Radio age research, manufacturing, communications, broadcasting, television (1941)

NBC RECORDING STUDIO PRODUCES ARMY SERIES Urgent Needs for Fighting Men, Woes and Nurses Described in Recruiting Service Programs. US. ARMY paratroopers land , behind Jap lines in Burma! Engineers construct new airfields on recaptured Dutch New Guinea 1 Over Europe our Army Air Corps men deal death and destruction to the enemy! Within earshot of Nazi artillery on the Italian front Army nurses and doctors mend the wounded and save American sol- diers' lives a thousand times a day! At Army installations here at home and abroad Wacs are performing 239 vital Army jobs! Transcribed Radio Series On the surface all of these may seem remote from an NBC record- ing studio in New York's gigantic RCA Building but many of the men and women in the Army are on their victory-winning assignments as a direct result of the work that goes on in NBC Studio 9B every other Saturday afternoon. On these alternate Saturdays, the Army pro- duces the "X'oice of the Army," an official transcribed radio series de- voted to recruitment of Army per- sonnel for all branches of the serv- ice. Through this program, the U. S. Army Recruiting Service has obtained thousands of additional men and women needed to bring about a speedy victory. The "Voice of the Army" has made it possible for the War Department to notify millions of radio listeners, in the shortest possible time, of its urgent needs for fighting men, Wacs and nurses. The program, now in its 198th week of continuous presentation, is prepared and produced under the supervision of the Recruiting Pub- licity Bureau, U. S. Army, headed by Col. LeRoy W. Yarborough. "Voice of the Army" traiiscriii- tions are manufactured and dis- tributed by RCA's Camden, New Jersey, plant. Every two weeks, the double-faced disks are shipi)ed to 800 radio stations throughout the United States. The program is heard locally outside our continen- tal limits in Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Hawaii. Presentations are based on the Army's current personnel needs as they arise from time to time. In the jiast, when there were calls for paratroopers, engineers, and avia- tion cadets, the program devoted many in its series of dramas to these Army components. Because of the Army's present reiiuirements for more Nurses and Wacs, current jirograms deal mainly with the A r m y N u r s e Corps and the Women's Army Corps. All "Voice of the Army" pro- grams are produced under the su- pervision of Major North Calla- han, e.xecutive officer of the Recruit- ing Publicity Bureau. Earle Mc- Gill, radio veteran, is director. The musical signature of the show is a rousing song titled the "Voice of the Army", composed by Major Callahan and Norman Clou- tier, NBC composer and conductor. Recently, the War Department adopted the tune as the official song of the U. S. Army Recruiting Serv- ice. BEAL SEES TELEVISION AS TOOL OF INDUSTRY Tells Detroit Engineering Society of Potentifil Applications of Neio Service to Manufacturing. DISCLOSURE of potentialities of television as a new and ef- fective aid to industry after the war enlivened a meeting in Detroit on April 21 at which Ralph R. Beal, Assistant to the Vice President in Charge of RCA Laboratories, told memljers of the Engineering Soci- ety, of Detroit of the ininiinent ex- l)ansion of this promising art and science. Declaring it "indeed appropri- ate" to make his revelations in "one of the world's most forward-looking and i)usiest industrial communi- ties," Mr. 15eal envisaged television as the coming "eyes" of factories, the "means of coordinating activi- ties in giant manufacturing plants, such as those in Detroit, and the means also of peering into places and situations that might be inac- ce.ssible or extremely hazardous to man." Mr. Beal said that those like himself who are close to television foresee the day after fighting ceases when this type of television application may be in wide use. "We know now," the research en- gineer declared, "how it can be used to extend the eyesight of the plant manager to critical oi)erations that ordinarily would re(|uire much time and etTort to reach for personal in- spection or which might even be inaccesible — how television can aid immeasurably in plant control. Assembly Line View "Television cameras at strategic points can be connected by wire to receivers where production experts, foremen and supervisors can fol- low the flow of fabricated or raw- materials and watch the progress of the work. Such setups will be par- ticularly valuable in mass produc- tion assembly lines, ;ind they may be extended to include loading jilat- forms and shipping rooms." According to Mr. Beal, television cameras may be used in connection with chemical reaction chambers, making visible to the operator without personal risk the chain of events occurring in comiilicated chemical production units, and thus enable him to control the process with optimum results. He said specially-built cameras may be used in furnaces to observe steps in the formation of alloys, and others may solve vital problems of analysis in important industrial i)rocesses. "In addition," Mr. Beal declared, "television equipment may facili- tate port movements of ships. The cameras located fore and aft, and on port and starboard sides of ves- sels, could lessen the hazards of (1 o c k i n g a n d i n s u re s a f e t y i n crowded shipping lanes. "We likewise foresee the use of television in metropolitan traffic control and along congested motor routes. Cameras may be installed permanently at busy inter-sections to flash to traffic headquarters running, up-to-the-minute picture accounts that should greatly aid traffic experts in easing conges- tion." [32 RADIO AGE]