MECHANICAL TELEVISION LINK INDEX

AMPLIFIER DESIGN Amplifier Designer (Advanced) Design one-transistor preamplifier. Report includes part values & graphs frequency response. (Requires Java VM.)

• Amplifier Designer (Basic), JavaScript Version
  For Windows XP and beyond: Design one-transistor preamp by entering just one figure. Gives parts values. (Use on all systems, with or without Java virtual machine software. Runs in your Web browser.)

• Amplifier Designer (Basic), Java Version
  Design one-transistor preamplifier by entering just one figure. Provides parts values. (Requires Java VM.)

• Amplifier Design: Find Gain of Transistor Amplifier Under Load
  Input data for one-stage amplifier. Applet determines gain at specified resistive load. Report provides self-configuring graph of frequency response. (Requires Java VM.)

Sparko (Thinko) the robot, 1939 World's Fair

Design LED Drivers Easy, Ohm's Law calculations are all you need. Simple how-to. Quiz with answers at end. Learn process & end with circuit. Discrete DC Amplifier Schematic. Experiments with discrete, transistor, direct-coupled amplifier. This circuit might work in mechanical TV camera. DIY Triode-Mode FET Preamp JFETs normally operate in Pentode Mode. But could a Triode Mode preamp be practical? Maybe, with high pinch-off JFETs. But only at low VD voltages. Schematics. FET Preamplifier Runs on Tube Voltages My design sounds tube-like, too. But you be judge. Plenty of gain. Small: Fits in tight spot on tube chassis. Schematic. Sound samples. Love it! Uses amazing LND150 D-MOSFET from Microchip Technology.

• JFET Preamplifier
  Schematic. Discrete JFET preamplifier for guitar, microphone or experiments. Great front end for mechanical TV. Circuit, test reports, FAQ, how to modify, troubleshooting, links.

• Nelson Pass, First Watt
  Guru of depletion MOSFET amplifier design. First Watt sells high-end amps with unconventional circuits. He also markets kits. Burning Amp Fest for amplifier DIY (maker) community takes place annually.

• Ohm's Law is Easy
  Learn Ohm's Law by designing LED driver. Very simple, calculator or scratchpad math. (Answers appear at end.) Great science fair project.

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BOOKS

• Crystal Set Society (Midnight Science)
  Excellent new books about crystal & regen radio set building. You can also order parts. Reasonable prices.

CHICAGO TELEVISION

• Early Chicago Television
  W9XAP's 1930, inaugural Chicago telecast. Men who created Chicago TV. U.A. Sanabria, Oak Park teenager who invented television & became major industry contributor.

• Sanabria TV
  Details & artifacts of Sanabria family & associates, particularly inventor, educator & administrator John Sanabria. (Collection of Nick Sanabria.)

• U.A. Sanabria, Chicago TV inventor (Western Television)
  Also includes story of Navy Pier experimental telecasts from W9XAA. Most people don't know that Chicago telecasts began in 1928. Scheduled TV broadcasts commenced in 1930.

• Station W9XAP
  Rich Samuels' page on Chicago's famous mechanical television station W9XAP, predecessor of WMAQ, channel 5. W9XAP used U.A. Sanabria's 45-line, Western Television equipment.

• Station WBKB
  Tales from pioneers at one of Chicago's earliest electronic television stations.

Buy CHRS television book: Click... ALL ABOUT TELEVISION (2019)

CLUBS Antique Wireless Association Quarterly journal about radio-TV history & restoration. Annual ham radio contest with homebrew equipment & heritage parts. AWA museum is at Bloomfield, NY. Live or virtual tours. Annual convention. California Historical Radio Society, Television Group Radio-television history group in the San Francisco area. National following. CHRS museum at Alameda, CA. Active in antique TV.

• Narrowband Television Association
  Worldwide society devoted to building & restoring mechanical television equipment and preserving early television history.

• Experimental Television Society
  Peter Yanczer's ETS is no more. Website lives on! Early TV info. This link takes you to one page for builders. Site has many more pages. Until his death in 2014, Peter sold mechanical television (MTV) parts.
  

COLOR TELEVISION

• Color television history
  Ed Reitan's site on color television development. Picks up story in 40's. Illustrations of CBS field-sequential ("color wheel"), RCA dot-sequential & CTI line-sequential systems. Ed Reitan, RIP.

• Col-R-Tel on Moon
  Apollo color cameras used field-sequential system. Most people don't know that system was Col-R-Tel. Exclusive page exposes startling similarities. Also: How moon system & downlink converters worked.

