3DB Almost Ready

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 38, 5 April 1929, Page 32

3DB Almost Ready

"THE Melbourne "B" class station, 8DB, is on the eve of transmitting television. Several sets of equipment operating on the Baird principle have been obtained and are being assembled, and early demonstrations are promised. While it will be agreed that the experiments should receive as much assistance as possible from the Postal authorities, it is as well, however, to remember that the solution of the problem of television is by no means completed. Several systems, all similar in basic principle, have been devised, and all are 5, eapable of transmitting moving This, however, does not mean that development has been carried to a point from which effective permanent services can be begun. Wireless telephony under certain conditions was possible early this century, but it was not until 15 years after the first successful transmissions of speech by wireless telephone were held that broadcasting became possible. Television is in much the same position today as broadcasting was before the development of valve transmitters. Some qualified technicians who have discussed television have advanced the assertion that the broadcasting of moving pictures by wireless will never be possible. They are able to support this statement on sound scientific grounds, but in spite of this developments in applied science occur so rapidly that it is not too much to expect that the main obstacles to the opening of mercial services will ultimately be overcome. The various systems being employed are undoubtedly capable of providing a broadcast television service, but such a servicé would be most unlikely to prove permanent. It would command considerable support at the outset as a novelty, but unless a remarkable improvement in the size and quality of the broadcast pictures could be made before this interest passed services could not survive the passing of their novelty. Additional research is therefore required, and it is interesting to see an Australian company joining in this work.