The disclosure by our Broadcasting Correspondent that the BBC proposes to limit the 30-line transmission tests to two per week has evoked protests from television enthusiasts all over the country.
The BBC's new television headquarters at No. 16, Portland Place. Broadcasting House is a few doors to the right.
The following are selections from a few of the very many letters and cards received.
I have been a regular 'looker-in' to the BBC 30-line transmissions for the past thirteen months, and am very sorry to read that our programmes are to be cut down to two a week. If this is true, I hope the programmes will be longer and include one on Saturday evening. - FSE Andrews (Waverley Park, SE15).
I have been receiving television transmissions for nine months and have obtained excellent results. In all fairness to the amateurs who have spent so much time and cash on their present apparatus, I don't think the BBC should cancel the 30-line transmissions yet. J Smith (Woolwich).
I think it would be a pity to abolish 30-line tests just yet with 120-line transmission still in its babyhood. - Eager (Rugby).
If it could be definitely decided what standard as regards strip and picture frequency (say, for the next two or three years) would be adopted, there is no doubt that people would install television sets, not only for experimental purposes but for their entertainment value. - C V Fowkes (London, N2).
Since transmissions have been on 261 metres at night I have given it up, as reception here is too unsteady to be worth the trouble. - H O'H Moore (Parkstone, Dorset).
We need a Scottish transmission. I receive the transmissions on a disc machine and am about to build a cathode ray receiver. - W Dargavel (Glasgow, S4).
I have been picking up the 30-line transmissions for some months, and it's great fun. But why wait till 11 o'clock? And were we not promised illustrated news bulletins? Hoping you're snowed under with these cards. - W C Nichols (Leytonstone, E11).
Although we are two hundred miles from London National we can usually see 75% of the transmissions fairly well, the balance being lost through fairly rapid fading. - W Stanley Atkin (Wallasey).
I regularly receive the 30-line television broadcast by the BBC. The full fare as at present transmitted is quite satisfactory if one is content with a small image. - F H Dixie (Bournemouth).
As an old television enthusiast it is most disappointing to learn of the BBC attitude of cutting down the 30-line transmission. If we are to have fewer television programmes it is hoped that the BBC will consider putting the vision through a better station, even if we have to wait till a later hour. - K M Button (Breaston, near Derby).
If the new experiments are to help in the future let the BBC close down completely for a bit and get on with it. - I P Grant (Bournemouth).
I should like the BBC to stop the 30-line broadcast they will broadcast on 120 lines on 6.1 metres and install, say, five small transmitters in various parts of the country, even if it means that the owner of a television set paid a pound a year for a licence. I, for one, would pay it gladly. - E J Anderson (Wilmslow, Cheshire).
I sincerely trust that the transmissions will not only continue, but at the earliest possible date emanate from more and nearer aerials. When a Scotsman is sufficiently extravagant to expend 1½ d in PO fees for a letter containing his views on any matter, his opinions are sincere. - Jas. Gouck (Kirkcaldy, NB).
I happen to have just ordered certain parts for a mirror screw. - C Hopkinson (Wharram, Yorks).
What is the use of concentrating on 120-line transmissions with ultra-shorts when the only people who have any hope of receiving these transmissions are those who live in near proximity to the Crystal Palace? - N M Watson (Widnes, Lanes).
For the past year I have been looking in to the 30-line transmissions with a disc scanner of my own make and get very good results. - C H Oldfield (Coxhoe, Co Durham).
In view of the fact that we are experiencing the utmost difficulty in obtaining supplies in sufficient quantities to satisfy our numerous television customers in this district, and that dealers from all parts of the North of England are asking us daily to supply them in large quantities with a 'television kit' which we are marketing, we read your remarks in the issue of The Wireless World, dated February 16th, with a certain amount of amusement.Television has come to stay, and its development will be the more speedy if amateurs in the North are given a transmission worth working on. - E Colmar Wood (Radio Equipment Co., Chester).
These transmissions are of inestimable value to a larger body of enthusiasts than you apparently imagine, and I hope they will all come forward to prove it to you. If a change must be made in the transmissions I would suggest that the BBC send out television for periods of at least one hour on, say, two nights per week in preference to short half-hour periods on four nights per week, as at present. This would be much more helpful for experimental purposes. - Hugh J Miller (Linlithgow).
I work a 30-line televisor every evening the BBC transmits, using home-constructed apparatus, and have been experimenting since 1928. - F E Gay (Grays, Essex).
I have been picking up the 30-line television transmissions now for two years. The points, to my mind, that are likely to prevent a larger audience than at present are, first, the late hour of transmission, and, secondly, the uncertainty as to the nature or the future transmissions. - E A Williamson (Derby).
I consider that the entertainment value of the programmes, entirely apart from technical interest and novelty, is low. At the moment any improvement in results seems to be impossible here until satisfactory synchronising has been obtained. - G D Dawson, Jnr, MSc (Wilmslow, near Manchester).
For a public demonstration of cathode ray television at our society headquarters we were optimistic enough to provide seating accommodation for eighty. Over two hundred people were crammed into the room, standing on the window-sills and every available perch, a group even watching the image from the back of the tube! And, even then, we had to turn away nearly another one hundred. Is it (30-line television) any cruder than sound radio was in 1923, with our tin trumpet loud speakers and 'high-mag' valves used in the output stage? - H Ware, Programme Secretary (Exeter and District Wireless Society).
My viewer cost me only about 2,ドル most of the parts - transformer, resistances, holders, metal, and other odds and ends came out of the wireless junk box, and as I run my motor off the mains, operation is easy and cheap. I donbt think enough people realise how cheaply and easily the vision programmes can be received. I hope 30-line tests will be continued. - Matthew H Blamey (Sutton, Surrey).
As I see it, the main justification for the present policy lies in the experience it gives the BBC staff, not only on the technical side which may soon be revolutionised - but in the choice and presentation of suitable programmes, and, generally, in the development of the new technique associated with television. - F H Woodbridge (Cambridge).
We cannot hope for a chain.of ultra-short wave transmitters over the country for several years yet, and so, to give just one argument, if television is to be prevented from dying out completely in the country as a whole, low definition medium-wave transmissions must continue; and, may I say, 30-lines is not such low definition as some people imagine. - P H Walker (Streatham, SW16).
You may like to know that my apparatus, home built, cost under 1ドル and yet is capable of giving small pictures of people which are easily recognisable from photographs. - C T L Hare (Tunbridge Wells, Kent).
The restriction of the 30-line transmissions to two nights a week appears to me to place a definite bar on the general public becoming television-minded. Might I suggest that the twice-weekly transmissions be of an hour's duration. This would to some extent meet the BBC's case and would afford a far better opportunity to those interested. - L W Wheatley (Cambridge).
About a month ago I rigged up a disc receiver in the simplest possible way in order to see whether reception was worth while at all at such a distance from the transmitter, and the results have been so encouraging that I have felt it worth while to go ahead and add such things as synchronising gear to the motor. - A J Veitch (Edinburgh).
A typical television 'turn'. The actor is Fred Douglas, made up and attired to give an image with wide contrasts of light and shade. Items of this kind can provide genuine entertainment value on 30-line transmissions.