THE DECADE-DEFINING DEVICE
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This is a story about Frequency Allocation confusion in the years between 1945 and 1948. Television
broadcasting using the 525 line, 30 frame, 60 field NTSC system was
OK'd in Spring, 1941, just a few months before Pearl Harbor. The wartime
freeze on manufacturing meant that full scale television production
would have to wait until after the war. During the first 5 years of
the decade television was limited to a handful of stations assigned
to channels 1-5 then in the 50-90 MHz band. FM was assigned to 42-90
MHz. |
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Two long feuding entities, Armstrong and Sarnoff, saw opportunity to get beyond the established media formats popular in the 1930s. AM radio was solidly in place with advertisers, entertainers and audiences. Short Wave became hugely popular during W.W.II. These two AM services would have to be included on any home entertainment center. As you can see below on the dial of the 901, AM is simply listed as "broadcast" and short wave as "S.W. One" and "S.W. Two." These were frequencies on which everyone agreed. No one could agree on Television and FM frequencies. TV and RCA, represented by Sarnoff, wanted the channels 1-13, but his channel 1 was in reality the same prewar set of frequencies (42-50 MHz) used by Major Armstrong for his nascent FM. In 1946 FM was moved to 88-108 MHz, but because of the rancor between the TV and FM factions, channel 1 was given to 2-way business users, like taxis. No broadcaster got channel 1. |
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So to manufacture a set in 1946 that would not be instantly obsolete, the 901 was equipped with old and new FM bands and a TV channel 1, just in case the FCC changed their minds. If you were charging $2100 in 1946 for something totally new like a television, it had to be right. GE took no chances. |
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Some
things never change. By the way, the phonograph supplied with this set was 78rpm, so obsolescence was guaranteed. |
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Radio News, 1945 |
