NEW INVENTION

Hokitika Guardian, 10 March 1930, Page 8

NEW INVENTION

ELECTRO-VISION CLAIMED

SAN Fit AN CjSCO, January S.

All America lias loecn intensely siuprised at a new and revolutionary television device, which scientists belioic will upset all previous theories of televisionary projection, the first successful demonstration having been staged in >Saii Francisco, California, when Philo Farnsworth, a 23-year-old University of Utah graduate, inventor o; the apparatus which will produce what he will call “electro-vision,” granted the first disclosure of liis uncanny invention. The initial showing of still and motion pictures and reproductions of peisons standing before the device ueic whisked through space to a receiving set in another room before the astounded eyes of the observeis. Tin test was made in the Crocker ltesearou Laboratories, 202 Croon Street, in San Francisco, where Farnsworth, under the scientific patronage of Mr W. H. Crocker, the San Francisco capitalist, created and perfected his invention.

Without the use of “scanningdiscs, which have heretofore been essential in the transmission of images through the ether, Farnsworth was ably to give almost perfect reproductions on a small screen a numlber of feet away. Clippings from movies, movie cartoons and still photographs were viwed in the receiving screen. Farnsworth has also been able to transmit talking movies, sending and receiving eight and sound simultaneously. Within a short time, radio experts predict, >Tin Francisco and i.lie millions of other radio enthusiasts throughout the world will be able to sit in their omes and ‘•■pe as well as hear events of the world as they occur. “TUNE IN” PICTURE.

They will peer 'into a television •'■roen, a foot square, perched over their radio set. All they will have :j do is to plug a “Jack” into their radio, much as they have done with loud-speakers in the past. The man

f the lions?- wlr* delights in turning the dials, will be able to “tune” the picture just as he does with the sound radio at present, raising or lowering the intensity of the image at will.

The “electro-vision’’ apparatus is constructed so simply that it might be called an improved stereopticon. Its ,-alue is even more greatly increased with the announcement of Television Laboratories, Incorporated, that the />t will tie within the financial means of anyone who can own a radio. The functioning of the device can ho trans•ntprl in’o lay terms. The image tc be broadcast, whether it be the movie ;ositive or still negative photograph or some other object, live or inanimate, is focussed upon a sensitive •hoio-electric plate in what Farnsworth calls a “dissector” tube.

The plate is located mid-way in the vacuum tube, and, as the image passes .lie plate, it is converted into an electric image, comprised of countless jlcvtrons. The electric image is exactly identical, electrically speaking, to the optical picture received. An jlecirical deflecting system, vvounu within the end of the tube exposes a sensitised electrode in the end of the tube to the entire picture successively-

Only an elemental part of the pic- . ure is exposed to this electrode, or “target,” as Farnsworth calls it, at each instant. The television signal which emits from the tube is then run through an amplifier to gain desired strength, and then can be sent out over the air through the use of the ordinary broadcasting transmitter used on .short-wave work.

FOR REGULAR SETS. The receiving end of the device is >ven more simple in theory and construction. The television signals, sent on a wave-length no higher than four metres, are received in the regular type of radio sets seen in most homes. Above the radio may be placed the small 'box which contains the “oscillite,” or special cathode ray tube which Farnsworth invented for transition of the television signals into optical pictures. The oscillite receives the television signals when connected into the .radio set by tbe same cord and jack means as that employed in attaching a. loud-speaker. The electrons pass through the oscillite and arc bombarded against a small circular screen, made of fluorescent material, within the tube which returns the image to its optical state. You are on the other side of the fluorescent plate, and in an instant you behold the picture. In the transmission of movies, a specially adapted form of projection machine is employed to give the image to the dissector tube, and though the laboratories have been experimenting for little, more than a week, the initial demonstration gave almost perfect images.