GUILLERMO GONZÁLEZ CAMARENA: BIOGRAPHY, INVENTIONS AND CONTRIBUTIONS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

Guillermo González Camarena (1917 - 1965) was a 20th century Mexican scientist, electrical engineer, researcher and inventor. His name is recognized worldwide as one of the first creators of a color television system.

It was in the 1940s when González Camarena devised a method popularly known as the Trichromatic Field Sequence System or STSC. After 20 years he returned with a new way of bringing color to screens, which was known as the Simplified Bicolor System.

JORGE TERRE OLIVA, from Wikimedia Commons

His system was adopted by almost all of Mexico until González Camarena died. At that time, the country's TV networks opted for the method used in the United States known as NTSC.

However, González Camarena's bicolor system was used for a time to equip the transmitting devices that were sent on missions to outer space by NASA. This was because they were optimal in weight and size compared to the American standard.

Also, Guillermo González Camarena made important contributions to radio with various studies. In addition, it participated in the legal regulations that would later delimit the different frequencies of the Mexican radioelectric spectrum.

He was very interested in astronomy, he even made telescopes for his personal use. González Camarena belonged to the Astronomical Society of Mexico.

The engineer was not only recognized in Mexico for his collaboration with color television, but also by the University of Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois in the United States. That institution awarded him the title of honorary professor in 1950 and commissioned the Mexican inventor with some color television equipment for his own laboratories.

Guillermo González Camarena died in a traffic accident in 1965, in Chachapa, Puebla. That unfortunate incident cut short the scientist's career, which was at one of its highest points.

After his death he received the honor he deserved. In Mexico, a foundation that bears his name was created and which is responsible for supporting the nation's young inventors. Also the National Polytechnic Institute, his alma mater, built the Guillermo González Camarena Intellectual Property Center.

Biography

Early years

Guillermo González Camarena was born on February 17, 1917 in the city of Guadalajara, Mexico. He was the youngest of the children of Arturo Jorge González, owner of a mosaic factory, and Sara Camarena Navarro. Among his eight siblings was the plastic artist Jorge González Camarena.

Gónzalez Camarena's father died when he was only 6 years old. His mother, who was the daughter of the former governor of Jalisco Jesús Leandro Camarena, supported him in his creative inclinations early on, encouraging the boy to carry out his experiments.

Guillermo being an infant, the family settled in Juárez and from the age of 7 the boy was already capable of making electric toys. He claimed that he was spending all his money on the gadgets that his laboratory required, which he installed in the basement of his house.

At the age of 12, Guillermo González Camarena had already built his first ham radio transmitter, one of his passions from a very young age.

His first letters were received at the Alberto Correa School, from there he went to José María Iglesias and finally studied at the Horacio Mann School. Upon completing his basic education, he went to Secondary School No. 3, which was located on Chapultepec Avenue.

Youth and training

At age 13, Guillermo González Camarena enrolled in the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, known then as EIME, which would later be called the Higher School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering (ESIME) of the National Polytechnic Institute.

At that institution, the young González Camarena stood out and there he participated in the tests carried out by Francisco Stavoli and Miguel Fonseca, Guillermo's teachers, with an electromechanical television system, this being his first approach with that technology. Since then, the boy's ingenuity has been used that way.

At age 15 he already had a radio operator license and made a short wave transmitter. Also, González Camarena, began working with the Ministry of Education as an audio operator assistant on XEDP radio with engineer Grajales.

At that time the boy's life was very active, since in the morning he studied engineering, in the afternoons he worked as a radio operator and the rest of his time was used, almost entirely, in experimentation in his laboratory.

Two years later they began their own experiments with television. It was then that he commissioned a television kit from the United States that included an RCA iconoscope.

Based on that, and using old parts of cameras and radios that he found in the city's markets, Guillermo González Camarena managed to build his first television camera.

TV

First phase

The first images that Guillermo González Camarena was able to transmit were in black and white or, as he claimed, in green and black. That was due to the compounds he had used when building the chamber and receiver.

In 1939, González Camarena completed his first stage of experimentation and during that same year he applied for the patent for the Trichromatic Field Sequence System (STSC) in Mexico. The same was granted the following year. Then he asked for it in the United States, and it was approved in 1942.

At that time, Lee de Forest went to the Mexican workshop and laboratory. He was kind enough to congratulate González Camarena for his work and it is said that he had great faith in the ability that the young man possessed to develop electronic sciences.

During those years he continued working as a radio operator. And in 1941, Emilio Ballí provided him with a place in which to continue his work in the development of television.

Second stage

When RCA launched the orticon, which came to replace the iconoscope, Guillermo González Camarena built a renovated camera with the new technology, since practically the entire connection system of the orticon was different.

Also, he created a new sync generator at 25fps. Almost immediately I built a second camera with the same characteristics. They both broadcast in black and white.

Meanwhile, González Camarena continued to experiment with the STSC. He developed it into two rotating discs of three colors, one for the camera and one for the reproducers. That used a second synchronization system, also designed by González Camarena.

At that time he began to experiment with the simultaneous transmission of audio and video through the antenna. To do this, he obtained a permit from the Ministry of Communications and Public Works (SCOP).

