Click to jump to a gallery page

Jenkins Model 202 Radiovisor, 1929 (U.S.A.) This mechanical scanning-drum unit was engineered, designed and manufactured by the Jenkins Television Corporation, a company founded in 1928 by the American television pioneer, Charles Francis Jenkins. As early as 1894, he presented an article in the periodical, Electrical Engineer, on a method of electrically transmitting pictures. He was one of the earliest to succeed at television transmission, and claimed to have executed the first reported transmission of television by radio in 1923. Hugo Gernsback of Radio News and Watson Davis of Popular Radio witnessed a demonstration in the same year. In 1928 Jenkins announced the birth of a new entertainment industry, "Radio Movies". Shortly thereafter, Jenkins Laboratories Incorporated initiated 48-line silhouette broadcasting through regularly scheduled telecasts over station W3XK and a few other stations that showed "Radio Movies". Jenkins preferred the term "Radiovision" to "Television", which explains this unit's name.