Vision by Radio
C. FRANCIS JENKINS
The earliest attempts to send pictures and to see electrically date back some fifty years, being practically coincident with efforts to transmit sound electrically.
At first a metallic circuit was employed to carry the impulses representing picture values, but when radio was available several workers immediately began the adaptation of their apparatus to radio circuits.
Some remarkably fine examples of pictures transmitted by both wire and radio have been produced in recent months; most of them showing the lines, but some of them without lines at all, i. e., true photographic results.
And as the transmission of images from living subjects in action differs from “still” pictures only in that they are more rapidly formed, it naturally followed that the solution of this problem should also be undertaken.
When radio service to the eye shall have a comparable development with radio service to the ear, a new era will indeed have been ushered in, when distance will no longer prevent our seeing our friend as easily as we hear him.
Our President may then look on the face of the King of England as he talks with him; or upon the countenance of the President of France when exchanging assurances of mutual esteem.
The general staff of our Navy and Army may see at headquarters all that a lens looks upon as it is carried aloft in a scouting airplane over battle front or fleet maneuvers.
And from our easy chairs by the fireside, we stay-at-homes can watch the earth below as a great ship, like the Shenandoah, carries our flag and a broadcasting lens, over the mountains and plains, the cities and farms, the lakes and forests, of our wonderful country.