Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

RADIO BROADCAST 161 y claim, I understand, that there is a ntific gentleman in Los Altos of Sunnyvale, just south of San Francisco, who has heard farther than any man in America with his exsive and elaborate set, and he is engaged now xperiments on improved devices that, he d his company say, will multiply the practical usefulness of radio ten-fold. And so on. The friendly rivalry that exists between operators of radio outfits has done more, as Mr. Herbert Hoover has observed, to hasten the perfecting of the new practice than fifty years of laboratory work would have done under Kal and non-competitive conditions. e first successful station on the Pacific t, both for broadcasting and receiving, was the army one, established at the Presidio, «^an Francisco, at about the time of the close he war. This is one of the best-equipped ions here still, and has done a lot for radio on the Coast. There are now at least two broadcasting stations in Seattle, one large one about to be completed in Portland, if not one in Reno, Nevada, and possibly scattering ones in the other states hereabouts. They go in so fast that no one pretends to be able to keep track of them and there is, of course, nothing as yet that is official. In California the bay region about San Francisco is far ahead, with approximately twenty broadcasting stations, several of them finely equipped and with a great range. Los Angeles has caught the craze now and several installations are being made. One interesting possibility just hinted at to me may be unique. California has, I believe, more long-distance automobile stage lines than any other state. At present the State Railroad Commission is working very hard to make these lines a real public utility and as dependable as to running time, stops, number of cars operated, and routes followed as it has already made them standardized as to rates charged. The principal difficulty has been to maintain a fixed schedule or time-table. But already one of the largest of the companies operating in this field, itself new, is making plans to equip each of its stages with a small receiving set and to dispatch its drivers and keep in touch with them on the road by radio. Here, again, the West has a use for the radio that may never be so acutely felt, if felt at all, in the East. All the San Francisco newspapers and sev eral in other cities are now publishing a radio page. This all in the last few weeks. The University of California has extension course lectures on practical radio-telephony and the classes are over-crowded. A tight organization, known as the Pacific Radio Trade Association, is functioning fully and trying intelligently, and already with some success, to bring order out of the present chaos of broadcasting. The Association has already issued a schedule of hours when the air can be grabbed by the many who want it, and its officers — sound men in the business — are now looking forward to -the time when one central broadcasting station will be erected. If this is not done soon by the government or one of the powerful companies or combinations, the Trade Association will undoubtedly take the bull by the horns and do it itself. It means business. Much of my information comes from an amiable young gentleman named Rathbun associated with the Colin B. Kennedy Laboratories, of San Francisco, and I want to quote him a little to make clear how radio has developed here. "When I left the army," Mr. Rathbun said; " I had two or three business propositions made me, but I took the one that paid the least and, to my friends, seemed to have the poorest future — a position with this company. It was organized by Mr. Kennedy in June, 1919, and he had one office boy and a mechanic. I took the work up because I felt pretty certain that within ten years, and perhaps within five, there would be a general and widespread interest in radio telephony. " I was mistaken. When the blaze flared up it took six months to reach greater proportions than I had ever dreamed it would reach under five years. Now the company employs sixty-five people and is putting on more every day. We are seven months behind our orders, which come from all over the world, but in a few weeks we hope to have our facilities increased to the point where we can catch up to within three months, at least. "The growth of the business has not been even like a mushroom's development — it has been like the bursting of a shell." It seems not too much to hope that, within a year or so, the Pacific Coast will hear faint rumblings of the news about radio. Not tco much if you are a hopeful person.