Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

II Radio Magician Creates a Listeners' Utopia By DR. ALFRED N. GOLDSMITH Vice President and General Engineer, RCA IVn Imaginary Picture of the Improvement in Reception Effected by Tenfold Increase in All Station Power Goldsmith THE BROADCASTERS and the radio manufacturers all aim to give Mr. Average Listener the clearest sort of reception with the least possible interference. The broadcasters are sing stations having a power from few watts to 50 kw. (from a few iouse power to less than 70 horse . ower). The manufacturers prouce highly sensitive and selective eceivers capable of picking up the eeble signals available at any coniderable distance from a broadasting station. Rushing down the antenna of fx. Average Listener, in addition 3 the program currents, are a misellaneous conglamoration of elecric currents originating either in . lachinery or electrical devices of ne sort or another in the neighorhood, or originating in nature's rreat outdoor laboratory. Mani~ia.de disturbances can be reduced, iiut it is difficult to see how nature's lectrical twutches can be restrained. The situation has apparntly reached an impasse. The staJion power is limited, the signal strength is limited, man-made and atural disturbances are definite nd in part uncontrollable. Acordingly the clarity of reception nd its freedom from interference re, in general, close to a standtill. If the readers will follow me in flight of imagination, we can try n interesting experiment. We nil first invent the Radio Maician. He is a benevolent despot -ho is interested in radio experiments. Selecting Independence J)ay for his great experiment, he ! ecides that in the early morning ti July 4, 1932, he will wave his • 'and ten times. At once the power ^f every radio station in the United tates is to be increased tenfold, j'lease note that no stations are ■xcluded from this kindly increase i power. The privilege of tenold power is extended to all of hem alike at exactly the same lime. Receivers Keep Abreast IHE INTERESTED Radio Ma' ician has decided not to pay much ■ttention to people living: within a lew miles of the new 50-kw. and 00-kw. stations. (Of course, the Id 5-kw. stations have become 50stations, and the old 50-kw. tations have become 500-kw. starons.) The reason the Magician aid little attention to the people ving in these areas was because adio receivers had been so greatly nproved in selectivity during the ast two or three years (with praccally all standard sets today using AN ENGAGING portrayal of "super" power for broadcasting, even beyond the most optimistic hopes of present station operators, is offered in this somewhat whimsical article by a foremost radio engineer. Purposely evading technical arguments, the writer describes the reactions of Mr. Average Listener when he suddenly finds that the power of all stations has been increased tenfold by a benevolent magician. Static is considerably reduced, he finds, and distant stations come in more clearly though there is no reduction in distant beat notes or interference. But the next day the magician waves his wand again, and all was as before to the great disappointment of Mr. Average Listener. the super-heterodyne principle) that even with the power of transmitters multiplied tenfold, the amount of "blanketing" would be considerably less than that experienced with the old-fashioned less selective receivers at the same distance from the "powerful" stations, as they were then called of 500 watts a few years ago. Besides, he had decided that the best even a Magician can do is to please most of the people all of the time. So the Magician stuck his head into the home of Mr. Average Listener on Independence Day. What he saw convinced him that he had made a wise step in his "tenfold experiment." He watched Mr. Average Listener turn on his set and look rather startled. The signals seemed unusually loud, so Mr. Listener turned back the volume control until the signals were of normal strength. If Mr. Listener had an automatic volume control in his set, he noticed nothing whatever at first. And then, as July 4 wore on, Mr. Listener began to notice a number of things. In the first place, he found that beat note interference between distant stations, particularly during the evening hours, was not a bit reduced by what the Magician had done. In this respect there has been no improvement. In the second place, he found that fadine from distant stations was only slightly improved for sets not having automatic volume control. The slight improvement resulted from the fact that even the weakest signals during a fading minimum were not bothered so much by the static. Mr. Listener's friends who had automatic volume controls on their sets were better pleased with distant signals. They found that fading seemed rather less severe because the static did not trouble the signal so much when the signal was at its weakest. No Added Interference MR. LISTENER found another curious thing, namely, that the machine had not created any additional interference. As Mr. Listener turned the tuning knob, one station after another came in in exactly their relative strength. None had gained an advantage in proportion over the other. It seemed to be just an improved status quo ! You see, all the stations were increased in power tenfold, and Mr. Listener had turned back his volume control so that the set was only one-tenth as sensitive as before. So he noticed no change in the relative strength of the various stations. But, as the day continued and the evening came on, Mr. Listener suddenly noticed that there was, in fact, a marvelous improvement in radio reception. For one thing, static seemed to have been reduced tenfold. Where formerly distant stations could not be heard at all in the daytime, they now gave enjoyable entertainment. And, where stations in the neighborhood had been rather battered and bruised by electrical disturbances and static, they now gave clear staticfree signals. As a result, Mr. Listener turned his tone control up to get all the highest frequencies he could. Instead of getting a lot of noise in this way, he got clearer sharper signals;^ music sounded more like the studio performance, and speech was much more intelligible. In fact, the way was open for the radio manufacturers to build receivers which would give far more perfect quality of reproduction than previously. Mr. Listener turned to Mrs. Listener and remarked that someone had eliminated static that day and cleared up all signals, making them clearer, more natural, and more intelligible. He added that there did not seem to be any other change so far as interference or distant beat notes were concerned, and he was extremely grateful to anyone who had made this change. The Dream Fades IN FACT, it was a Radio Independence Day for him — the day on which radio had become practically independent of electrical disturbances, man-made and natural. And so Mr. Listener fell asleep on the night of July 4 with a broad grin on his face. But alas! On the morning of July 5 the Radio Magician had waved his wand backwards ten times and reduced all the stations to their former powers. There were quite some thunderstorms on the evening of July 5; and sparking switches, flashing lights, and the like, were doing their worst. When Mr. Listener turned on his set on that evening, his look of delighted anticipation faded into grim disappointment. He was back in the era of radio dependence on electrical disturbances — Independence Day had passed and with it had scone clear summertime reception in north and south alike at any reasonable distance from the transmitting station. CBS Retrenches A 15 PER CENT cut in salaries of all CBS employees, effective next month, has been ordered by CBS. In addition, 100 or more employees in various departments have been released, all of whom either were given four weeks' salary or a month's notice. Artists' pay scales, it is understood, also are being readjusted to meet current economic conditions. The RCA Building ROCKEFELLER CENTER'S largest building, rising 70 stories from the heart of New York's Radio City, will be known as the RCA Building by agreement between the Rockefeller interests promoting the Radio City project and RCA and NBC. The executive offices of RCA and NBC and NBC studios will be contained in the building. lay 15, 1932 • BROADCASTING WGBF Now WESG CALL LETTERS of WGBF, Glens Falls, N. Y., have been changed to WESG by authority of the Department of Commerce. The new call connotes the Elmira (N. Y.) SunGazette, Gannett newspaper, to which the present license holders, W. Neal Parker and Herbert H. Metcalfe, propose to transfer the station. Page 15