It is World Television Day for 2023 today on November 21^st. In order to celebrate the invention of a widely used invention called television, I am bringing to you a “History of Television”. Today was World Television Day, and the invention and the industry all deserve a salute!

📺 Television
Television is technology of adding the video signal along side of the already present audio channels modulating, signaling and/or communicating using a radio wave, which is an electromagnetic waves in the low frequency just above the sound wave between 30 Hz and 300 GHz. The electronic wave is generated by a transmitter connected to an antenna which radiates the wave, and tuned by a television tuner connected to a receiving antenna. Television is used in communication, television, radar, navigation, some, remote sensing and other variety of other applications. The term channel has two distinct definitions when it comes to television. First the term channel’s terminology when used as “video” and “audio” channels is completely distinguishing the fact that the information, whether digital or analog have information with video tracks and audio tracks “channeling” on a spectrum of broadcast, whether through a wave of transmission, or even an internet channeling whereby the signal is still using a frequency to emit it’s proper signals so “track” and “channel” are synonymous in this case. The other definition of channel, as in the use of a television channel is referring to the whole “package” of signal, it’s tracks and its station to represent the whole television channel. As with all communications, several different generations called “Next Generation) or NG# with a number of generation are assigned for the typical broadcast that is wither in existence or was in existence. Typically these days digital broadcast is primarily using the NG33 generation for broadcast. Mind when television converted June 12, 2009 what is called is called digital television, it converted a lot of the previously used analog bandwidth for other purposes, including Wi-Fi communication. In 2009, the Government offered a rebate to purchase the digital scanner to be added on top of the television set that was currently rendering an analog signal. Digital transmission is able to communicate on a very shallow bandwidth, so that the consumption of television bandwidth previously used was converted over to a much more shallow use–giving the remainder of the bandwidth to be used for many other more modern and much needed room for use in this technological age. The types of typical stations used in these modern times are:

• Low-Powered television station (LP)
• Standard Definition television station (SD)
• High Definition television station (HD)

Keep in mind that no matter which format a station uses can and often does use a certain ratio. The most common and standard ratio of all digital televisions in order to not have either of a horizontal or vertical letterboxing is 16:9 aspect ratio. Any other resolution can lead to letterboxing, and if not the resolution differential will include a problem rendering the video where the images are real sized. When digital television first came out, there was a problem with conversion and with the discontinuation of the 4:3 ratio monitor/television then being converted to the security monitor led to monitoring of people on the set and dramatic problems in identifying the people in the monitor as far as weight, because the images rendered without letterboxing the monitor video resulted in mostly wider than normal sizing, and people appeared to be much more overweight than in reality. Sometimes the facial image also looked “alien-like”. Television and use of monitors, especially for security have come a long way since 2009. The history and current designation of all radio waves, including the television band are listed here: fcctable.pdf

📺 History of Television
🖥 THE EARLY YEARS – INVENTION INTO THE 1940’S:
Television, or the common abbreviation TV, was initially invented by German inventor Paul Gottlieb Nipkow, who developed the first mechanical television. Later more then modernized models of television were invented by 1895 with Scottish inventor John Logie Baird and American inventor Charles Francis Jenkins. The still used most modern version of television in America was invented September 7, 1927 by IEEE Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Award winner Philo Taylor Farnsworth, as the American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. We have come a long way from where the original televisions were in those days. Black & White was an early standard, but obviously monochrome was actually first when it came to original television. Originally television tubes were completely round, and the images were very convex in shape. To this day, televisions and the broadcast bands are governed in the U.S. through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (a department of the U.S. Executive Branch). In 1927 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) gave a public demonstration of the new technology, and by 1928 the General Electric Company (GE) had begun regular television broadcasts. Home television ownership, a rarity before the 1940’s, The set prices in those days ranged with lower quality sets as low as $200.00, ranging with quality increases to a price of as much as $800.00.

