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RADIO AND ELECTRONICS Their Srarus and Promise By Dr. E. W. Engstrom Vice President in Charge, RCA Laborotoriei Division An address deliiered M the 60th Anniversary Convocation of Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia on October i/. 795/ I T IS particularly appropriate on this occasion to speak .ibout radio and electrcinics as a science and as an indus- try. It is appropriate because radio, followed by elec- tronics, had its beginning at about the same time this In.stitute was founded. We may but think of Hertz's experiments in electromagnetic radiation. We may con- sider Branly and his coherer for detecting radio fre- quencies in the early 1890"s. Again we may think of Marconi and his experiments of the 1890's, culminating in his historic transmission of the letter "S" across the Atlantic in 1901. These were the beginnings and I have called attention to but a few of tiie pioneers. They were followed by a host of others until today the technical workers are counted by the tens of thousands and those who serve in the industry, by the hundreds of thousands or millions. In the years that followed the first practical radio transmissions, the service grew rapidly in both its conti- nent-to-continent and ship-to-shore branches. During those early years the use of radio was confined to code communications. While some experimental work on radio telephones was done, the idea of broadcasting h.ad not yet been proposed. The period of World War I and the years just following saw the development and initial use of the "vacuum tube." It is this electronic tube which today is at the base of the huge radio- electronics industry. I shall say more about this later. While radio communications grew rapidly, it even now is small in terms of plant and equipment and in operating revenue when compared to the services to which it and the electron tube gave birth. I refer, of course, to radio broadcasting—sound and television — and to the many applications of electronics. Before leaving the subject of radio telegraph communications, it may be of interest to note that during the past several years the radio message traffic handled by private com- The author points to one type of tri-color television picture tubes developed by RCA. panics in the United States has run from one-half to three-quarters of a billion words each year. With the advent of radio broadcasting in the 1920"s, radio really began reaching its seven league stride. This new service, the outgrowth of radio communication, soon outdistanced its parent. As an example of the magnitude of this now mature service, 12 million sound receivers were produced last year in the United States. These had a retail value of 650 million dollars. In that same year some 380 million electron tubes were pro- duced at a value of approximately 500 million dollars. Radio billings for network broadcasting totaled some 200 million dollars. As of the start of this year. 96 RADIO AGE 13