Radio age (May 1922-Dec 1923)

RADIO AGE— "THE MAGAZINE OF THE HOUR' 15 WDAP Becomes a Station De Luxe By EDWARD L. TAYLOR RADIO broadcasting has taken a great step forward in Chicago through the establishment of the super-station located in the Drake Hotel. Fans everywhere will be interested in the Midwest Radio Central, for its equipment is powerful enough to keep it in communication with both the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts. Its call number will be WDAP, which was the number assigned to the station when it was in the Wrigley Building tower. However, it is a far more powerful plant than when it was perched above the Chicago River at Michigan boulevard. Radio fans everywhere will be interested doubly in the prospective opening of this great station when they learn that one of the prime features of the service to be rendered from WDAP will be the excellence of its programs. The owners announce that they will transmit vocal and instrumental gems sung or played into the microphones by the highest class artists available in the country. Those who have listened to WDAP for the last few months have been impressed with the quality of the entertainment provided. Many of them know that the two men back of the interesting service rendered from the Wrigley tower and now the promoters of the de luxe station on the Drake roof, are Thorne Donnelley and J. Elliott Jenkins, Chicago pioneers in radio. The studio of Midwest Radio Central is located on the eleventh floor of the Drake. Two features distinguish this studio: Its luxurious appointments and its elaborate arrangement for improvement of its acoustics. Heavy wall drapes and rich carpets deaden all sounds originating there and one's voice sounds small and thin as compared with its carrying power outside the chamber. There is also a total absence of echoes. Something like this will take place when the station is in operation: The studio director gives a brief talk before each concert in which he will stress two points; all talking must cease during the singing, speaking or playing of each number and each number must be rendered distinctly. Next the director steps over to the telephone and tells the station operator to start the transmitter. When he receives word that the station has signed on, he signals the artist or artists to start the first number and they group themselves about the microphone. The director tests the modulation and the audio frequency by listening in on a headset which is connected in series with the line and is therefore able to correct errors in transmission conditions from the start. In order to make the feeble microphone currents from the studio capable of moulding or modulating the tremendous radio frequency currents radiated from the great The June number of Radio ^ Age carried an illustrated article on how a photograph was sent by radio from Rome, Italy, to Bar Harbor, Maine, in forty minutes. Transmitting photographs by radio code has since engaged the interest of thousands. Here is Miss Nellie D. Stevens decoding a "radio-photo" of Miss Virginia Valli, Universal Film Star, which was sent from London lo New York by wireless. On the artist's drawing hoard are two portraits of Miss Virginia "Valli. The picture on the left of the hoard is a copy of the portrait transmitted through the air. On the right is the result of Miss Stevens' decoding. She is now engaged in perfecting a method of transmitting finger-prints by radio in the United Stales. To the left is facsimile of coded portrait as received by Carl Laemmle, President of the Universal Film Manufacturing Company.