Broadcasting (Jan - June 1940)

Senator's Aide Is Head Of Senate Radio Gallery D. HAROLD McGRATH, for four years secretary to Sen. Schwellenbach (D-Wash.), on Feb. 16 was Jiamed first superintendent of the newly established Senate radio gallery. Before coming to Washington with Sen. Schwellenbach, Mr. McGrath had spent 25 years in newspaper work in the Northwest. During this periMr. McGrath od he did some free lance sports announcing on "KUJ, Walla Walla, Wash. His appointment to the radio gallery post "was made following the recommend:ation of the standing committee of radio correspondents and acceptance of a special resolution by the Senate. William Vaughn, of Glasgow, Ky., has been named assistant to Mr. McGrath. Robert M. Menaugh is superintendent of the House gallery. Engineers Ponder F-M, Reallocation (Continued from page 18) WHEELING STEEL Co., Wheeling, W. Va., has been invited to bring its MBS Sunday Mrtsical Steelmakers program to the New York's World Fair for a guest appearance in 1940, following the success of the program's ■origination from the Fair last June. Exact date has not yet been set for the entire cast of the program to visit the Fair, but it will probably be early in June. of switchover probably will have to be allowed. Because of the allocation complications, Mr. Ring advised engineers the FCC requirement that power be measured directly in the antenna will be postponed until some 60 days following the reallocation. FM, which has permeated the industry like wildfire as the new vista of broadcast operation, consumed more conference time than any other subject. Maj. Edwin H. Armstrong, father of FM and inventor of wide-band operation, opened discussions with a general dissertation on the system. His keynote, as in past discussions, was that wide-band FM delivers to listeners a signal of high fidelity, free of interference. Yankee, GE Progress Yankee Network experience with FM, by virtue of its pioneering operations from Mt. Asnebumskit, was outlined by Paul A. DeMars, technical director. General Electric Co., also in the forefront of experimentation and manufacture, told of its experiences through I. R. Weir and H. P. Thomas, engineering executives. Multiple operation of stations on the same channel, using FM, with a minimum of interference or mush area, was described by these Where there's diversified industry, there's steady buying power. Four hundred industries, almost 1100 individual factories are on a payroll basis within 2% of 1928. The 18th Industrial Area of the nation listens most to one station and only one — WTAG. NBC BASIC RED AND YANKEE NETWORKS EDWARD PETRY & CO., INC.— NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE OWNED AND OPERATED BY THE WORCESTER TELEGRAM-GAZETTE MASSACHVti:TTI engineers. R. F. Shea of General Electric Co., described FM receivers and circuits. Mr. Ring, in his "question box" appearance, also found occasion to comment on FM, which vrill be the subject of a general allocations hearing before the FCC March 18. He said there would be no further grants of FM stations before this hearing. Use of ultra-high frequency for broadcasting, Mr. Ring said, opens three possible methods — amplitude modulation, narrow band frequency modulation, and wide band frequency modulation. He said that for practical purposes there is no difference in quality between AM in the standard band, AM in the ultra-highs and FM in the ultrahighs. The signal to noise ratio is better with FM, and he pointed out that if the shift to FM is made, approximately 40,000,000 receiving sets would require replacement. Quality now received is limited mainly by the microphone and the loudspeaker, Mr. Ring declared, asserting that distortion was the main reason for the majority of listeners turning down tone control on their receivers. While the listener loses high fidelity in doing this, he also minimizes the more undesirable distortions, he pointed out. An anomoly connected with FM, Mr. Ring said, is that transmitters are less expensive while receivers are more expensive and that in view of public interest this hardly reflects the proper industry trend. Television came in for a brief siege and Mr. Ring asserted there still is some doubt whether visual radio is technically far enough along to be placed in regular service. He pointed out the FCC is now engrossed in a detailed study and probably would have a decision on television shortly [see page 16]. The Noise Problem Noise, one of technical radio's most important but least pursued problems, was discussed by J. H. DeWitt, chief engineer of WSM, Nashville. Describing an extensive study at WSM in determining the limit of noise background to which concentrates its allotted power where 6,982,635 foreign citizens reside — influencing their listening end buying habits. METROPOLITAN STATION COSMOPOLITAN AUDIENCE WBNX New YORK 5000 Watts Doys — 1 000 Watts Nights Tenants' Hopes WHEN a new Federal lowrent housing project, South Side Terrace, was opened recently in Omaha, KOIL built an effective broadcast around the hopes of prospective tenants. Bill Baldwin, special events announcer, worked out a special script in cooperation with Carol Cohen, home visitor who had final say on admissible families. Together they went to a typical applicant's residence, asked them on the spot in a broadcast interview why they wanted to move into the new quarters, ended up by notifying the family of its selection as a tenant, with the broadcast fading out amid the real-life exclamations of the family's children. Later a second broadcast picked up their reactions as the family moved into the new home. Where only 150 persons visited the new project the Sunday before the KOIL broadcast, within three hours after the airing the number of visitors had reached 3,000 KOIL reported. the average listener can be subjected without disrupting reception, he said that atmospherics are responsible for substantial loss of quality and coverage. He advocated intensive study of man-made interferences with reception. At a round-table on receivers, conducted by D. D. Israel of Emer son Radio Co., and William F. Cotter of Stromberg-Carlson, engineers were of one accord that much of the poor quality in reception could be traced to the acoustics system, rather than transmitter output or the receiver chasis. It was also substantially agreed that even though high quality transmission and high quality receivers are available, a large percentage of the population cannot afford high grade receivers and therefore for economic reasons many listeners are forced to content themselves with reproduction of a "degrading" nature. On Feb. 18 a large group of en gineers attending the conference visited WHAS, Louisville, by special train. Orrin Towner, WHAS chief engineer, supervised the trip, which included an inspection of the WHAS 50 kw. Western Electric transmitter, with 500 kw. fittings. A "Kentucky dinner" was served at the transmitter. The conference was conducted by Prof. W. L. Everitt, director of the Department of Engineering of Ohio State, in collaboration with Lynne M. Smeby, NAB director of engineering, and R. M. Wilmotte, New York consulting engineer and engi neering advisor to NAB. SALES of radio receivers in 1940 will reach about $140,000,000, according to a prediction made by Perry F. Hadlock, General Electric sales manager for radio and television equipment, The prediction was made at a series of distributor conferences. Mr. Hadloek said television progress is bound to be slow and should not interfere with broadcast set sales in 1940. Page 72 • March 1, 1940 BROADCASTING • Broadcast Advertising