• Experiments in Two Colors
  Wendy Carlos' site on two-color experiments based on Edwin Land's pioneering work. Two-color systems, such as Spectrac use similar technology. Simple, science fair-type experiments.

• FAQ About DTV Changeover
  Historic site about DTV changeover. Where do I get my coupons? Why did Uncle Sam do this to us? Can I hack converter boxes? DTV changeover basics. Coupons & converter boxes. DTV politics. DTV technology.

• Homemade Color Wheel Set
  Slides of Cliff Benham's ambitious field-sequential, color wheel project. Total Col-R-Tel redesign outstrips original. Solid state, including proprietary RGB switcher & servo circuit.

• How Col-R-Tel Works
  Diagram. 1955: Most TV was black & white. Color was too expensive. Solution: Gadget that converts monochrome TV to color. Find out how it works.

• How to Build a Color Delay Line
  How pioneers rolled their lines! In 1955, your chances of finding ready-made delay lines were bupkis. Same applies today. Col-R-Tel builders need to know the secret. Otherwise, you'll have an offset color picture.

• Print Out a TV Color Wheel
  Fascinating insights into the CBS color system. Comparison with NTSC monochrome & RCA compatible color. Template for printing a color wheel. Perform your own experiments!

• Solid-State Col-R-Tel
  What if Col-R-Tel were solid state? Site is experimental attempt to transistorize Col-R-Tel circuit. Developing project. Schematics & theory.

• Two-color Television
  Spectrac. Two-color conversion of Col-R-Tel. Orange & teal NTSC. History of two-color TV & film. Discussion of two-color gamut. Edwin Land's Retinex. Dave Ingram's 2.5-color TV.

• Shanafelt: Flat, 2-Color TV
  Article from Popular Mechanics. A two-color TV from 1966 with a flat CRT. Unique design. The CRT was viewable (in color) from either side.

CONTACT THE CURATOR

• Contact curator
  For further information about this site or about mechanical television.

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DOWNLOADS: SPECTRAC

• Design Spectrac Scanners
  My program calculates specs for Spectrac, 2-color converters. Fred Topping invented Spectrac system in 1971. This mechanical device converts B&W television screens to color.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Baird Did Not Invent Television: FAQ
  Answers exaggerated claims about Baird. Baird was both brilliant engineer & huckster. Fact: Baird's television used off-shelf parts. Negative effect of Baird revisionism.

• Color Wheel FAQ
  Answers about color-wheel converters: Col-R-Tel, Colordaptor & Spectrac. Also CBS system. Includes data for converter builders. Also: Color TV theory, worldwide color systems, collecting.

• JFET PREAMP FAQ
  Answers about building, using & adjusting our one-JFET preamplifier. Easy-to-find parts. For musical instruments, microphone. Part substitution. Adapt our circuit for your use.

• LED Driver FAQ
  Answers questions about building TV receivers with our LED driver circuit. Basic & advanced. For circuit, see Mechanical TV Receiver.

• Mechanical TV FAQ
  Answers to questions about mechanical TV that uses Nipkow discs or similar devices. Includes color-conversion information.

HAM RADIO

• Qrz.com
  Find any ham by callsign or name. Articles. Useful links. Frequently updated. Many television hobbyists are hams.

HISTORY

• About NTSC
  History of NTSC.

• Apollo 11 moon camera, B&W
  Jules Bergman on July, 1969 ABC news video. Demonstrates Westinghouse monochrome mooncam. 1 minute, 48 sec.

• A History of Television
  In style of Connections TV series, technology historian Mark Schubin outlines television history. How one development led to another. How developments cross-polenated to produce & perfect this marvelous, pervasive technology.

Zworykin wows model with Kinescope, 1929

Baird Did Not Invent Television Who invented television? Or: Who was first? "Baird" is knee-jerk answer. Wrong! ...And unfair to prior contributors. Page traces parts of Baird's alleged invention to true inventors. Baird Receivers Photos of all or most commercially-produced J.L. Baird sets. By year. Barthelemy, French Television History ETF site on early French television inventors. Photos.

Canteen Radio from WWII POW Camp During WWII, Japanese imprisoned William Gibson at Cabanatuan concentration camp. Story of his clandestine, regen radio: Mishmash of purloined & improvised parts. Radio looked like canteen. With one-6J7 pentode oscillator, set pulled in worldwide news.

• CK722, Classic Germanium Transistor
  Museum site. In 1953, Raytheon's CK722 spawned transistor circuit-building hobby. Treasure trove of articles & projects. (♦ CAUTION: To work with today's silicon transistors, projects require rebiasing.)

