Vision by radio, radio photographs, radio photograms

by C. Francis Jenkins

1894. Jenkins publishes article on transmission of pictures electrically with illustration of proposed apparatus.—Electrical Engineer, July 25, 1894.

1913. Proposes another mechanism, for “Motion Pictures by Wireless.”—Motion Picture News, September 27, 1913.

1920. Reads paper on the Prismatic Ring, a new contribution to optical science (an essential element in transmission of radio pictures).—Transactions Society Motion Picture Engineers, Toronto Meeting, May, 1920.

1922. Sends first radio photograph; sent from a photograph, and received photographically; and predicts motion pictures by radio in the home.—Washington Evening Star, May 19, 1922.

1922. Sends photographs by telephone wire of American Telephone & Telegraph Company, through his desk telephone, from 1519 Connecticut Avenue (Washington) to Navy Radio Station, NOF, at Anacostia, D. C., and there broadcast. The signals were picked up and recorded on a photographic plate at 5502 Sixteenth Street N.W., Washington, D. C., in presence of Commander A. Hoyt Taylor, of the U. S. Navy, and J. C. Edgerton, of the Post Office; October 3, 1922.

1922. Makes official demonstration of his radio transmission of photographs for Navy officials December 12, 1922, in presence of Admirals S. S. Robison and H. J. Ziegemeier, Captain J. T. Tompkins, Commander S. C. Hooper, Lt. Commanders E. H. Loftin and H. P. LeClair; the report of which was later released for publication.—Washington Evening Star, January 14, 1923.

1923. Sends radio photographs of President Warren G. Harding, Secretary Herbert Hoover, Governor Gifford Pinchot, and others, from U. S. Navy Radio Station, NOF, Washington, to Evening Bulletin Building, Philadelphia, by courtesy of Robt. McLean, Jr., March 2, 1923.—Reproduced in the Bulletin, and in the Washington Star, March 3, 1923.

1923. Makes his first laboratory demonstration of Radio Vision (the instantaneous reproduction on a small picture screen of a distant performer or a distant scene), and of Radio Movies (the transmission of pictures from a theatre screen to a small screen in the home), June 14, 1923. See Visitor’s Register.

1924. Makes his first hundred-line photograph, June 15, 1924, portraits of true photographic values in which no lines appear. Photographs of President Calvin Coolidge, Dr. J. S. Montgomery, Chaplain of the House, William Jennings Bryan, etc. See letters of congratulations from subjects of these photographic tests.

1924. Sends message, in Japanese characters, from Charge d’Affairs, I. Yoshida, of the Japanese Embassy, Washington, i.e., sending from the old Navy Station, NOF, to Amrad Station, WGI, Medford Hillside, Massachusetts; reported and reproduced in Boston Traveler, December 4, 1924.