Radio age (Jan-Dec 1926)

24 RADIO AGE for June, 1926 The Magazine of the Hour What the roadc asters Doing are Research Work is Planned for Summer ARRANGEMENTS have just l been completed whereby Prof. C. M. Jansky, Jr., of the electrical engineering department of the University of Minnesota, and consulting engineer for WCCO, will devote his entire time for the three months of the University vacation to the work of the station. Prof. Jansky is recognized as one of the foremost authorities on radio communication in the United States, and for the past five years he has been in constant and close touch with the progress of radio engineering as applied to broadcasting. In spite of its enormous development, broadcasting is still in a stage comparable to that of the automobile business in the days when people talked about "horseless carriages," and argued that the gas-driven car was so uncertain that steam was the only dependable motive power. Innumerable technical problems have yet to be solved before broadcasting can reach its true level of efficiency. Among these are such questions as fading, dead spots, power surges, uneven transmission on land lines, microphone circuits, wave length measuring and power loss in transmission. No radio station has as yet satisfactorily solved these problems, and it is partly in order to improve its own transmission, and partly to contribute more generously to the sum total of our knowledge of broadcasting conditions, that the Gold Medal station has added Prof. Jansky to its full-time staff for the period when he is available from his University duties. 'PHIS is the gentleman whose voice always pre* ceeds the ticks of the famous clock at PWX, Havana, Cuba. He is Remberto O'Farrill Hernandez who deals out his announcements to the palpitating radio world in both English and Spanish — a combination especially desirable for a station like PWX which caters to both of the Americas. You only need one guess, after looking at the middle portion of his name, to know that while Britannia may rule the wave, the Irish control a goodly portion of the air. Felicidades, R. O. H. and may your vocal cords never wane. Chain Broadcasting For the West Coast FOR the first time in the northwest several broadcasting stations — KJR, Seattle and KHQ, Spokane, were tied in simultaneous line for an experiment to send out the weekly program of Keep Joy Radiating Order from their Belfry at KJR. A direct wire from KJR to Spokane enabled small crystal set owners in the two cities to hear. Firms sponsoring programs were delighted with the increased publicity resulting as noted by the hundreds of telegrams and telephone calls received. Other northwest stations plan to join hands. Seattle Station Heard In Gold Mine STATION KTCL, Seattle, was plainly heard -on the 2,160foot level of a deep gold mine at Goldfield, Nev., during a series of tests made in that town. Proofs received at the Seattle broadcasting station declare the program came in strongly on a ismall set used by Rev. C. P. Lewis, pastor of the Goldfield Community Church, who went down the long shaft with a party of radio investigators. There, half a mile underground and 1600 miles distant, the Seattle broadcasting was heard. This reception is believed to set a new record for that station. Eveready Hour Is Program Pioneer rpHE "Eveready Hour" is the A oldest regular feature broadcasting today. A recent survey of the whole field of radio entertainment features revealed the fact that the '"Eveready Hour" is the "veteran" of them all, in point of regular and continuous service. This weekly broadcast program first went on the air on December 4, 1923. From that time on, without exception, each week has had its "Eveready Hour," through Station WEAF and, since early in 1924, a gradually extending network of stations scattered throughout the East and Middle West. There are contemporary broadcast features which began just about the same time as the "Eveready Hour," but none of these others has had an unbroken run. The "Eveready Hour," in its earliest days, however, was not the same type of broadcast program that it is today. It began, like most other features, as a program of more or less miscellaneous numbers. Slightly less than a year after its debut it launched its present type of program which has come to be known as the "continuity" radio program — a sort of radio scenario which tells a story with a combination of music and the spoken word. The first of these "continuity" programs was broadcast on the evening of November 10, 1924, on the eve of Armistice Day and the story was that of America's part in the World War.