Energetic Scotsman wins and loses the TV race

Press, 23 June 1986, Page 18

Energetic Scotsman wins and loses the TV race

Coffin wood, darning needles, hat boxes, sealing wax, bike lamp lenses, and an old tea chest are all the odds and ends that went into Britain’s first television system.

The eccentric Scots inventor, John Logie Baird, built them into his primitive mechanical TV camera in his room in Hastings.

The incredible story of his success — and eventual failure — is told in the second instalment of the documentary series “Television — The Race for Television” (Two at 10 p.m.).

It was Baird, an engineer, showman and selfpublicist, who produced the world’s first instantaneous moving TV picture, but he was to lose the international race. Although he persuaded the 8.8. C. to transmit using his method in 1930, it was dropped in February 1937 in favour of the electronic cathode ray system — basically the technique still used today.

In 19§5, more than 60 satellites girdle the globe, beaming from space to Earth pictures for hundreds of millions of viewers. Only 60 years ago, the first flickering primitive pictures were being spirited out of the air. From Tokyo to Berlin, from San Francisco to Leningrad and London, boffins were racing to be the first to succeed with the exciting new medium. Baird knocked on a neighbour’s door and told him quietly: “I have come to tell you I have achieved television.” But a Russian claims in “Television”: “Electronic TV was first invented by our own countryman, Professor Boris Livovich Rosing in 1907.” A Germany says: “Germany was in fact the first country to begin an expanded service.” And a Japanese: “Now, for the first time, we have the basis of television.”

The energetic Baird had already invented an “indestructible sock” and

dabbled with chutney in the West Indies, artifical diamonds in Glasgow and soap in London, before turning his talents to “seeing by wireless” in 1923. A colleague who worked with him, describes how Baird recruited him: “He said, ’l’ve fitted up an apparatus for transmitting pictures — television. I can’t get it to go’.” They did get it to go and Baird launched into a frenzied round of stunts. He demonstrated his sets in Selfridges. He got a picture to travel eight miles. He beamed the first pictures from London to New York. He set up his gear on a ship in the mid-Atlantic so one of the crew would “see” his fiancee sitting in Baird’s London studio. The press were ecstatic. “Lovers Meet By Television,” was the headline, but the sailor had difficulty recognising his girlfriend.

Meanwhile, electronics engineers worked on in

the United States, the Soviet Union, Japan and Germany with mixed success.

Baird persuaded the 8.8. C. to transmit using his mechanical spinning disc system in 1930, though he estimated there were only 29 TV sets in London homes. By 1932 Baird was transmitting •four days a week, but trials of the new more sophisticated electronic system were looking impressive — better in fact than the Baird pictures. After a trial period using both systems week-and-week about, the 8.8. C. decided to drop Baird altogether. A 8.8. C. executive of the time, explains how the cumbersome Baird equipment regularly broke down. “Artists just didn’t want to appear on it,” he says. "Quite Important people came and practically prayed at my desk, saying: 'Don’t put us on in the Baird week ...’” Baird, the winner, had lost.