WRNY (New York City)
Experimenter Publishing went bankrupt in early 1929 and the station was purchased by the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company to promote aviation.
In 1904 at age 20, Gernsback emigrated to the United States to sell his automotive battery design and to start a mail order radio and electrical components business.
The opening speaker was former Senator Chauncey Depew, followed by the self-described "Father of Radio", Lee de Forest.
However, this act did not mention broadcasting, and it was not clear how much control the federal government actually had over station power and frequency assignments.
[6] The following November, taking advantage of the temporary regulatory lapse, WRNY relocated its transmitter from the Roosevelt Hotel to Coytesville, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from Manhattan,[7] and began transmitting on 800 kHz.
However, early radio receivers were not very selective and there were frequent disputes over interference between stations transmitting on nearby frequencies.
[8] In 1927 the Federal Radio Commission (FRC) was established, with the authority to fully regulate broadcast station operations.
[10] Effective November 11, 1928, under the provisions of the FRC's General Order 40, WRNY was moved to 1010 kHz, sharing this assignment with three other New York City-area stations: WHN, WPAP and WQAO.
The radio station had advertising revenue but it did not cover large investment in the new transmitter facility in New Jersey and the television equipment.
[13] Irving Trust kept the magazines and radio station operating but removed Hugo Gernsback and his brother Sidney from the company.
Attorneys for newspaper publisher William R. Hearst and Curtiss Aircraft president C. M. Keys got into a bidding war for the radio stations.
[22] This 500–watt station could be heard throughout the world, and in September 1928 Hugo Gernsback wrote about a listener in New South Wales, Australia.
[23] Hugo Gernsback first wrote about television in the December 1909 issue of Modern Electrics and regularly reported technical advances in his magazines.
[24] Vladimir K. Zworykin and Philo Farnsworth were developing electronic scanning systems that were the precursors of modern television but these would not be available for another decade.
[25] The General Electric Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York was sending experimental television over their shortwave radio station in early 1928.
Pilot sold receivers, and the Experimenter Publishing magazines provided complete plans to allowed readers to build their own.
[31] On August 12, 1928, the television equipment was moved from Pilot's Brooklyn laboratory to the WRNY transmitter house at Coytesville.
At 10 PM on August 14, John Geloso turned on the set and viewed an image of his wife sitting before the camera in Coytesville.
[34] The "Today on the radio" section of the August 21, 1928, edition of The New York Times showed 9 television programs on the schedule for WRNY.
[35] That night, the first public demonstration of WRNY television was held in Philosophy Hall at New York University to an audience of radio engineers, scientist and newspaper reporters.
"[36] On July 4, 1928, The New York Times reported that in the past two weeks WRNY had received more than 2,000 letters requesting more information about the television broadcast.
Hugo Gernsback stated: "The letters have come alike from radio listeners, wireless experimenters and home set builders who wish construction details about the apparatus required to intercept the television broadcast.
A New Jersey radio supply company, Daven, sold a complete television receiver kit for $100; the scanning disk was $10 and the neon bulb was $11.50.
[39] The complexity of the television was typical of the construction projects published in Radio News every month so some experimenters had a set ready for the early August broadcast.
The exact number of home televisions in 1928 is unknown, with Hugo Gernsback estimating that the New York area had around 2000 receivers.
[32] The November 1928 issues (on the newsstand October 10) of Science and Invention[40] and Radio News[41] had detailed plans for building a receiver.
However, Hugo Gernsback warned potential viewers that this early television receiver was for experimenters and "radio bugs", and not suitable for the general public.
The cover illustration of the November 1928 issue of Science and Invention featured an experimenter operating one of the homemade television receivers, who was shown using a 125-hertz tuning fork to adjust the scanning wheel speed.
With the same type synchronous motor, the receiver is far easier to keep in step, which is made much easier if both the studio scanner and the home are running off power from the same AC power grid, for with synchronous motors on the same grid, receiver sync is automatic, and the user must then only frame the picture.
To achieve 7.5 image frames per second, the receiver's disk, being rotated by standard household fan motor, needed to spin at 450 rpm.
