Broadcasting (Oct 1931-Dec 1932)

WILLIAM HARD has returned from reporting the Geneva disarmament conference for NBC and has resumed his weekly talks on "Back of the News in Washington." BEN BREENBLATT, pianist at WCAU, Philadelphia, has copyrighted the title of his program, "Piano Ramblings," for protection against imitators. He inaugurated his distinctive style of piano over WCAU nearly two years ago. CARMEN CASTILLO, wife of Violinist Xavier Cugat, will be heard over KFRC, San Francisco, in several evening concerts in May. The soprano had been with KMTR and KFWB, Hollywood, until a few months ago when the Cugat ensemble moved northward. MRS. VERA OLDHAM, who writes the script for the "Chandu" series, has gone to Europe and Egypt to gather additional material for the series. CARLTON COON, partner with Joe Sanders in the Coon-Sanders orchestra, well known to radio since its days on WDAF, Kansas City, as the Nighthawks under the management of Leo Fitzpatrick, died May 4 at Chicago of blood poisoning caused by an abscess of the jaw. JULANNE PELLETIER, formerly with WTMJ, Milwaukee, and for the last six months staff pianist at WKZO, Kalamazoo, Mich., has resigned to accept a position with an orchestra in Galesburg, 111. RICHARD LE GRAND, NBC character comedian and dramatist, has joined the staff of KYA, San Francisco. JOSEPH BRUCE WARNER, once with NBC in Chicago but latelv of KNX, Hollywood, has moved to KHJ for a Sunday morning sponsored program. Over the air he is known as Lil Joie Warner with song and patter and piano tunes. JACK BRINKLEY, announcer, actor and newspaperman, has joined the announcing staff of the Yankee Network. He has been announcer at WTIC, WOR, WEAF and WJZ. Previously he had a role in "Sun-Up" and worked on the New York American. EARL BURTNETT'S orchestra, heard nightly from the Los Angeles Biltmore via KECA, late in May will move to the Lincoln Tavern, Chicago. Charles Kaley, one of Burtnett's group, will organize a new orchestra in Los Angeles to take his place. ART GILLHAM, radio and vaudeville star, is now featured on the Evans Fur program over WBBM, Chicago. HANLEY STAFFORD, depicting drama parts for KFWB, Hollywood, late in April went to Phoenix, Ariz., to manage a stock company. RALPH MADDOX, former announcer at WQBC, Vicksburg, Miss., has been added to the staff of WJDX, Jackson, Miss. WALTER KELSEY, violinist at KFRC, San Francisco, has just written two compositions, "Dusk" and "In a Meadow." HARRY RICHARDSON, former announcer at KVOO, Tulsa, Okla., has gone to KFAC, Los Angeles, as an announcer-singer. LLOYD ADAMS, formerly with KGMB, Honolulu, late in April was appointed program and musical director of KROW, San Francisco. THE BLUETTES, popular girls' harmony trio, have left KHJ, Los Angeles, to join the staff of KPO, San Francisco. TOM SHIRLEY, who was assistant director to Cecil B. DeMille in Hollywood for nine years, is a new announcer-actor at WBBM, Chicago. BYRON DOUGLAS, radio editor of the Los Angeles Times, and KHJ news announcer, was married to Miss Mary Luppert late in April. RICHARD HOCK, xylophonist and pianist, formerly with several stations in southeastern Pennsylvania, has joined the staff of WORK, York, Pa. J. C. LEWIS, Jr., song writer for KHJ, Los Angeles, will devote his entire time to composing. "For Ever So Long" is his latest. He also wrote "I Got the Ritz From the One I Love." LYNN WILLIS, announcer at WIPWFAN, Philadelphia, has been appointed production manager by Edward A. Davies, vice president. Jay P. Begley, veteran radio personality, has been added as an announcer. FREDERICK WILLIAM WILE, political commentator for CBS, has been invited to address the Institute for Education by Radio at Columbus, 0., June 6-10, by the College of Education of Ohio State University. His topic will be "The Treatment of Political Topics by Radio." TAURANCE DANTZLER, brother of Mary Brian, film star, has signed up his orchestra for a nightly appearance over KMTR, Hollywood. BYRON DOUGLAS, radio columnist of the Los Angeles Times, and news announcer via KHJ, recently made his radio drama debut over KNX, Hollywood, in "The Valiant." Tongue Twisters "THE SEETHING sea ceaseth and thus the seething sea sufficeth us," was the shibboleth recently employed by the NBC to weed out candidates for positions as announcers. The French have now applied their ingenuity in devising a similar test for their own speakers. The best example seems to be: "Un chasseur sachant chasser chassa son chien de chasse dans un sachet seche." — From Wireless World of London. IN THE CONTROL ROOM WILLIAM B. LODGE, of the wellknown New England Lodge family and an honor graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been transferred from the maintenance group, New York division of CBS, to the engineering group. His vacancy has been filled by George S. Sears, formerly in the construction department. James Hackett of the construction department has been transferred to studio engineering. ENGINEERS of WIBA, Madison, Wis., are at work devising special pickups to handle the International Saengerfest with 1,000 voices to be held in Madison June 2-4. WALTER C. EVANS, manager of radio operations for the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co., is supervising the installation of the shortwave equipment of W8XK, now being moved into an