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My view on Baird is that he stuck with mechanical television well after it was obvious that electronic television was the future. His attempt to compete with EMI using the impractical intermediate film system and mechanical scanning in the 1936 BBC trials shows this. By 1934 iconoscope cameras were producing better pictures than the best mechanical systems.
As for Jenkins, I don't think he deserves to be singled out among American mechanical TV pioneers. Bairds's work was well publicized, and many people, including Alexandersen, Ives, Sanabria, Hugo Gernsback, and Hollis Baird built mechanical stations and receivers in the same time period. Jenkins' station came on the air in 1928, along with many others, including stations in Chicago, Schenectady, New York and Boston. Bell Labs broadcast television a full year earlier in April of 1927, and the Westinghouse station in Pittsburgh probably began broadcasting that year too.
Last edited by Steve McVoy; 12-26-2010 at 07:33 PM.
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