TV1

A true story - Back in May of 1978 I got a phone call from a guy who owns property a few blocks from my house... He told me that "old man Stack's" house was going to be torn down the following day and invited me to go over to the property and have a look around.... I could take just about anything I wanted from the sheds at the side of the house.

Mr. Stack was born around 1895 and had fancied himself to be something of an inventor. He built the first radio in Monroe (1921), built a large model train outfit and tinkered in many things from the 20's to the 50's....

On the property were two small wood sheds and a two car garage..... In one of the sheds you could see evidence of a workshop.... Between the wall studs there were racks to hold test tubes and other chemistry items... A work bench had the remains of an electric motor test panel ( magnetic starter, ballast lamps, fuse block, knife switches and a large Weston laboratory grade voltmeter that Mr. Stack had told me was salvaged from Monroe's electric light plant which went into service in March(?) 1900. I was happy to see it still there and I quickly removed it from the wall.

There was really nothing more there worth taking other than a big knife switch on a slate slab, I moved on to a smaller shed.... maybe 10' wide and 8' deep. Years ago the roof had failed and there was now a hole maybe 3x4 feet square right in the middle of it.... In the middle of the wood floor was a pile of magazines just about 3 feet high and spreading out to cover most of the floor.

I could see that there were many magazine tiles that I enjoy going through such as Saturday Evening Post, Life, Popular Science, Mechanics Illustrated and titles I had little interest in like State, Progressive Farmer, McCalls.... Anyway, they were identifiable but broke into chunks when an attempt was made to pick them up. The evening light was starting to fade but curiousity made me continue to dig down into the pile.... Soon I was seeing pre-WW2 titles and shaking my head in sadness wishing that I had known ten or 15 years before that these great old magazines were just blocks from home. Even two feet down into the pile the magazines were still too far gone to pick up in one piece but I kept digging. I was surprised to see magazines dating back to the late 20's.... A few Science and Invention, Radio-Craft as well as Pop. Sci. and Pop. Mech.

While these mags were not breaking apart when picked up, they were still heavily damaged by mold, insects and moisture but then an truely amazing thing came into view! Almost dead center in the bottom of the pile I found the magazine pictured above.... The 1927 issue of TELEVISION published by Hugo Gernsback.... It was in VERY GOOD condition !..... By far the most valuable title in the entire pile had been the ONLY magazine to survive intact!

It was a true revelation to read this magazine from cover to cover! I had been collecting old radios for some 12 years but had given little thought to the development of TV technology. I had learned of the introduction of television to the American public staged at the 1939 New York Worlds Fair and that was about it.... But here was a magazine telling me about many experiments in television dating as far back as 1910.... It was telling me about experimental TV broadcasts begining in 1927.... I was hooked... I had to learn more!..... I wanted to see what these experimental images looked like!

After making inquiries for about a year I learned that no one had any equipment in operation that produced TV pictures with 1920's electromechanical scanning technology.... I learned that Dick Brewster had made some scanning disk TV recordings onto open reel tape around 1976 using a Baird scanner but his set-up was not available for public demonstration. In short if I wanted to see circa 1930 TV, I was going to have to build up the equipment myself.... By early 1979 I had built a system that worked! In September 1979 I gave what I believe was the first public demonstration of this early TV technology in over 45 years at the annual conference of the Antique Wireless Association at Rochester, NY. There were old-time radiomen at the conference that had built experimental TV receivers similar to my equipment back in 1930.... They told me that the quality of the pictures produced by my system were very close to that seen so many years ago.... I was very pleased to hear this....