Radio Digest (Oct 1923-July 1924)

'January 10, RADIO DIGEST — Illustrated "ART" ENTERTAINS THE ENTERTAINERS ACTORS HEAR DX STUFF BEHIND THE SCENES 'And Now Mr. Vaughn Is Hopelessly a Phan," Sighs His Pretty Partner By P. A. Price "Art" Harris, who, with Miss Dollie Vaughn, composes the vaudeville team of Harris and Vaughn, has a Radio set that is a wonder. "Art" made it himself, and he says it's a wonder, and he ought to know. Let him tell about it: "Everywhere I went, all I saw in the shop windows were Radio sets. Big ones, little ones, crystal sets, nine-tube sets with coils and knobs sticking out of the top, sides and front. Seemed like I was missing something good by not having one. At first I resisted, struggled manfully against the thought, but the tubes winked an invitation; the honeycomb coils were appealing by their very name, and the bright, shining plates of the condensers looked so cheerful and businesslike that I finally fell, and I fell hard. Has Terrible Dreams "Someone told me that half the fun of a set was in building it yourself. Perhaps. But what kind of a set was I to build? I got four dollars' worth of magazines and studied four hundred hookups; tried to understand the relative merits of capacity and inductance, grid leaks and A batteries, Radio frequency and audio amplification. I was a mental wreck; dreamt of potentiometers and spider web coils; saw loop aerials grinning at me every time I closed my eyes. It was awful. "Then I surrounded myself with the makings. Had to pay excess baggage on about fifty pounds of junk every time I moved; had my dressing rooms full of variometers, tripped over tangles of Litz wire; my friends were using tube sockets for ash trays. Almost went flooey on a Flewelling; tried all my arts on a Reinartz; found the Armstrong too strong for my capacity as an amateur; the neutrodyne proved neutral so far as results were obtainable; the 'Pup' circuit only growled when I tried it out, and I would hear the little birdies chirping and whistling till I almost went cuckoo myself. HARRIS AND VAUGHN "COP" PWX ON THEIR COPP SET "All this occurred while we were playing Detroit, Buffalo, Rochester, Columbus, and a lot of other places. Then we went to Cleveland, and I copped the 'Copp' circuit that everybody there is always talking about. I got a coupler specially designed for the circuit, and after buying a soldering iron instead of trying to use Miss Vaughn's curling irons to solder the wires, I got the thing working. Any kind of a loose coupler will do. "Does it work? You can tell 'em all that it works! They do say that it sends most horrible squeals out into space and makes your neighbors cuss freely and fluently, but you don't hear the squeals, just a nice little chirp that tells you it's right on the job, doing its darndest to pick up Cuba and Birmingham and bring in the chimes from WOC. I used an indoor aerial, and at first I would open the window to let in the Radio wav.s, so you know how good I was. That was when I fancied the waterpipe ground 'wouldn't work unless the water was running. But those days are gone. I T DIDN'T take the boys of the nation long to wake up to the fact that they could get De Forest Audions for their Radio Receiving Sets. They knew De Forest was the inventor of the vacuum tube — they knew that every tube made, no matter what set it works in, was based on De Forest patents. So they are all insisting on De Forest Audions, and they are getting the DX and clear reception results they deserve. Three types available — DV 6-A Universal at $5.00— DV-1 for dry cell use at $6.50 — and DV-2 Power Amplifier Audion are suitable for use with receiving sets of all makes, and they work particularly well in the famous cross-continent Reflex Radiophones with indoor loop— D-7-A at $125.00 and D-10 Portable (dry cells enclosed in cabinet) at $150.00. To prices quoted add approximately 6% for transportation for territories west of the Rocky Mountains. Send for circular "What Tubes Shall I Use?" which gives full details and table of various tubes for different receiving sets. DE FOREST RADIO TEL. & TEL. GO. Dept. R. D.3 JERSEY CITY, N. J. Here they are, the two vaudeville headliners, "Art" Harris and Dollie Vaughn, with Art's suitcase Radio set. While awaiting their cue "Art" has tuned in PWX so Dollie can enjoy "La Golondrina." (Posed for Radio Digest by Strand Photo Studio, N. Y.) Gets Room on Top Floor of Hotel "Now, I get a room on the upper floor of a hotel and drop a 30-foot length of wire out of the window and listen to half the United States. In my dressing room I use an electric light socket attachment, or hang the wire around on clothes hooks and chandeliers and 'make up' to music from Schnectady or Ft. Worth. Miss Vaughn borrows the set and tunes in on 'The Waves from Lake Erie' when she is dressing her hair. It is the life! "When the Dempsey-Firpo fight took place, we were playing Bethlehem, Pa. I had Old Reliable on the job in my dressing room and all the theater staff and other artists were there, too. When the decision was announced I gave it to the audience, hot off the air, before anyone else in town had the news. That is, before anyone who didn't have a Radio set. "Here's the circuit; a tuner, a 23-plate condenser, grid condenser, tube, socket, rheostat, and A and B battery. That's all. I use a WD-12 tube, but a UV-199 (Continued on page 6) Tube Efficiency Is Trebled With Erla Synchronizing Transformers Vacuum tube acting as relay or singleduty amplifier Vacuum tube doing double duty as amplifier of received andreflexed r.f. currents.withErlasynchronizing radio transformer Vacuum tube doing triple duty as amplifier of reftexed audio as well as received and rcfiexed radio frequency currents, with ErUt synchronizing ra~ dio and audio transformers Perfect synchronization ot received and reflexed r. f. currents make Erla radio transformers indispensable in reflex work. List. $5 Rectified radio frequency and reflexed audio frequency currents are accurately synchronized by Erla audio transformers. List Price, $5 Providing utmost sensitiveness with perfect stability, the Erla fixed crystal rectifier U uniquely adapted for reflex work. List, $1 Jobbers — Unexampled 3ales opportunities are created by Erla leadership in research andmanufacturing.Write'tor liberal terms and discounts Responsible for the unduplicated efficiency of Erla reflex circuits is a basic Erla discovery of vital and far reaching importance. Discordance and instability in reflex circuits, it has been ascertained, are due directly to failure of transformers properly to synchronize received and reflexed currents having the same phase characteristics, in their simultaneous passage through amplifying tubes. Obviously, if the lag between such currents were as much as 1 80°, the net result of their opposing forces would be zero, resulting in an absolute canceling of signal strength. Any intermediate lag, on the other hand, results inevitably in the generation of amplified distortion. Erla scientists solved this problem by designing radio and audio transformers of an entirely new and special type, positively assuring perfect synchronization of received and reflexed radio frequency, as well as rectified radio ancLffeflexed audio frequency currents. This achievement, enabling vacuum tubes successfully to do triple duty, as simultaneous amplifiers of radio frequency, reflexed radio frequency and reflexed audio frequency currents, marks one of the most important advancements of recent years. For complete details, ask your dealer for Erla Bulletin No. 1 4, describing and illustrating perfected Erla one, two and three-tube reflex circuits. Or write us, giving your dealer's name. Electrical Research Laboratories Dept. A 2515 Michigan Ave., Chicago