Radio age (Jan 1927-Jan 1928)

12 RADIO AGE for January. 1927 The Magazine of the Hour III S\^ueJ \ YOO I to be any day now, he will be given a fifty word obituary on page 18 of the local Bugle. De Forest, Armstrong, Hertz, Faraday— all of them might find the culmination of their life work in Joe's nightly broadcast. Unfortunately some of them are dead and those who are alive will have to make some new and important discoveries during the coming year if Joe's radius of interference is to be extended another twelve miles. If Theodore Goolash, the prominent real-estate broker, desires to peddle his lots in his most recently subdivided swamp his first thought is to create good will toward Theodore Goolash and all his works. Formerly such a campaign entailed much thought and quite an outlay of words in the public prints. Now, thanks to the radio, his problem is simple. He finds a hotel that has not been finished more than twenty-four hours, he fights off the mob of wouldbe announcers who are jamming the lobby, and he arranges with the proprietor to put a couple of lightning rods on the roof. Then he looks through the book until he finds the wavelength of the neighborhood's most popular station and he refurbishes it with a new set of call letters. In a week or two he is proclaiming his message to the palpitant millions. His task is even simpler than it used to be. In other days when the government was assuming a paternalistic and unAmerican attitude on the subject of air-rights the newcomer to the broadcasting station would be asigned a wave length and frequently it was a very inferior wavelength. Nowadays he has his choice of wavelengths and the trick of picking the frequency of a popular station immediately solves his problem of building up good will. WHEN he begins to broadcast on such a wavelength he is sure that most of the town will be tuned in and waiting for him. Thousands of listeners who had hoped to hear some advertised program will be tickled stiff to learn that they can listen instead of Mr. Goolash and snappy lines about homes in the suburbs. A lot of the listeners will take steps to move into the suburbs at once — the farther the better and everybody will write letters to Mr. Goolash — letters that he can use as leads for such of his salesmen who survive when his office is bombed. There was a time when one ukulele did not constitute an orchestra. But that was before five or six hundred one ukulele broadcasters felt themselves called upon to meet the popular demand for more radio stations. With conditions as they are any fifty of the one-ukulele stations may be tuned in at one setting of the dial. Inasmuch as all of them will be emitting "Don't Steal My Daddy's Medal" or some song ending in "Yoo-hoo, Dear, Just Yoo-hoo," the result will be an ensemble beyond the wildest dreams of Philip Sousa. Announcers, too, have been given their chance. Where in less enlightened times the town ass had to content himself with being just a town ass, he now finds himself in great demand. "This is station BLAH, Happy Willy Whoosis announcing. We have just received a telegram from Mr. Patrick Knockenschlocker of 4567 McApplesauce Boulevard asking 'Who was that lady I seen you with last night?' Hah! Hah! Mr. Knockenschlocker, that wasn't no lady, that was my wife." Or "This is station GLUE, The Old Soak announcing. We are broadcasting a play by play account of the football game between * * Ding Ding! did you hear the fire engine going by just now. Hokus McPherson has just come into the stand. Hello Hokus. Did you bring anything with you? I'll turn the microphone and maybe you can hear the telegraph instruments. There are eleven men on the team representing — Fergus Fitzraspberry just interupted to ask if I ever tried to get a drink in Ishpeming. No Fergus, I never tried to get a drink in Ishpeming because I ain't never been to Ishpeming. . ." BUT WHY go on with it? There is no particular object in writing about matters that are known intimately to every radio set owner in the country. There are now fortysix stations in Chicago alone, and since the air has been made permanently safe for adenoids it seems quite possible that ev(Please turn to jxige 39)