1938 AD USA TEST PATTERN

RCA's "Indian Head" test pattern, drawn in 1938 by an RCA staff artist known only as Brooks and used for decades afterward to calibrate the picture, focus and shading of early television cameras and receivers. Its concentric circles and grid lines, radiating from a Native American portrait at centre, first aired in 1940, two years after the artwork itself was finished, and it remained the standard American test card into the era of NBC's April 1939 launch of regular electronic broadcasting.

The card

• Date — 1,938 AD
• Where — RCA, Camden, New Jersey. 39.9259, -75.1196 — approximate
• Evidence grade — WEB-PHOTO

Sources

• tedium.co
• earlytelevision.org

Works Cited

• Source, Title, Publisher, Year.