ultra-modern plant at Saxonburg, Pa., about 30 miles from Pittsburgh. C. B. GROTE, of Dallas, was recently named chief engineer of WFDW, Anniston, Ala. BEING a sight reader of music, McKenzie Reid, of the WOR, Newark, engineering staff, recently handled the Toscanini broadcast from Carnegie Hall. He generally handles the controls for similar broadcasts directly from copies of the score. D. W. GELLERUP and Cliff Worby, of the WTMJ, Milwaukee, engineering staff, recently became fathers. It was the second son for Gellerup. J. D. HOLMES, formerly with the Radio Engineering Co., Fort Worth, Tex., has joined the technical staff of KFUL, Galveston. BILLY RULE, of the operating s'aff of WEEI, Boston, is the proud father of a baby daughter, born in April. M. H. Aylesworth Awards Prize to Philip James SUBMITTING a composition with a characteristically radio title, "Station WGZBX," Philip James, director of the Little Symphony at WOR, Newark, was declared winner of the first prize of $5,000 in the NBC contest for original symphonic works by American musicians. Five awards were made on May 8 by M. H. Aylesworth, president of NBC, with prizes totalling $10,000. The other four winners are: Max Wald, Paris, "The Dancer Dead," $2,500; Carl Eppert, Milwaukee, "Traffic," $1,250; Florence Grantland Galajikian, Maywood, 111., "Symphonic Intei'mezzo," $750, and Nicolai Berezowsky, New York, "Sinfonietta," $500. The five manuscripts were chosen after months of study from a total of 573 submitted. The jury comprised Walter Damrosch, Tullio Serafin, Nikolai Sokoloff, Frederick Stock and Leopold Stokowski. The task of ranking the winners in the order of merit, however, was left to a National Committee of Award, composed of 150 men and women scattered over the country, who were chosen as representing a cross-section of the nation's most enlightened musical opinion. All of the composers are American citizens as stipulated in the rules of the contest. Berezowsky is a native of Russia but a naturalized citizen, while the four others were born in this country. CLARENCE WESTOVER, CBS studio engineer, recently completed seven weeks on the road as "sound man" with the Camel tour. After returning to New York for a short time, the group went on tour again until latter May. A. B. Mundorf, of the CBS field engineering group, went to New Haven with the Mills Brothers recently, handling the switchover between the Mills Brothers there and Victor Young's orchestra in the New York studios. C. GORDON JONES, formerly with Electrical Research Products, Inc., as an acoustical expert, who besides being a technician is also a musician, director, arranger and composer, will join the staff of the Yankee Network May 23. He will divide his time to the improvement of sustaining programs both from a technical and production standpoint. AUBREY C. BIRCH, formerly of the field staff of WRC, Washington, has joined the engineering staff of WHP, Harrisburg, Pa. G. FRED CRANDON, assistant chief engineer of WCSH, Portland, Me., and WFEA, Manchester, N. H., joined Chief Engineer William L. Foss late in April on a tour of northern New England for field surveys of the two stations. BRUCE PIERSALL, until recently with KDB, Santa Barbara, Cal., has been transferred to the staff of KHJ, Los Angeles. He was succeeded at KDB by Milton Compton. DR. A. N. GOLDSMITH, vice president and chief engineer of RCA, presided at the sessions of the Society o: Motion Pic.ure Engineers meeting in Washington May 9-10. During acoustical discussions the new Bell Laboratories lapel microphone was introduced by W. C. Jones and D. T. Bell. DR. LEE de FOREST was honor guest and speaker at the first annur.l banquet for commercial radio ope:a ors and technicians of the southwest in Los Angeles April 29. William Comyns, radio instructor of the Frank Wiggins Trade School, presided. R. G. BEERBOWER, supervising engineer for the RCA-Victor company, is in Charlotte, N. C, making preliminary plans for the installation of high power equipment for WBT. The station expects to be in operation on 25 kw. in July, and Mr. Beerbower will remain in Charlotte until that time. SECTIONAL meetings of the I. R. E. schedule in May and June include: Cincinnati section, May 17; Detroit section, May 20 and June 17; Los Angeles section, May 17 and June 21; New York section, June 1. Walker Opposes Move Of WMT to Des Moines DENIAL of the application of WMT, Waterloo, la., for authority to move to Des Moines, and to increase its power from 250 watts regular and 250 watts experimentally to 500 watts regular, was recommended to the Radio Commission May 9 by Examiner Walter (Report 358). In a previous report Walker had recommended renewal of the station's license but denial of the experimental power. In the second report he held that granting of the application would S violate the regulations in that it would place on a Canadian-shared channel at a point less than 500 miles from the border, a station with an operating power of 500 watts and "an effective power in the direction of the border approximately 1200 watts." CHICAGO offices of the Columbia Concerts Corporation and the Community Concert Service, formerly located in Tribune Tower, have been moved to larger quarters adjoining the Chicago offices of the t CBS in the Wrigley building. Page 20 BROADCASTING • May 15, 1932