Radio annual and television yearbook (1945)

The revenue from delayed broadcasts pays for itself many times each year. Technical developments in recording; equipment have made it possible for stations to produce recordings which cannot be distinguished from live studio programs, except for the transcription announcement required by FCC regulations. Since 1936 the Federal Communications Commission has used recording equipment at their various monitoring stations for the study of fading and interference conditions among AM bi-oadcasting stations. Recently the FCC recorded the signals of an FM station, presumed to have a range of 50 to 60 miles at a point over 1000 miles away, proving the existence of sky wave transmission in the 40 to 50 megacycle channels. These recordings formed a basis for the FCC proposal that FM stations be shifted to the higher frequencies. Date lines of any newspaper during wartime have shown leading press associations, as well as the FCC, daily recording broadcasts of enemy propaganda originating in Tokyo and Berlin and occupied countries. Development in Equipment Developments in recording equipment have been along numerous lines depending upon the user's requirements. In 1937 Presto placed on the market an inexpensive portable home recorder which revived an interest that had been dormant since the days of the RCA pregrooved discs introduced in the late twenties. Bq 1940 at least 50 prominent radio set manufacturers were offering combination radios which included in addition to the radio receiver an automatic record changer and a recording mechanism that permitted making records either from a microphone or "off the air." Inexpensive discs were developed for home use and recording became a hobby with hundreds of thousands of set owners. An unusual commentary on public interest was the well known comic strip, "Pa's Son-in-Law," which appeared in the N. Y. Herald Tribune and other papers on June 6, 1937. This interest has appeared in another form during wartime. When military preparations first started, the United Service Organizations installed sound recorders in their various clubhouses located near army training camps to enable servicemen to send recorded messages to their families and friends. The Pepsicola Company has extended the same service to outposts on the foreign battle fronts. Recording studios in operation in all of the larger cities are now providing' a service for those who wish to send recorded replies back to the men and women in service. Many radio stations were at one time making recordings at army training camps for local interest programs. The commercial airlines have found it a necessity to record all plane to ground conversations from airliners to principal airports so that they may review reports of unexpected weather or operating conditions or events leading up to an accident. Wire Recordings Magnetic wire and tape recording are receiving considerable attention at the present time. The advantages of magnetic recording are several. In the first place there is no material cost of operation. Recordings may be made on the magnetic material and played back for transcribing. The wire is then rewound and, as it is recorded a second time, the previous sound is "erased" from the wire just before the application of the new recording. Such i*ecorders are available either for recording a short message lasting a minute or two on an endless steel tape or fifteen or twenty minutes continuously on a wire passing between two reels similar to motion picture film. Magnetic recorders are not seriously affected by shock or vibration and have, therefore, found uses on the battle fronts where recordings are made under actual battle conditions. The tonal range of present commercial magnetic recorders is suitable for reproduction of intelligible speech only, variations in the wire speed during recording and reproduction making it unsatisfactory for musical reproduction. These faults will undoubtedly be eliminated in postwar magnetic recorders, but there is a further disadvantage that it is difficult to find any particular portion of the sound recording without playing back other parts leading up to it and while the tape may be speeded up for rewinding to reduce the time required to return to the start of the recording, there is a definite limit to the safe speed at which a wire four thousands of an inch in diameter can be rewound. Post-war developments already announced include magnetic recording facilities in home radio sets. A magnetic juke-box to be installed in the dashboard of automobiles and high quality disc recorders capable of recording 15 minute continuous programs from the home radio. 911