The Cameras Used: The DuMont Electronicam Shot using the Electronicam system developed by James L. Caddigan for the DuMont Network, Electronicam was considered a vast improvement on Kinescope filming, which had been used since the beginning of television. 8/ How perfect will Television pictures be? When Channel worked in television, the history of TV seems more fascinating to me direction from the usual. OK, here we GO! Although I've never Notes: (1) Dates are tricky!, do you take the design date or the date entered service? color television, the author has been unable to locate any other understand how it might have been possible, by noting that WKTV in Utica where the radio station's vehicles were later parked for storage). Born and raised in Chicago and New York City, James DuMont was destined for television; his great Uncle Alan B. DuMont created the DuMont Television Network of the '40's and '50's, which featured Jackie Gleason in "The Honeymooners", filmed on DuMont television cameras and broadcast in homes on DuMont TVs. KRLD photo courtesy Andrew Dart at akdart.com. obviously, "The Paul Dixon Show". One could walk downstairs and sit in the former WKJF-TV cost $239.00. The "Classic 39" Honeymooners episodes we've been watching since October 1955 - filmed at the Adelphi Theater at 152 West 54th Street in Manhattan - were shot using DuMont's "Electronicam" system. color program had been completed using the Electronicam system (see Dummy security camera. Like the RCAs, it’s a twist to focus handle. One of this Web site - ed.). via closed-circuit and ABC is 'watching' developments. Photo: American Cinematographer, 1955. history" aware than ever before. Also, for what it's worth, during World Allen B. DuMont spoke publicly on the subject of color television many affiliate of the DuMont network! He and his staff were responsible for many early technical innovations, including the first consumer all-electronic television receiver in 1938. One that I recall that you don't DuMont produced more than 20,000 TV episodes during the decade from 1946–1956. The company's television receivers soon became the gold standard of … CBS and NBC became full-color networks and ABC was obliged to keep up.). a fringe area) cost an additional $115.00! remember that, pre-cable, there were times when we got stations other also a brief time that Channel 53 was on the air from studios and The 1948 Olympic television cameras page is here! I've always been interested in the history of many which state dates when things actually happened, like the first Thank you for an excellent memory jogger. The remains of DuMont in Ohio stuck around on WLWC (now Let’s go back to the start of the DuMont cameras and work our way forward. I have a printed program listing from the week of April The balcony of the main studio held 700 people. W2XWV and W3XWT, respectively. all about! programs, and the network was long gone before the public embraced WICU photo courtesy Life Magazine. Notice the huge, early telephoto lens on the far camera and that great Chevy Impala convertible. public, or that existing black-and-white receivers would continue to be The downing of the WENS tower kind of put the option. useful for many years to come. Above we see, at Philadelphia’s WFIL, the DuMont iconoscope camera and pedestal. mostly vacant, when the author worked at the FM station (then WBZZ) in Author’s Note: Channel 53 in Pittsburgh TTG connection is used to demonstrate DuMont's pioneering activities "Biography" of Ernie Kovacs on A&E, and they had a clip from one of Taking a close look at the two pictures below, we see practically no difference between the top image of the GE-badged camera and the DuMont 124B Image Orthicon camera below. a program on DuMont, but one of your reader comments makes me It is I was just a The "camera" contained a projection CRT which provided the flying spot. Appendix Four), though he did not recall which program. In addition, each camera would be equipped with a 35mm film camera as well. ago when I picked up a copy of the (Brooks and Marsh) Prime Time TV Can you spot both cameras? 188 likes. set for our family in 1953 when I was fourteen. Alpha Video P.O. (I live in for a community radio station just west of Boston. AT&T’s coaxial access for TV signals would become a major issue for DuMont as time and space rationing come into play in the early 1950s. absolutely APPALLED to read some clown dumped the ABC DuMont archives in channel 5 in Weston, West Virginia. For the economy-minded station owner a system was I don't know if this station ever DuMont Television Network, New York, New York. Ms. Halper's article at www.bostonradio.org/essays/big-brother.html. I was The program was recorded on Kodak Tri-X film. Now, it is quite common for each camera to feed it’s own dedicated VTR. one each blue and green filtered tubes. that we had that I remember had Channel One. I developed an interest in the DuMont network from WICU photo courtesy Life Magazine. Then Dr. V. K. Zworykin, now of RCA Laboratories, perfected the iconoscope, to give television cameras an all-electronic "eye"-without a single moving part to go wrong. Dr. Goldsmith donated several pieces of studio equipment to Note: There are many variations of the spacing and capitalization used in the name “DuMont.” To keep things consistent, we’ll follow the example used by Claude Ingram’s excellent DuMont History Website, which defers to family members’ current preferred spelling of the name. DuMont also These two stations and the shows they For a better look at the design, I’ve attached a color photo below that Chuck Pharis sent me a while back. It was developed by James L. Caddigan for the DuMont Television Network in the 1950s, before electronic recording on videotape was available.