NBC Transmitter (Jan-Nov 1942)

MAY 1942 11 "Down Mexico Way" Wins Ohio First Award • The NiiC-KKI) “Down Mexico Way” series— widely acclaimed since its inception last February as an effective medium towards cementing; friendship with our neighbors south of the Rio Grande — received new honors on May 5 when it wen a first award at the Thirteenth Institute for Education by Radio, at Ohio State University, Columbus. Coincidental with the award came the announcement that, due to great public response, the series will be continued indefinitely instead of ending on June 6 as originally scheduled. Also, the scope of the musical dramatic series will be widened to cover other nations IRENE KUHN i„ Central and South America. This expansion will probably bring a change of title at an early date. Citation to “Down Mexico Way” read : “A provocative experiment that seeks to improve our understanding of Latin American culture and which has the more specific effect of suggesting educational method in the field of languages and music.” Presentation of the award was based on the initial program of the series in which Vice-President Henry A. Wallace and Senorita Castillo Najera, the daughter of the Mexican Ambassador to the United States, took part. Richard McDonagh, author of the script, and Ted Corday, program producer, were also honored at the sessions. Interest in the series is stimulated on a gigantic scale by the combined cooperative efforts of the National Federation of Music Clubs and the National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. Aggregate membership of these two organizations numbers nearly 2,0()0,00() women. Listening groups were formed in many cities, and local lectures and concerts were among the supplementary efforts to the series carried by 106 NBC stations. Irene Kuhn, program coordinator in the NBC Promotion Department, made an extensive trip through Mexico just prior to the program’s launching to gather material for the series and associated projects. # Back in 191.5, Dr. Lee De Forest, noted radio inventor, presented a young West Virginian student with one of his first vacuum tubes— a small glass bulb not unlike an ordinary electric lamp which became the open sesame to a great age of electronics. The youth was so impressed with the gift as well as the radio prophecies of the inventor that he started collecting radio and electronic tubes of all types with the resulting accumulation of more than 3,000 different “valves” from all parts of the world. This amazing collection, the property of Joseph D’Agostino, NBC Staff Engineer, is recognized as the most complete in the world. The assortment reveals — in glass and metal— a veritable history of technical broadcasting advances. Radio City tourists always stop for a glimpse at the 50-odd tubes from D’Agostino’s group w'hich are located in the fourth floor corridor of the studio section. The showcase arrangement is frequently altered so that tubes adjudged interesting by newness or oddness can be added. D’Agostino has reverent respect for electronic tubes, and this summer expects to finish a narrative history of them. He views electronics as the world’s biggest industrial field— of which radio and television are vital— but only component parts. And this importance, he holds, is having its effect on what he terms “this electronic war.” To D’Agostino, this means that the radio tube is the most important weapon on both sides. He doesn’t refer to radio’s propaganda role in wartime, when he calls the tube a “weapon”; rather, he alludes to its assignment in linking armed forces at home and afield, and its importance in making possible ship-to-shore, ship-to-ship, ship-toplane, plane-to-tank and countless other combinations of military and naval communication. Swift war moves mean swift communications, and it is the radio tube that makes it all possible, he declares. This conflict, just as the last one, he believes, is producing special types of tubes for intricate military tasks. He points out that the entire broadcasting industry had its creation and rise in the period between the two wars, and he sees the tubes in his collection as the virtual milestones in the sensational growth of electronic entertainment. The j)ortion of his collection displayed along the path of Radio (uty tours includes everything from the tiny “acorn” receiving tube to the giant 200-kilowatt transmitting tube “taller than a man.” His avocation for collecting tubes, studying them and exhibiting them prompted NBC’s assigning him supervision of all technical items displayed on studio tours. He doesn’t prefer the title, but he is, in effect, the “curator” of NBC’s exhibits. The combination of educational and showmanship talents developed by his avocation also led to his appointment as manager of the Radio Corporation of America exhibit building at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940. It was coincidental to D’A gostino’s appointment that the building had the architectural shape of a tube but it was far from coincidence when Dr. Lee De Forest greeted D’Agostino in front of the entrance to the Fair Building exactly 25 years after he presented him with one of his first audions. It’s not surprising that D’Agostino is a strong advocate of avocations for everyone. That’s the gospel he passes on constantly to some 4,200 Boy Scouts in the Northern New Jersey community he serves as Scout Executive. Hobbies and side interests, he holds, can lead to lifetime careers. And even if they don’t become intermingled w’ith the participants’ business objectives, he believes that they serve a valuable purpose in an instructional and recreational way. Avocations, he adds, are especially essential for emotional relaxation in this wartime period. Eight years ago, D’Agostino discovered that a man can multiply his avocations. In his attempt at that time to interest his daughter in mineralogy, the NBC engineer himself became so absorbed in the study that he too adopted it. Result: he’s a leading member of New Tork and New Jersey mineralogical societies— in fact, president of the New Jersey group— and has presented lectures and papers before scientific bodies including the New York Academy of Science and classes at prominent universities on the subject. And that's not all! He's also an expert on first aid methods.