• Col-R-Tel on Moon
  Apollo color cameras used field-sequential system. Most people don't know that system was Col-R-Tel. Exclusive page exposes startling similarities. Also: How moon system & downlink converters worked.

• Connections TV Series
  Tech historian James Burke's series on connections between inventions. (20 years later, Burke added more episodes.) Innovations in unrelated fields often inspire parallel work. Link above connects to first episode.

1928 Daven mechanical TV amplifier: (2) MU20 (or 40) preamp tubes & (1) MU6 (or 71A) lamp driver for neon glow bulb (kino lamp). Breadboard for experiments.

Daven Kit Pictorial ad for 1928 Daven TV kit. DuMont Electronicam (EC) Chuck Pharis' extraordinary page. EC was marvel of recording tech, long before videotape. Great leap beyond kinescopes. Without EC, The Honeymooners would be just a memory. Equipment photos.

• Color Moon Cameras
  Story about Westinghouse & RCA color mooncams on Apollo missions. Also downlink video decoding.

• Ives, AT&T Mechanical TV
  Most advanced TV of time. April 7, 1927 TV demo by AT&T, Herbert Ives. Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover talks to AT&T President Walter Gifford. Large & small-screen TV.

• Moon camera, Apollo 15
  Technical description of field-sequential camera used on Apollo 15 moon landing.

• Old VTRs
  Vintage videotape recorders, still rolling tape after all these years. Standard conversions.

• Queen's Messenger
  First TV play (reenactment). Clip shows hand models & director. Yet during broadcast, director Mortimer Stewart wasn't really in shot. WGY (today's WRGB) & its shortwave outlet telecast spy thriller in 1928. 48-line, B&W TV. 2 years before first British play.

• RadiolaGuy.com
  Vintage radio & television, 1920 to 1950. Information, items for sale & nostalgia. Virtual museum.

• Sanabriatv.com
  Nick Sanabria's vast collection. Nick's Uncle Ulises designed and built a working mechanical television in mid-1920s. Later, Sanabria and his brother John operated America's largest technical college. In 1950s, U.A. marketed deForest-Sanabria TVs.

• Takayanagi, Japanese Television History
  Kenjiro Takayanagi and his impact on Japanese (and world) television history.

• Transistorized
  Invention of transistor. (No, not in Roswell, NM.)

• TV History
  Fabulous color graphics from vintage magazines. Timeline. See Television Before 1935. Author, Tom Genova.

• U.S. Experimental Television Stations
  History of early television licenses & stations. Who founded station, and who owns it (or its successor) today.

• Visual Media
  Rare clippings about early television productions. Many forgotten details, particularly about European telecasts. A feast for eyes.

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HOBBYIST SITES

• About Hobby
  How mechanical television amateurs contributed to television's invention. How hobbyists recreate unavailable technology with modern parts. How tinkerers continue to improve medium.

• Benham, Cliff
  Slides of Benham's ambitious field-sequential, color wheel project. Complete redesign of Col-R-Tel. Results way beyond original. If only we'd had Benham's machine 50 years ago!

• Bretl, Wayne
  Homepage of ETS member depicts development of mechanical television equipment. Superb links. Tour of Ford Museum Mechanical Television exhibit.

• Camera Experiments
  Experiments with circuits for mechanical television cameras. Schematics & discussion.

• Colorize Your Mechanical TV
  There's nothing like color! Now, colorize your receiver. Uses Ives' 1929 simultaneous color technique: First system that permits motion and color. Avoids flaws in Baird's color attempt.

• Etzold, Eckhard
  QuickTime movies of scanner in action. Eckhard built mechanical TV scanner with Peter Yanczer's parts & Peter Smith's circuit.

• Givan, Roland
  Roland's superb photo essay demonstrates how he built working mechanical TV monitor. This will be favorite page for builders everywhere. Includes useful links.

• Hadfield, Kevin
  Innovative NBTVA member thoroughly explains his mechanical TV inventions. Photographs support text. Demonstrated unique “carousel” scanner at 2005 Loughborough convention.

• Labguy's World
  Richard Diehl's excellent site about historic television, video recording, & television cameras. Traces television back to mechanical days. Farnsworth image dissectors. Early iconoscopes. WWII bomb cameras.

• Lozier, Bob
  Homepage of one of earliest U.S. hobbyists. How U.S. tech historians began building mechanical television replicas. Photos.

• Maciolek, Tom
  Slides of Tom Maciolek's spectacular, mechanical TV project. Based on Peter Smith's scanner. Page includes screen shots, descriptive text.

