NBC Transmitter (Jan-Dec 1939)

VOL. 5 'n"v™L MMUUASTING 60MPA1W II*. f-Al general library If/fJ lOASs-i 30 ^K^fLLER PLAZA, NEW YORK, N NBC TRANSMITTER V AUGUST, 1939 No. 8 NEW SET-UP IS CREATED FOR NBC BLUE NETWORK ENGINEERS STREAMLINE PORTABLE CONTROL UNIT N1 PILES TRAMMEL, NBC executive vice-president, announced on July 6th the appointment of Keith Kiggins as director of the NBC Blue Network. This is a newly created post, and the announcement carried with it arrangements for a completely new set-up for coordinating the various Blue Network activities. Mr. Trammel stated, “Mr. Kiggins will act as coordinator of the activities of the various company departments in their connection with and relationship to the network. In this he will have the active support of our other executives and the cooperation of all department heads.” Phillips Carlin, sustaining program director, will cooperate with Mr. Kiggins in programming the network. Mr. Carlin, who joined Station WEAF long before NBC was formed, gained fame as one of the early radio announcers. John H. Norton, Jr., of the Station Relations Department, has been named as manager of the newly formed Blue Network Station Relations Division. Mr. Norton left the brokerage firm of Hemphill, Noyes and Co. in 1931 to join the former Commercial Engineering Department of NBC. In 1936 he moved to the Station Relations Department, after having served as assistant to William S. Hedges, then head of the M&O Stations Department, for two years. Ernest D. Jahncke, Jr., Annapolis graduate and son of the former Secretary of the Navy, has been brought from the Traffic Department to act as assistant to Mr. Norton. William Kostka, newly appointed manager of the Press Division, has announced that B. K. Pratt will be in charge of Blue Network publicity and promotion. Ben Pratt is a veteran radio publicity man. Once a newspaperman, he has been in turn, director of public relations for NBC Chicago and night manager of the NBC Press Division in New York. He left the company in 1936 to aid the Republican National ( Cont . on page 2) Keith Kiggins Operations Supervisor Paul J. Gallant and J. Harrison Hartley, assistant director of News and Special Events, operating new master control unit. N engineer’s dream — a portable master control unit which permits instantaneous communication between studio and field pickup points while a broadcast is in progress — has been developed by NBC engineers. Compared with the old type of unit, a cumbersome affair weighing more than 3,000 pounds and semi-portable only, the new unit represents a great technical stride forward as it can be sped to remote points instantly for thorough, on-the-spot coverage of important happenings. Developed to answer the needs of NBC’s News and Special Events Division for speedier coordination of various pickup points, the new unit will aid greatly in the radio coverage of news events as it affords a means of keeping a running story of any development going without interruption. This is possible because of the unit’s extremely light weight. Not only is its total weight about one-seventh of the old unit, but it can be separated into five parts for convenient transportation. First used to cover the New York visit of the British sovereigns, the new unit linked ten different microphone positions without the loss of a split-second in switchbacks from one position to another. A compact affair, the control hoard of the unit is 10 inches high and 19 inches long and weighs less than 25 pounds. Three rows of red, green, and white lights, ten to a line, indicate which positions are on the air or in communication with the base of operations. It not only links the field crews and operations directors, but also feeds the program being broadcast to all points so that any position may take the air immediately. The first unit that could do the “mixing” job so important to programs that originate from several different points “at once” received its baptism in 1932 at Roosevelt’s inauguration. The coverage of Lindbergh’s reception had crystallized the need for such a unit.