TELEVISION STUDY

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 1, 20 July 1928, Page 15

TELEVISION STUDY

PROBLEM OF WAYELENGTH INVESTORS WARNED. RAvio television to fit the waves instead of waves to fit television was proposed recently in New York | by the United States Government Radio Commissioner, O. H. Caldwell, as’ a field to be more thoroughly studied by scientists. Mr. Caldwell explained that radio television as it is now being developed calls for the use of channels between fifty and 500 kilocycles wide, depending upon the size of the image desired, and that there are only a few such bands available in the short wave spectrum. Because of the meagre number of such _ television "roadways" which can be assigned without encroaching on other estab-

| gineers will find a way some day ‘to lished waves in that yielity, MY, Caldwell expressed the belief that en-: eonfine television broadcasts within a few kilocycles. "The enthusiastic inventor should remember that not only the problem of television transmission and reception has to be overcome, but the problem of fitting television into-the wave’ spectrum has to be surmounted simultaneously before television can _ become a service to the public," said Mr. Caldwell. "Great care should be taken by persons proposing to invest in television proposition to make sure that the commercial television application will measure up to the bright | prospects iadicated in the laboratory experiments. } "According to our present knowledge a very wide frequency band will be required for any satisfactory television operation, and it is already apparent that only a few such bands can be put into service. The TFederal Radio Commission has been disposed to grant to laboratories the use of the ether for experimenting, but to date engineers have largely devised things just to put on the wavelengths rather | than to devise methods of fitting devices into narrow limits on the all-too- small radio spectrum." Mr. Caldwell pictured the future radio television scheme, in the light of present knowledge, as consisting of a few very powerful st:tions, each capable of covering the entire country

with its broadeast. Commenting on recent talk about plans .£ television broadeasters, he said that to his knowledge thes had been no application lately before the commission for permission to use any of the waves for such purposes. Myr. Caldwell was in the New York and New England area for a few days to listen-in on the waves and also to learn what listeners have to say about radio, both new and old, before returning to the task of formulating with the other commissioners the future radio picture of the country.