📼 THE CHANGING YEARS – 40’S THROUGH THE 60’S:
Television was taken to new avenues and limits in the years of the 40’s through the 60’s. Throughout these years, the sets became more square and the tubes were altered so that they looked way less convex in nature. The industry exploded in the post-war boom years of the 1950’s. While only around 9% of Americans owned TV’s in 1950, by 1960 that figure had jumped above 80%.  In World War II FM Doppler radar was used to replace inferior AM radar for obvious reasons, interference and a lot of severe limitations and got the radar to utilize video instead of just the original audio channel used originally. In 1945 the FCC moved the FM broadcast band from the 42–50 MHz to 88–106 MHz band, though later extended to be 108 MHz, making the existing televisions useless unless a converter was purchased. By the 50’s, television began to get more popular whereby people tended to have someone “on the block” who had one towards the beginning, and by the end of the decade more and more families were adding one to the household. Networks took off with 4 main networks on both radio and television. The original missing channel “1” before the original channel 2 on analog television is missing purposely because In 1948, Channel 1 was officially taken out of use because the frequencies used for this channel were not suitable for TV transmission. There was too much static and the picture quality was not good. However, because so many TV stations were already established, the FCC did not renumber the channel assignments. Channel 1 was dropped due to the fact that it just could not handle the quality needed to render the video signal. The first prime time television network color series was The Marriage, a situation comedy broadcast live by NBC in the summer of 1954. Color televising was introduced full time in the fall of 1965 by the NBC network. In 1965, a television set had an average sticker price of nearly $300.00, which became more affordable, but still a very large investment. The method of being able to invent a color that was universally introduced to being able to not cause obsolution of the black and white set rested in inventing the process of colorization of broadcast of a signal with a missing “green” color and transmitting a raster line sum to compensate for that missing color channel. Green was chosen because it is so close in darkness as compared to the counter “red” and “blue” on the chromatic spectrum of grayscale. Many scenarios were used, but until the missing green solution was introduced, the black and white sets were not able to render a usable signal, meaning introduction of a color signal over the airwaves would have made black and white sets all obsolete. Sets were more easily fixed than our present day counterparts.  When sets had problems, service men typically were able to come out an render a problem by testing the inner tubes of the set. The tubes were basically plugged into sockets with hard wiring. Bad or malfunctioning tubes were easily replaced, rendering a “fixed” television set.

📡 THE BUILDING UP OF TV – 70’S TO THE 90’S:
Television taken to even more new heights in the 70’s and 80’s. At the beginning of the 70’s, the standard of broadcast almost completely turned to total color abroad. Television went completely solid state throughout the period, except the picture tube, which kept a normal television set very heavy in weight. Throughout the period the resolution standards throughout Hollywood and worldwide continued to soar. Vast improvements, including the price of a television set became better and more affordable year by year throughout the period. Repairing became less an option during the sold-state that television became throughout the period, with television repair services becoming more scarce and widespread throughout the period. In 1983, the US FCC removed channels 70 through 83 on the UHF and reassigned them to a Land Mobile Radio System. Some systems of special scrambled television programming, with the introduction of ON-TV from the year 1977 and 1985 on our Chicago channel 44 at night were becoming more and more popular. The system had some adult programming in the nighttime hours, and became popular for a few years. Throughout the 1980’s, cable television systems, satellite systems (with a very large dish) became highly popular. The standard cable offered an analog closed-circuit CCTV signal coming in on a coaxial cable and being able to tune into either of channels 3 or 4, depending on the broadcast area, whether or not a channel close to the signal area and what worked best for the local area hooking up the cable system. Being analog, it was typically hard for a cable operator to know whether a subscriber was pirating a signal. Typically the area’s broadcast stations were offered at little or nominal cost, so that switches became almost unheard of throughout the years, especially toward the later years in the period.  TiVo was introduced the last year of this period in the year 1999 to become a system of automation for digital video recording (DVR), and replaced the normal VCR timer recording standard that was viably operable throughout the period.

