Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

sponsored educational closed-circuit television system was started by RCA in Conley Hills Elementary School in Georgia; that the nation's largest television system for handling complex railroad freight operations automatically was installed for Southern Railway in Atlanta. More than 220 million words were handled by RCA Communications' 86 overseas radio circuits serving 66 countries, Gen. Sarnoff continued. He also called attention to the work of the RCA Communications Center at Riverhead, Long Island, in being "the first in the U. S. to pick up the signal of Russia's first satellite" and in monitoring the earth-circling sphere on a 24-hour basis. RCA International sales continue to grow, he continued, noting that among other developments the "first color tv station outside the U. S. went on the air in Havana, Cuba, with RCA equipment." Government business accounted for 23% of RCA's total volume in 1957 and the company's current backlog of government orders is about $250 million, Gen. Sarnoff asserted. He cited especially RCA's development of the Talos defense unit, which he called "the first completely automatic system for firing and guiding anti-aircraft missiles to their targets." First firing of the Talos was carried out successfully early this month. Gen. Sarnoff described the unit as "perhaps the closest approach yet to true 'pushbutton' warfare." He also reported that "a force of more than 2,700 RCA specialists and technicians at the Air Force Missile Test Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., plan, engineer, install, maintain and operate the electronic and optical equipment for tracking many different types of missiles and recording their performance in flight." Among other RCA contributions in the defense area he cited "the Free World's most accurate instrumentation radar"; the "Telemite" hand-held tv camera; a closed-circuit color tv system installed for the Strategic Air Command in Omaha, and a new longrange airborne radio system sucessfuly tested in the round-the-world flight by B-52 Stratofortresses last January. Color Tv Purchases Gaining In Chicago, RCA Firm Finds Color television is closing the gap between itself and black-and-white in Chicago — in terms of average dollar volume. To put it another way, Chicago consumers are spending $1 in tint tv for every $1.30 they shell out for monochrome receivers. The gap has been narrowed considerably from last July — from 22 to 1 to the present 1.3 to 1 ratio. These are the findings of RCA Victor Distributing Corp., Chicago, based on figures compiled for the last six months of 1957. They reflect, according to the firm, a growing realization by the public that they will have to spend more for color, tangible consumer exposure to aggressive RCA promotion-advertising and more NBC color programming specials. RCA Victor Distributing Corp. reports it has been back-ordered since the end of October for its color units, including the basic Broadcasting $495 (list price) models. It reports more than 20,000 color units now in the hands of the Chicago public, compared with 9,000-10,000 around Jan. 1, 1957. The dollar-for-dollar proportions, considered encouraging, reflect the fact that small-priced monochrome portables help reduce the black-and-white margin over color. No comparison is feasible in terms of actual sales units, it's pointed out, because color obviously is more expensive and its line doesn't include color tv portables. Figures don't include actual color set sales of RCA or other manufacturers and the Chicago Electric Assn. makes no compilations for tinted tv as such. (The association reports 2,688,397 tv receivers sold in Chicago as of Nov. 30, 1957, with 24,267 sales in November compared to 30,811 that month last lear. A total of 301,051 sets were sold in the past 12 months.) Dollar-for-dollar color figures for the last six months of 1957, according to RCA, are these: (July) $22 B & W for every $1 color; (August) $12 for $1; (September) $3.42 for $1; (October) $3.30 for $1; (November) $2.30 for $1, and (December) $1.30 for every $1. Set Parts Replacement Hits $900 Million, Says Baker The rise in radio circulation to 135 million sets-in-use and tv circulation to 47 million, have inspired a replacement parts business of $900 million, according to Dr. W. R. G. Baker, president of Electronic Industries Assn. Observing that 14.7 million radios and 6.5 million tv sets were sold by set manufacturers in 1957, Dr. Baker said this phase of the manufacturing industry now comprises only 21% of total electronics production because of the big increase in military procurement. The age of satellites, spaceships and guided missiles will require constantly expanding electronics production, he said. Electronics devices provide the only means of communication with and control of these invaders of outer space, he reminded, predicting 1958 industry output will run well ahead of the $7 billion 1957 figure. Dr. Baker predicted closed-circuit tv, heretofore confined largely to industrial uses, will give educational television new life. He reminded that the national educational tv experiment at Hagerstown, Md., co-sponsored by EIA and Fund for the Advancement of Education (Ford Fund) has proved the effectiveness of the medium as a teaching tool in elementary and high schools as well as at colleges and universities. GEL Making New Multiplex Gear A new line of fm multiplex transmitters is coming off the production line of General Electronic Labs., Cambridge, Mass., with the first installation at WBCN-FM Boston, a new station which has affiliated with the Concert Network group. GEL's system consists of a multiplex exciter with one or two subcarrier generators and power supplies mounted as a unit. The company has been active in military as well as commercial multiplex installations, according to Victor W. Storey, president. He said the new GEL line is marked by improved redesign and engineering, permitting minimum initial interruption and providing dependable service. Model FMC1, with one subchannel generator, is priced at $5,500; FMC-2, with two subchannels, at $7,800. Visual Telephone Imminent, GE's Morlock Tells Newsmen The day of the televised telephone call is just around the corner, according to a top electronics expert of the General Electric Co., although its practical application to broadcasting was not detailed. William G. Morlock, general manager of the company's technical products department, told a news media dinner Dec. 19 in Syracuse that GE's system for transmitting pictures over conventional telephone lines by slow-scan television "has been successfully demonstrated to the military." Because of security restrictions, Mr. Morlock did not elaborate on the installation. He described slow-scan tv as a principle for reproducing televised pictures "at the rate of about one image every five to ten seconds instead of the customary 30 frames per second in commercial television." Mr. Morlock said the military installation "will be the first practical step toward . . . seeing the person you are phoning." Other outstanding GE developments of 1957 described by Mr. Morlock were "the first transistorized color tv camera, smaller than any now available"; a "directionalized helical tv transmitting antenna used for the nation's first simulcast on both the vhf and uhf frequencies"; the "first 'miniaturized' 50kw am radio broadcast transmitter incorporating semiconductor devices and which is almost half the size of earlier transmitters"; a tropospheric scatter communications system now being built by the department for the U. S. Air Force to link Arctic bases at distances of 600 to 700 miles, and a closedcircuit color tv system now being used at the army's ballistic missile center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., for closeup viewing of missile launching and for tracking high-speed missiles up to altitudes of 100,000 feet. Inventor McCandless Dies at 91 Henry Wallace McCandless, who helped in the development of the radio vacuum tube, died last week in New Jersey at 91. Mr. McCandless, who completed the first vacuum tube in 1907, aided radio pioneer Dr. Lee de Forest in building the first threeelement radio tube. Mr. McCandless had been associated with the Westinghouse Electric Corp. in various capacities, from 1914 to his retirement in 1935. William H. Myers Dies in Fire William H. Myers, chief engineer at Farnsworth Television and Radio Corp. in Fort Wayne from 1941 to 1949. died Christmas Day in a fire which ravaged his home near Syracuse, Ind. Mr. Myers had also worked as manager at the Crosley Div., Avco Corp., in Cincinnati from 1949 to 1953. Recently, he had been a manufacturer's representative for Rollins Corp., Chicago. December 30, 1957 • Page 61