Around 1945, SCOP commissioned him to study to legally normalize the communications industry. Then González Camarena participated in the legal regulations that would govern the radioelectric space of the Mexican nation.

By 1946 González Camarena made the first test transmissions of his STSC system. The following year he was sent to the United States as part of a Mexican delegation to observe the technological advances of television in that country.

Third phase

Since 1948 the Gon - Cam Laboratories began to operate in Mexico. From there, the engineer and his team began to manufacture equipment for the transmission, reception and modulation of the television signal.

In 1950, the University of Columbia in Chicago commissioned Guillermo González Camarena to carry out various devices for its laboratories.

In 1952 he created his own channel, which was baptized as XHGC, and was broadcast on channel 5. As of 1954, he joined the Telesistema Mexicano and installed new equipment in the Televicentro, where channels 2, 4 and 5 worked..

In the 1960s, González Camarena continued his research work and from there emerged the Psychological Color Television and the Simplified Bicolor System.

The latter was much simpler and cheaper. González Camarena planned to give it free to Mexican broadcasters to bring color television to more viewers at a much lower cost.

Medicine

In 1949 Guillermo González Camarena's collaboration with medicine began by showing his Trichromatic Field Sequence System to the IX Assembly of Surgeons.

Later, it began to be used for teaching medicine, since the device could be installed inside the surgery room and the procedure was transmitted by closed circuit to the receivers that were located outside the room.

Since 1951, the National School of Medicine of the UNAM had at its disposal a television circuit of the Trichromatic System of González Camarena.

Death

Guillermo González Camarena died on April 18, 1965, in a car accident that occurred in a town called Chachapa, 10 km from the city of Puebla in Mexico.

During the accident his children were traveling with him. Both were injured, but managed to save themselves. González Camarena had married María Antonieta Becerra Acosta, a radio lover, in 1951. With him he had Guillermo and Arturo González Camarena.

His last major international participation was at the New York World's Fair, the same year of his death, to present the Simplified Bicolor System.

Inventions and contributions

Trichromatic Field Sequence System

His Trichromatic Field Sequence System (STSC) obtained two patents. The first in Mexico, which was granted on August 19, 1940. The following year, he applied for it to the United States and it was approved on September 15, 1942.

In that first invention, Guillermo González Camarena developed an image reception and transmission system that used a chromoscope (yellow, blue and red) to recreate color thanks to a synchronization system.

Simplified Bicolor System

González Camarena was able to carry out color transmissions, with a small loss by using only red and blue filters. With this system, the cost of manufacturing televisions would be reduced by almost 50%.

In addition, Gonzalez Camarena planned to assign the rights of use to the Mexican industry in order to lower costs and that more people could access the technology of color television.

Due to the efficiency of the new system, other industries such as aviation were also interested in implementing the technology in their units.

However, the death of Guillermo González Camarena paralyzed all the projects that he had started to continue developing and using his technologies in Mexico.

However, research to improve it continued in different parts of the world and it was later used by NASA to equip various missions that were sent to outer space in the 1960s and 70s.

Among the most important missions that used Gónzalez Camarena's technology were the Apollo and Voyager missions. The creation of the Mexican was chosen for being lighter and occupying less space, two very important factors for NASA at that time.

Other color TV experiments

Guillermo González Camarena also discovered that by manipulating the magnetic tape, the brain was able to interpret some signals as colors, even if they were reproduced on a black and white television.

He named this procedure the Kaleidoscope. He obtained a patent on it almost immediately and in the United States he presented it as Phsycological Color Television.

Honors

- Columbia College of Chicago grants him the title of Professor Honoris Causa (1950).

- Columbia College in Los Angeles, California, awarded him an honorary doctorate (1954).

- He received the Mariano Becerra insignia and was proclaimed Favorite Son of Jalisco by the then Governor of the State, Lic. Agustín Yáñez Delgadillo (1957).

- Dr. Alexander M. Poniatoff presents him with the Diploma of Merit from Ampex Corp. (1959).

- Full member of the Mexican Institute of Culture (1962).

- Special Award in recognition of the worldwide repercussion of his invention - National Association of Distributors of Household Appliances (1964).

- April 18 is established as the Television Technician's Day in memory of Guillermo González Camarena (1970).

- The Guillermo González Camarena Foundation was created (1999).

References

1. En.wikipedia.org. (2019). Guillermo gonzalez camarena. Available at: en.wikipedia.org.
2. Soto Galindo, J. (2018). Guillermo González Camarena, a geek in the country of inequality. The Economist. Available at: eleconomista.com.mx.
3. Earlytelevision.org. (2019). Guillermo Gonzales Camarena. Available at: earlytelevision.org.
4. The universal. (2018). 53 years ago Guillermo González Camarena died. Available at: eluniversal.com.mx.
5. Ruiz de la Herrán, J. (2019). Science and technology in Mexico in the XXI century - BIOGRAPHIES OF ILLUSTRATED CHARACTERS, Volume 4 - GUILLERMO GONZÁLEZ CAMARENA. 1st ed. Mexico: MEXICAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, pp. 111 - 126.
6. Carlos Chimal. (2017). Color Factory: The Life of Inventor Guillermo González Camarena. Fondo de Cultura Economica / Mexico.