🍿 THE PRESENT DAYS:
Present day television is taking a way different style as compared to previous time periods. These days, as explained above the standard shifted almost completely digital. Cable operators, satellite operators are virtually 100% encrypted and scrambled. Pirating signals is almost always virtually impossible. The system of coaxial cable has shifted to HDMI cable, and the digital experience is sometimes even a more vector related system, especially outdoors venues such as concerts. These days, some municipalities ensure that HDMI be installed behind the walls of a new house due to improved building codes. As previously discussed, in 2009 the whole system of television throughout the Untied Sates is now a digital broadcast. Originally with a deadline of 2020, original analog sound source of Channel 6 (pre-digital) shows up still to present on 87.7 and 87.9 FM, which are really not officially FM, but original TV band (the sound channel) signal. Our channel six had a now defunct weather prediction service on the air and switched the audio with a radio station in the background originally, and now the audio is what is left. The FCC has granted the moratorium analog of the frequencies of 87.7 and 87.9 only, to allow more time for the proper development of a universally usable system for digital on the FM band whereby FM radios no matter how old will still be usable, and not cause undue hardship for the owners of those frequencies. The availability of either of the two of these frequencies depend like all designations on the particular market and the situated designations abroad. The COVID-19 era presented a very serious blow to the whole television industry abroad. Hollywood and all television came to a grinding halt, as the ability the film became virtually impossible. Sports came to a grinding halt, with the exception of wrestling, which was the first large industry to surpass the COVID-19 restrictions by dismissing the audience completely and film the segments in the blackness of no audience. Later on, they start selling virtual seats with television sets in the audience with people’s “Zoom” seats to represent attendance of a virtual audience The whole television has still yet to completely recover from the COVID-19 era.

📺 Sources of Television
More modern sources are listed as follows:.

• Terrestrial television
• Cable television
• Satellite television
• Internet television

🖥 SOURCES OF CHICAGO BROADCAST TELEVISION:
The Willis Tower (Sears Tower), has been considered one of the longest lived best signals in the world. To this day has the best location and equipment to transmit multiple VHF signals in the whole Chicago marketplace, because the The Willis Tower formerly the Sears Tower stands over one quarter of a mile high at 1450 feet high. The tallest Chicago skyscraper is Chicago’s largest touristic attraction, and its two from a far visible roof antenna masts also serve as primary TV and FM-transmitters in Chicago metro area.

875 North Michigan Avenue Building (The John Hancock Center), stands 100-stories tall, and one of the most distinctive places making a stunning city’ skyline, is thanks to two greatly huge antenna  when the building owner decided not to upgrade in the 2009 digital HD television conversion. Despite circumstances, some lower powered stations remain, and the masts are indistinguishable with the rest.

The Aon Center or Building (The Amoco or Standard Oil Building), houses some television stations, operating with power reductions according to their antenna heights, and the maximum power being allowed.

📺 Television Perks: The Television Contest
There are few but major dollar amount giveaways per year sponsored directly by television networks and individual channels. For instance, five years ago, I have had the opportunity to win one year (2017) twice in the same year on WCIU-TV from within the very successfully run television network owned by Weigel Broadcasting. The first win was a win in a texting competition on the program where they had a  “keyword” during the airing of the two judge programs “People’s Court” and “Judge Mathis”. A random winner every hour for four hours in a row! Then they called me back to win the $100 prize!! Then the second win was when I appeared on television! There was an entry online in order to be called to appear on the station ran program called the jam tv show in a daily segment called “Spin & Win” on on Thanksgiving. I did win the 24″ Samsung television set by the contest landing on the turkey! The whole experience of being on television, between being able to experience what being backstage and on-stage, the costly stage equipment, the nice aura of the Green Room and the expert and jovial staff was a thrilling experience indeed. I also learned that they have special make-ups to hide blemishes and that the color of what you are wearing is not exactly that of what is rendered on the set. Colors appear much brighter in saturation than in reality. Bight colored clothing and especially striped clothing are frowned on by most directors because they are inferior in composition and render a mostly unusable production. Pastel colors are highly recommended when appearing on the television set.  I recommend everyone try to get themselves on television at least once in life!

Video: @Jerry Marquardt on YouTube – Play the Jam – Jerry

• Competition on “Spin & Win” on The Jam TV Show on Thanksgiving 11/23/2017 at WCIU.com Chicago, IL, USA. Image & Video © 2017 Weigel Broadcasting, LP

📺 Future of Television
This is a trying time for television. It costs a handsome sum to broadcast with a vast array of expenses for a station to make it. Recovery from COVID-19 is a must. COVID-19 restrictions have cost a many, especially smaller television operators even having to go off-air due to heavy and misused restrictions on the public at large. In order to have the pandemic completely come to a close, to further the endemic current state, we need to keep Congress informed that there are a following of constituents who want an end to the madness, so that television can revert to a flourish. I have always loved radio and my hope is that television can continue for the next generation and beyond . . .

Pye B16T television receiver (television receiver) by Pye Limited is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0

World Television Day