Radio age (May 1922-Dec 1923)

RADIO AGE— "THE MAGAZINE OF THE HOUR' 17 THOUGHT WAVES m STRANGE, indeed, that people should still be asking the question "Is radio merely a passing fancy?" Only the other day the International News Reel Corporation dug up from musty records in England papers showing how a receiving set had been made in 1879 with detector, condenser and all the fundamentals of the "newly discovered devices" now engaging the fascinated attention of at least one and one-half millions of persons in America alone. Not only that, but the receiving plant itself was found with the papers and the interesting display has been placed on exhibition in a British museum. Marconi was doing his wireless stunts before the boy radio enthusiasts of today were born. DeForest and Fleming and Edison were making the Hertzian waves perform practical service for the world a decade or longer ago. Well, then, why the sudden towering wave of interest in radio? Simply this, that broadcasting stations have been established which send forth to the uttermost corners of the earth not only messages in the wireless telegraph code, but music, speeches, market reports, weather predictions, baseball scores and news of the present hour. It is the broadcasting station and the development of the vacuum tube for detecting wave lengths and clarifying the vibrations in the phone diaphrams that have made the radiophone an implement of universal entertainment and utility. Men, women and children who took onlv a fleeting interest in a device which enabled them to hear unintelligible Morse code signals are aroused to intense and permanent enthusiasm over an inexpensive and simple device that brings the great outside world to their dining room tables and to the cosy corners of their living rooms. That is why radio has become so suddenly "popular," and that is why the present interest is surely the forerunner of continued developments in radio. These developments will bring radio to every-day uses which eventually will elifect a peaceful reorganization of our social and business life. Radio is rapidly moving forward to new uses which even the alert imagination of Edward Bellamy could not reach in his famous story, "Looking Backward." Dissemination of news by radio is going to be systematized to such an extent that it will make a great difference in the status of the daily press. It is perhaps true that some of our great daily journals look with apprehension at the advancement of this science and its adaptability to broadcasting news facts to the millions. That may explain why some of them are giving the radiophone the most indifferent attention. One great newspaper, so substantial that one might almost be tempted to describe it as "solid," said the other day that a layman might wind a tuning coil, but that the operation would require extreme patience and that he would find it to be a "man's job." Rather amusing when you and I know scores of neighborhood boys who can wind a tuner in fifteen minutes ! They have harnessed Niagara, but they are never going to stop the headlong rush of radio into universal popularity and utility. And it is going to be a giant task to make it a privatelv controlled public uti''ty. Millions upon millions of dollars have already been invested in thi'^ WTORIAL TOWER new industry and no man can keep account of the new manufacturing and merchandising organizations that are springing up each day. In a few days we shall have the golf player getting his market and sporting news between games, sitting comfortably in his country club chair. Hotel lobbies, flats, apartments, automobiles, trains, aeroplanes, farm houses, garages, schoolrooms, lighthouses, ships, newspaper offices, police stations, police call boxes, prisons, hospitals, churches, theaters, restaurants, department stores, factories, fishing camps, hunting lodges — they are coming into line more rapidly than you or I realize. It is the hour of radio. If it is a passing hour it is a passing hour that is advancing to yet another hour which shall be more electric with surprises, more fruitful of progress for the human race, more annihilating to geographical distances, and more effective in weaving all peoples into a closer association. That promises the ultimate in civilization. Radio is neither a fad nor a craze. It is a stupendous social revolution. EVERY breeze that blows brings some new tale of extravagant success or impending disaster in the radio industry. After sifting the product of the rumor mills we have come to the conclusion that the radio business is merely stabilizing itself, as every new industry must do. Undoubtedly there are unscrupulous manufacturers and dealers in the game. They are trying to get a quick dollar and make a quick withdrawal before their sins of misstatement and of inferior merchandise overtake them. But there are many, many more manufacturers and dealers who are sincerely trying to establish a permanent, solid radio business on merit. Undoubtedly there are large interests which would eagerly assume control of radio production and sales. Undoubtedly there are some interests which would gladly adopt the