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Fax radio field

From telegraph to telephones, from transatlantic cables to satellites orbiting in space, we've come a long way in a very short time. If you were to guess when an image like this was first able to be transmitted wirelessly, what would you say? Maybe the 1970s? Maybe the '60s? What if I told you that it was able to be transmitted as early as the 1930s? Hard to believe, huh? Well, today we're going to show you the machine that did it. To find out more, we're here with Hal Wallace, who is an associate curator in the electricity collection. And although this may not look particularly electric, allow me to assure you that it is. So Hal, can you tell me about what this giant box is? This giant box is something that you would have in your home in the late 1930s to have a newspaper with your morning coffee. Wow, it's a little bit bigger than an iPad, huh? Just a little bit, but it is, in a thematic sense anyway, a forerunner of the idea of getting your newspaper over the Internet today. Okay, cool. So how would it work? I see obviously that paper is pouring out of it already. Well, this is an early type of fax machine essentially. And it does not work on the telephone lines which we're used to today with fax machines or the Internet. This is working with radio signals. They would transmit the newspaper, typically overnight, and received by this unit which would then print out. Now this is a carbon paper roll here, so the stylus goes back and forth over the carbon paper and leaves a carbon paper mark on the paper that you actually read. So you said this was happening in the late 1930s? but obviously this is going to take a lot of thought and prototyping and work beforehand, so what kind of predates this? Well, fax technology actually is much older than most people think. It evolves along with the telegraph system, basically. Morse's "What hath God wrought?" telegraph message is in 1844 and he's sending electrical signals down the line that leave a pen mark on a piece of paper. And that's actually what the original "What hath God wrought" message is. It's not audible, it's a readable tape. And so people begin immediately thinking, "Gee, maybe we can send pictures also." And there are experiments along those lines. This becomes especially important in the early 20th century for getting pictures across the Atlantic via the cables, the underwater cables. For example there are images of Charles Lindbergh who has just landed at Le Bourget Airport after his Atlantic flight. Those images are cabled back across the Atlantic and within a few hours the newspapers are publishing pictures of Lindbergh in Paris. (Gosh, that's so crazy.) Right, but this is all wire-based technique. In the early 20th century, radio is beginning to come in. Marconi has done his work proving that you can send signals wirelessly. And immediately people begin thinking, "well gee, if you can send dots and dashes by wireless radio we should be able to send pictures too." And within a few years, they're demonstrating this device. By the mid-1920s RCA, the Radio Corporation of America, has got a system-- a commercial system--in place to transmit pictures back and forth across the Atlantic, around the country, and indeed around the world. In 1938, RCA comes up with this device. And they make deals with stations like WOR in New York. (Which you can see right inside) Exactly. And, by the time of the 1939 World's Fair, where they also show off their ideas for electronic television, they're demonstrating this radio fax system right next to it. And that becomes one of the problems with this technology because you got that television coming along, and you can get your news instantly with television. With this, you've got to sit and wait 15 minutes for a page to print. It's a cool technology, and it's cool that it worked. They tried it, and just between the technical factors and the economic factors it just never really caught on and faded away. Cool! Thank you for sharing this radiotastism today. Radiotastic! This is radiotastic. Basically, this is radiotastic. Thank you for joining us on this radiotastic adventure. See you next time.