• Ostler, Steve
  Mechanical television uniquely lends itself to both color & 3-D. Steve demonstrates how. Photos.

• Schematic Diagram Directory
  Links to useful projects from my files. Top page provides data about classes of transistors for experimenters.

• Peter Yanczer
  Rich site includes history, parts & advanced how-to. Both tube & solid state projects. Equipment photos & schematics. (Peter Yanczer, RIP.)

HOW-TO

• Build Mechanical Television Receiver
  Impressive, but easy to build. Great science fair project! Works with PC Sound Blaster card! Includes Nipkow disc template.

• Build Radio Transmitter
  Simplest radio transmitter. Amazing, business card-size transmitter. Two parts & a battery! Great science fair project.

• Build TV Transmitter
  Simplest TV transmitter. Fits in pocket. Handful of parts on small PC board. One transistor & 9-volt battery! Picture signal for NTSC / PAL / SECAM. Also advanced model for higher power.

• Calculators
  Jim Martindale offers links to online calculators for every conceivable purpose. Ours are here, too. Even so, Mr. Martindale offers delightful site.

• Colorize Your Mechanical TV
  There's nothing like color! Now, colorize your receiver. Uses Ives' 1929 simultaneous color technique: First system that permits motion and color. Avoids flaws in Baird's color attempt.

• Experiments in Two Colors
  Wendy Carlos' site on two-color experiments based on Edwin Land's pioneering work. Two-color systems, such as Spectrac use similar technology. Simple, science fair-type experiments.

• Mohr, Volker
  Experiments with Nipkow disc scanner. This scanner originally appeared on page by Erwin Meyvaert ON1AIJ. (No longer available.) Schematics & color photos. German text. Skillfully executed, exemplary project.

• Meyvaert, Erwin, ON1AIJ
  Erwin belongs to Benelux branch of Narrowband Television Association. Schematics on this page detail how to use simple Nipkow disc scanner on European ham bands. Schematics, with explanations in English.

• How to Build a Color Delay Line
  How pioneers rolled their lines! In 1955, your chances of finding ready-made delay lines were bupkis. Same applies today. Col-R-Tel builders need to know secret. Otherwise, you'll have an offset color picture.

• Monitor Building Process
  Roland Givan's superb photo essay demonstrates how he built working mechanical TV monitor. This will be favorite page for builders everywhere. Includes useful links.

• Print out a Nipkow Disc
  File for 3D printer. One way to do it. (Not how Paul Nipkow started on Christmas Eve, 1883. But what he would want for Christmas.)

• Print out a TV color wheel
  Fascinating insights into CBS color system. Comparison with NTSC monochrome & RCA compatible color. Template for printing a color wheel. Perform your own experiments!

MUSEUMS

• Canadian Museum of Television
  Pictorial display of early television sets. Includes brief commentary.
  

• Early Television Foundation
  Steve McVoy's page with excellent graphics.

• Museum of Broadcast Communications
  Mostly about early programming. Emphasizes Chicago. Not much on mechanical television (yet). Email museum & ask for mechanical television exhibit!

NEW! MECHANICAL TELEVISION!

• Nipkow Disc Today
  Nipkow disc is dead. Long live Nipkow disc! About confocal microscopes.

PARTS FOR ELECTRONICS HOBBYISTS

• All Electronics
  General electronics, phototransistors, LEDs, CdS cells, battery holders, motors. West coast U.S. stores.

• American Science & Surplus
  Surplus & unusual optics & motors. Reasonable. Sometimes has mirror drums, discs, LEDs, tools, adhesives, lens cleaner. Humorous catalog. Chicago-area stores.

• ATV Research
  Parts & systems: CCTV, MATV & SMATV. President Mel Shadbolt invented Televerter, simplified flying spot scanner. The stuff of electronic legend!

• Crystal Set Society (Midnight Science)
  Radio parts for experimenters. Also excellent new books about crystal & regen radio set building. Reasonable prices.

• Digi-Key Electronics
  New electronics. Useful ICs, infrared phototransistors & photodiodes. Full specs.

• Electronics Goldmine
  Surplus electronics at rock bottom prices. Best transistor deals (Even "house" parts are reliable). Some optics.

• Fair Radio Sales
  Surplus electronics from WWII to present: Radios, tubes, power supplies, test equipment, vintage knobs, tuners. Reprint books & manuals. Good service. Lima, Ohio store.

• W.W. Grainger
  New production motors, motor mounts, lamps, electrical parts, industrial supplies, etc.

• Mouser Electronics
  New electronics at reasonable prices. NTE semiconductor line. Good inductor source. No minimum order.

