"Radio Channels for College Stations" Education by Radio (July 30, 1931)

resulted in continual encroachment of commercial stations on the privileges of educational stations, and the number of broadcasting stations operated by gov¬ ernmental agencies or educational insti¬ tutions has diminished from one hun¬ dred and five in 1926 to fifty-eight in 1931. Frequently the Commission declines to grant a license on the ground thaC it would exceed the quota of facilities al¬ lotted to the state or zone in which the station is located, yet one zone is more than one hundred percent over quota because of the number of commercial stations licensed. The law states that radio facilities shall be divided equally among the states and zones with respect to chan¬ nels, time, and power, yet the Commis¬ sion ruled that the power of a station could be increased from 5000 watts to 50,000 watts without affecting the quota of the state or zone. This favors the larger stations, which already have clear channels, and tends to drive out educa¬ tional stations. Reaction — The following reports from colleges show what has happened: Our station is sharing time on six hundred kilocycles with another station. The channel assigned would be quite satisfactory were it not for the interference. A beat with the car¬ rier of the other station vitiates all efforts to reach listeners beyond a radius of forty miles from the station. Our station has been on the air since 1922, but during the past three years we have had to share time with three other stations, two of them being educational stations. We find that it has been very difficult to get a different fre¬ quency assignment due to the fact that com¬ mercial stations have been able to get the best wavelengths available. The history of our 100-watt station has its pathetic chapters also. We came on the air but a few years after KDKA and therefore belong to the earlier group of stations, but we have been buffeted and shifted around until we find ourselves in a frequency group where it is al¬ most impossible to be logged five miles distant after seven PM. A recent order of the Federal Radio Commission compelled a considerable expenditure of money which we could ill afford in order to prevent what seemed an inevitable refusal of our license. That seemed like rather curt and summary treatment of a station that should at least have a few priority rights. We have never complained to the Federal Radio Commission regarding assignments, be¬ cause that is an expensive procedure, and we do not have the funds to do so. Twelve hun¬ dred and ten kilocycles is a very crowded channel, and has made reception by alumni in distant points (under best conditions, rare) im¬ possible. Also, we do not find it nearly so con¬ venient to share time for the reason that we frequently have good lecturers and musicians come to our college on evenings that must be was less satisfactory than the preceding one. In all cases we have divided time with com¬ mercial stations. In some cases the commercial stations were given the preference in selection of time. . . . . . . The station has been kept going mainly in the hope that at some future time more favorable treatment of college stations could be secured. All and all, we do not have much complaint to offer. In our endeavor to better the position of our station we have kept up negotiations with the Commission for over two years but so far without finding relief. . . . The strategy of the industry was traced. One o f its dominant leaders had stated in a public address during the in¬ fancy of broadcasting that eventually there would be but half a dozen high- power broadcasting stations, which would serve the entire country. The fact that the number of stations multiplied until there were hundreds appeared to be re¬ lated to the fact that this man’s com¬ pany found it profitable to manufacture and sell transmitting equipment as well as radio receivers, and to issue licenses to other manufacturers, for the use of its patents, on terms to which the licensees frequently expressed violent objections. Commission yields —When there were well over six hundred stations broadcasting, the Commission yielded to the point of view of this dominant radio group and cleared forty of the seventy-nine broadcasting channels used exclusively in the United States, award¬ ing them to individual stations, the ma¬ jority of which were associated with this group. The college stations were among the more than five hundred and fifty sta¬ tions that were forced to crowd into the remaining thirty-nine channels. One of the pioneer college stations found itself on a channel with fifty-one stations broadcasting advertising and amuse¬ ment. There followed a demand for higher power from the stations favored by the forty clear channels. The maximum per¬ mitted at the time by the rules of the Federal Radio Commission was 50,000 watts, and that was all these favored stations asked. When the engineers got their heads together, however, they talked of powers of the order of 1,000,000 watts, which they expected to use as soon as the rules of the Commission could be changed. One station secured permission from the Commission to ex¬ periment with amounts of power far in excess of 50,000 watts. A gentleman who, after a term of service on the Commission, became affil-