Guillermo González Camarena
Guillermo González Camarena (17 February 1917 – 18 April 1965) was a Mexican electrical engineer who was the inventor of a color-wheel type of color television, and who also introduced color television to the world.
Guillermo González Camarena | |
---|---|
Guillermo González Camarena | |
Born | |
Died | 18 April 1965 48) | (aged
Nationality | Mexican |
Education | National Polytechnic Institute |
Occupation | Engineer |
Spouse(s) | María Antonieta Becerra Acosta |
Engineering career | |
Discipline | Electrical engineer |
Projects | Chromoscopic adapter for television equipment |
Early life
González Camarena was born in Guadalajara, Mexico. He had 6 siblings, 5 of which were male.
Career and inventions
González Camarena invented the "Chromoscopic Adapter for Television Equipment", an early color television transmission system. He was only 17. A U.S. patent application (2,296,019) states, "My invention relates to the transmission and reception of colored pictures or images by wire or wireless..." The invention was designed to be easy to adapt to black-and-white television equipment. González Camarena applied for this patent August 14, 1941, and obtained the patent September 15, 1942. He also filed for additional patents for color television systems in 1960 and 1962. He sold his first set in 1954 for about $1,450.
On August 31, 1946, González Camarena sent his first color transmission from his lab in the offices of The Mexican League of Radio Experiments, at Lucerna St. #1, in Mexico City. The video signal was transmitted at a frequency of 115 MHz. and the audio in the 40-meter band.
He obtained authorization to make the first publicly announced color broadcast in Mexico, on February 8, 1963, Paraíso Infantil, on Mexico City's XHGC-TV, a station that he established in 1952. By that time, the government had adopted NTSC as the television color system.
Death
He died in a car accident in Puebla on April 18, 1965 (at the age of 48), returning from inspecting a television transmitter in Las Lajas, Veracruz.
Legacy
A field-sequential color television system similar to his Tricolor system was used in NASA's Voyager mission in 1979, to take pictures and video of Jupiter.[1]
There was a Mexican science research and technology group created La Fundación Guillermo González Camarena or The Guillermo González Camarena Foundation in 1995 that was beneficial to creative and talented inventors in Mexico.
At the same time, the IPN began construction on the Centro de Propiedad Intelectual "Guillermo González Camarena" (Guillermo González Camarena Intellectual Property Center).
References
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- Enrique Krauze - Guillermo González-Camarena Jr. "50 años de la televisión mexicana" (50th anniversary of Mexican T.V.) - Year 1999 Mexican T.V. Documentary produced by Editorial Clío & Televisa, broadcast in 2000)