• Magnifying glass
  Good prices & fine selection. Will magnify mechanical television pictures.

• Radio Shack
  Short line of electronic components at convenience-store prices. Quirky search feature. No minimum order.

• Roscolux
  Col-R-Tel expert Cliff Benham recommends Roscolux filters for use in color wheel sets. Close match for original Col-R-Tel filters. (Col-R-Tel wheels were best among several competitors.) Filter data at this site.

• SMC Electronics
  Parts. Surplus & refurbished electronics. Sams sets. Schematics for Conar, Eico & Knight kits. Reasonable prices. Prompt delivery. Worldwide shipping. No minimum order.

• Super Bright LEDs (component page)
  

—Raw LEDs. —Strings. —Light bars. —Power supplies. —Drivers. —Automotive LEDs. —Order by specs. (Beam width, brightness, etc.) Surplus Shed Optics Quality, surplus optics at hard-to-beat prices.

PARTS FOR GUITAR PROJECTS

Amplified Parts Knobs, turret boards, tubes, pedal & amplifier DIY parts. Rapid delivery. Easy returns. Also has Amazon.com store. Antique Electronic Supply Electronics parts for stomp box, guitar, & amplifier projects. Transformers, chokes, capacitors, resistors, reverb springs, knobs, & maintenance supplies. Tubes. Also parts for antique radio & TV. C.B. Gitty Cigar-box guitars: Parts & kits for hobo blues instruments. Also banjos, ukuleles, dulcimers, mandolins, & resonator guitars, from improvised materials. Amp kits & parts. Lessons, videos, & DIY books.

eBay Electronics Parts Price deals on quantities of JFETs, transistors, pots, or knobs. Beware of copycat parts. (Yet some are OK, & might operate in your circuit.) Subsidized shipping often means slow delivery. Returns are expensive.

EL34 World Information about building amps. Vast resource. Includes schematic library. Part of Doug Hoffman's Amplifiers site (which sells parts).

Shane Speal Not only does he play cigar box guitars, but he builds them. His online videos teach you how to play. While visiting, check out Shane's Cigar Box Guitar Museum.

Small Bear Electronics The site for DIY guitar effects projects. Also for electric guitar restorations. Also provides how-to data. Parts such as pots, germanium & silicon transistors, JFETs, tubes, LDRs, & knobs. Pedal kits. Tube Audio Supply Parts & parts kits for DIY guitar amps. 5★ components. Heavy-gauge chassis & chassis kits for Fender 5E1 & 5F1 Champ amps. Powder coat in oxblood, brown, or silver. Authentic Fender logos.

RECORDINGS

• Don Mclean
  McLean restores early 30-line, British-system recordings.

• Eurovision Song Contest 1963
  YouTube clip: Conversion from 405 to 32-line British broadcast. Reproduction by mechanical TV. MTV often has visible scan lines. Notice that they curve (due to Nipkow disc scanning).

Man with Flower in his Mouth Recording of one of earliest television shows, Pirandello play. Also see... Flower on YouTube Natalie Cole: Mechanical TV with Entertainment Value “Mechanical tv has no entertainment value”—? False! Modern experimenter made this delightful video of Natalie. Yet during long shots, Natalie becomes jumble. Closeups were best MTV could do.

TECHNOLOGY

• Hardware Evolution
  Yes! Circuits can now evolve just as organic lifeforms do. Explains process: Software algorithms & FPGA chips. Potential for sentient circuits. TV may eventually obtain brightness control that works!

WEIRD SCIENCE

• Alien Transistors
  Yep! Solid state electronics, computers & television came from Roswell, NM! Well, maybe some commercials did.

• Chicago Tunnel
  Buried 40 feet below Chicago are 60 miles of abandoned freight tunnels. Once, electric tunnel trains delivered freight to stores in Chicago Loop. Tunnels infamously flooded in 1992. Pictorial tour.

Elektro (Thinko) Sensation at Westinghouse exhibit of 1939 New York World's Fair: Seven-foot, walking, talking robot. In '40, Elektro brought his droid-dog Sparko. Today, Elektro lives at Mansfield Museum, OH.

Shoe Store Fluoroscopes Shoe-man “x-ray tech” scans kids' feet! “Mommy's trying on high heels. You kids play video games for awhile, OK?” “Keen-o! Let me try it!” Lack of adequate shields (as x-rays zapped one's naughty bits) wouldn't trouble anybody until puberty.

UFO Museum Visit International UFO Museum & Research Center in Roswell, NM. Short video. What type research do they perform here? You tell me.