October, 1954 to WRCA-TV (for
NBC's then-parent company, RCA) and on May 22, 1960, channel 4 became
WNBC-TV.
