John Logie Baird - Baird Independent Television

 
Part 2 of 3 of a syndicated article by Richard G Elen <previous> <next>

 
In contrast to EMI, who developed their system with a fair degree of secrecy, the Baird Company was very public about its developments and missed no opportunity to invite Reith to demonstrations, which he invariably failed to attend, ostensibly to avoid being seen to favour one particular manufacturer.

He thus missed a presentation at Gaumont-British offices in Film House, Wardour Street, at noon on March 12, 1934, where 180-line transmissions using both film (telecine) and studio (Intermediate Film) sources were shown on a receiver with no moving parts, employing a cathode ray tube made under contract by GEC and showing a picture (enlarged via a lens) of effectively about 12 x 18 inches.

The vision signals originated from the 500-watt transmitter at the Crystal Palace, with audio plus sync sent by landline. BBC staff attending noted that while the picture quality was not outstanding, EMI at the time was only offering telecine (with mechanical scanning), and not "direct" (live) television.

A further demonstration of the transmissions took place at Wardour Street at the company AGM on March 20, where Greer appeared on a large-screen TV live from Crystal Palace. While Greer took a taxi back to central London, the attendees watched a variety show.

At this point, the Baird transmissions were mechanically originated, either with the flying spot scanner or via the Intermediate Film technique.

However, BTL’s board had made contact with Philo T. Farnsworth in the USA, whose “Image Dissector” offered the possibility of an all-electronic camera for the Baird system - but unfortunately it needed a great deal of light and was thus fine for telecine but not practical for studio use.

The agreement did, however, also make Farnsworth’s magnetically deflected CRT available for Baird receivers.

A meeting took place at the GPO on 5 April, 1934, prompted by Reith and attended by BBC and GPO staff, to discuss “the future arrangements for the handling of television”, in which the performance of Baird and EMI systems – as well as some other technologies such as Scophony and Cossor – were compared.

The decision was taken to appoint a committee to advise the Postmaster General on matters concerning television. Following Parliamentary assent, this was to become the Television Committee that would be headed by Lord Selsdon: its first meeting was held on May 29.

Independent Television in 1934

Also discussed were press releases from the Baird Company in which it announced that it was preparing to approach the GPO for a licence to begin an independent, high definition television service.

And in a letter to the Postmaster General at the end of April, Baird director Major A G Church noted, “…we are technically ready to provide a programme of 180-line television from our station at the Crystal Palace, to serve the whole of the Greater London area.”[1]

This was no idle threat. In December 1934, a 10kW VHF transmitter – the most powerful transmitter of its type in the world – was installed next to Studio 3 in the Crystal Palace building, close to the South Tower.

It was capable, according to a coverage drawing published in the Illustrated London News in 1935 along with plans of the studios, of serving the London area to a radius of 30 miles: a service area extending to Maidenhead, Hatfield, Southend and Sevenoaks.

Ray Herbert, an engineer at Crystal Palace from 1938, notes that to avoid Marconi triode neutralising patents the new transmitter featured Metropolitan Vickers Type 43 tetrode power output valves, which could be demounted for maintenance, and were pumped continually to maintain vacuum while in use.

The same valves, and very similar transmitters, were used in the wartime Chain Home coastal radar system; eight or nine former Baird employees moved to radar at the start of the war and BTL was involved, directly or indirectly, in the CH design.

The original 500-watt vision transmitter on the first floor of the South Tower was to be used for sound and sync signals on 35.3 MHz, while the 10kW transmitter was configured to transmit vision on 42.8MHz.

In early 1936, broadcasts used 36 and 40 MHz respectively. The frequencies used were fairly arbitrary, as the licence specified a broad range and on any particular occasion the engineers simply chose a frequency with no interference within the tuning range of the antennae.

Baird Transmits Alone

The Television Committee issued its report in late January 1935, proposing a high-definition VHF television service to be operated alternately by BTL and Marconi-EMI, and along with other political considerations, it is certainly possible that Baird was included at least partially to help discourage the company from carrying out its apparent threat to go independent.

Yet the very next day, surprised reporters were shown around the Crystal Palace facility and wrote extremely favourably about both the station and the picture quality.

