KXLY-TV Tries Test Pattern, Film

Spokane Daily Chronicle

KXLY-TV got on the air for the first time yesterday with a test pattern in the morning and a filmed program in the evening.

But W. Norman Hawkins, the station’s television manager, emphasized today that these were engineering tests, aimed at attempting “to find out what kind of a picture we can get out.”

“In other words,” he said, “these weren’t tests designed for public reception. We’re not ready yet to telecast such tests and we feel the public would be unwise to try to adjust their sets to get our picture before everything is the way it should be.”

Hawkins said the station has not yet received all the equipment it needs to begin regular telecasting. Yesterday’s tests were made possible when engineers rigged up some “homemade” parts at the station’s tower and transmitter site on Mount Spokane, he said.

More such tests may be forthcoming, Hawkins said, “but there will be nothing in them of program interest.” He said the tests will not be at regularly scheduled times.

Saturday, January 17, 1953