APR 9: LONDON: Seeing across the Atlantic is an accomplished fact.
A definite test was carried out a few days ago by members of the Television Development Company. The London office is near Covent Garden; those who received the pictures were in a cellar in the village of Hartdale, near New York.
Mr John L. Baird, the inventor, carried out the demonstration in London. Captain O. G.
Hutchinson, the managing director of the company, was at the American end.
"We will transmit 'Bill' first," said Mr Baird, and "Bill" a ventriloquist's dummy was placed under the glare of flood light totalling 600 candle power.
Mr Baird manipulated a score of knobs on an ebonite panel, and "Bill's" features were projected via landline to the company's transmitting station at Coulsdon, and so across the ocean.
In the dark New York cellar 3000 miles away, where Captain Hutchinson was working the receiving apparatus, the watchers waited.
They watched the magic box - no larger than an ordinary suitcase. Behind the little glass screen tiny oblongs of light revolved incessantly. Then suddenly in the light "Bill's" head appeared. It was clear enough for the American watchers to see his mouth open and shut in response to the pulling of a string in London.
Meanwhile in the London laboratory the same vision was flickering on what is called a "pilot screen" to indicate the quality of the transmission being sent out.
For 20 minutes "Bill" was kept before the transmitter. Then came a Morse message from America: "O.K. Please ask Mr Baird to go in."
For half an hour Mr Baird sat before the televisor, turning and twisting his head for the benefit of the watchers across the ocean.
"All along the problem has been one of wireless. We could today offer to the public an apparatus by means of which anyone in our studio could be seen, just as anyone in the BBC studio can be heard," said Mr Baird in an interview.
"It is our policy, however, not to make these available until the results are such that the cause of television cannot be discredited."