Geoffrey Edwards, the News Chronicle Radio Correspondent, wrote on Saturday, February 2, "Any search by the BBC for a site for the promised London Television station would, it seems, be a waste of time when the Crystal Palace station is there ready for use."

Baird Television proceeded to underline this by transmitting a daily two-hour programme of various types of entertainment. "We could begin immediately," said Baird, brought in from Crescent Wood Road to talk to the press, "a service of high-definition television and synchronised sound on ultra short waves for reception in homes throughout the Greater London area."

Independent television, it seemed, might even beat the BBC to the punch.

Indeed, in the period February to June 1935, over forty 180-line demonstration transmissions were made from the Crystal Palace.

Says Herbert, "For important occasions, professional performers were engaged. Alma Taylor made many return visits; others included Doris Sonne (the dancer in the Spanish sketches [these were broadcast from the 'Café Del Diablo' set in Studio 1 - see photos above]), Richard Hearne [later to be known as 'Mr Pastry'], Leonard Henry, Vivian Foster ('the Vicar of Mirth') and Claude Dampier with Billie Carlyle. The staff assisted by providing boxing matches and carrying out announcing duties." [2]

Official 30-line transmissions continued until 11 September 1935, but from then until transmissions began from the new BBC site at Alexandra Palace in August the following year, the Baird Crystal Palace facility, with the call sign G2TV, was the only source of television broadcasts in the UK.

However, Herbert notes that after November 1935, these primarily took the form of tests of the 240-line equipment destined for Alexandra Palace.

A typical 2-hour test transmission consisted of an hour of tuning signal and gramophone records followed by a "talking picture transmission", broadcast at 3pm and repeated at 6pm.

The transmission on February 22, 1936, for example, began, "This is a Baird Television transmission from their experimental station at the Crystal Palace, London. The Vision channel is operating on a carrier frequency of 40 mega-cycles, or a wavelength of 7.29 metres; and the Sound channel on a frequency of 36 mega-cycles, or a wavelength of 8.33 metres..."

It was A D G West, rather than Baird, who led the team that increased the system resolution while the company was based at the Crystal Palace, and developed the 240-line, 25 frames system that was to be installed at Alexandra Palace.

It was demonstrated at the Press Club on 8 November 1935, where the Baird T5, the first of the new dual-standard receivers that could receive both Baird 240-line and Marconi-EMI 405-line transmissions, was launched, showing images broadcast from the Crystal Palace.

The receivers – where the real money was expected to be made in television – were also built at Crystal Palace: in the School of Arts adjacent and to the east of the main complex.

Studio and transmitting equipment, essentially as developed for the Crystal Palace facility, were delivered to the new BBC station in March 1936, and transmissions from North London began in August of that year.

The BBC’s high definition Television Service from Alexandra Palace was launched officially on November 2, as has been recounted elsewhere.

Less than a month after the launch at Alexandra Palace, disaster struck in South London. On the evening of Monday, 30 November 1936, fire broke out in the Crystal Palace main building and spread rapidly to engulf the majority of the site, including the Baird facility.

Of Baird’s operations, only the South Tower, the School of Arts TV receiver plant and the Rotunda in the grounds, where CRTs were made, were spared. To add insult to devastation, on 16 December the Television Advisory Committee meeting decided to abandon the use of the Baird system in transmissions from Alexandra Palace, and use the Marconi-EMI system alone.

Work did not stop, however. The fire-damaged equipment was covered by insurance, and the Baird Company went on to install experimental Intermediate Film transmission systems in military aircraft, along with developing large-screen TV, plus colour television transmissions from the South Tower, using the original 500W transmitter on 8.3 metres (37 MHz) and a small studio on the ground floor of the tower.

There was also an experimental 200-watt 2-metre antenna and transmitter at the fourth floor level. This was used for 600-line transmissions (though generally nothing more than field strength tests) for an ingenious scheme. Gaumont-British intended to distribute their newsreels by 2-metre television to their theatres, and hoped to be allowed to break the BBC monopoly to run, essentially, the world's first all-news television service. Unfortunately for them, the war intervened.

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