Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

26 RADIO BROADCAST oceanic kind in the world. Japan, for instance, in the nature of her possessions, has nothing cemparable — actually could not reach by her own radio her merchant ships in remote corners of the world. France's trans-oceanic key strength is mainly that of the Lafayette station, now the most powerful in the world, which our Navy built during the war, which can reach round the world, if conditions are quite right. Italy can reach our eastern Coast, hardly more. Germany is practically out of the running, though she retains two large stations, after having given up Togoland in Central Africa to England, and Tuckerton and Sayville to the United States, since they are on our territory, and various and sundry other possessions toother Allies. So it comes to this again, that the British Empire and Uncle Sam, in the ether as on the seas, come nearest to being on a parity. Yet it is no exaggeration to say that, though the British Empire has available, if it chose to use them, more ships than we have and quite a good deal largerspread of land possessions, still her contemplated Imperial Radio Chain does not as yet favorably compare with the U. S. radio net as a whole, even if we do not include our purely commercial companies — the Federal, in the Far East, and the Radio Corporation of America, which is spreading out through and across Europe and elsewhere. Our Navy built the first high-power continuous wave station, on the Canal Zone, in 1 914. It has blazed the way in many other directions. Its net can broadcast, and as a matter of fact does, everywhere up and down the seven seas. And now comes the Army with a land net that for solid thoroughness and scope is also unique. The writer is able for the first time to outline the scope of this net, which for the most part will be in full operation before this article can be read. The Army, you see, has nine corps areas, since its reorganization following the war. Its radio net will cover all these areas, with its control station in Washington, and all our fourteen aviation fields and all our artillery and other posts will be tied into this net. Ft. Wood, in New York, for instance, is the headquarters of the Second Army Corps, and has in its area the radio stations at West Point, Mitchell Field, Camp Dix, Camp Vail, Rariton Arsenal, and Fort Hancock, all of which, in turn, use radio for different local as well as larger purposes. Again, in the same way, the Third Army Corps, with headquarters at Ft. Howard, Baltimore, Md., controls Fort Monroe, Langley Field, and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds; while Ft. McPherson, at Atlanta, Ga., headquarters of the Fourth Army Corps, includes the stations at Camp McClellen, Ft. Barrancas, etc. From Ft. Benjamin Harrison, at Indianapolis, Ind., the Fifth Army Corps reaches out through the stations at McCook Field, Camp Fairfield, and Camp Knox; while the Sixth Army Corps, Chicago, has in its net Camp Grant, Ft. Sheridan, and Ft. Brady. Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, Jefferson Barracks, and other stations, are in the net of the Seventh Army Corps, with headquarters at Ft. Crook, Nebraska. The Eighth Army Corps, at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas, has Ft. Brown, Ft. McAllen, Ft. Ringold, Ft. Mcintosh, Ft. Bliss, and Ft. Huachuca. And the Ninth Army Corps, San Francisco, includes the Presidio, Ft. MacArthur, Ft. Douglas, and Ft. D. A. Russell, at Cheyenne, Wyoming. It is worth noting too that our fourteen major aviation fields, though comprehended in the Signal Corps net as a whole, nevertheless constitute an alert net of their own, so that they can make the fullest and most prompt use of meteorological and other special data. These Federal agencies, all that have been mentioned here, are by no means all that are using radio. The Coast Guard, part of the Navy net, employing the Navy waves, uses radio for all manner of purposes — for administrative work, for relieving distress, for warding ships off from the location of icebergs that come cruising down our Atlantic Coast periodically, and for a score of other purposes. The Prohibition enforcement authorities are also using radio here and there. The Public Health Service is broadcasting health data by radio, via the Anacostia Station, near Washington, of the Navy, and heretofore via wave length 425. And then, too, not only is every Federal Department using radio somewhere or other, but Uncle Sam is forging ahead experimentally. The Army Signal Corps, the Navy, the air services of both arms of the service, and other agencies are doing interesting and promising laboratory experimental work of one kind and another; the Air Service of the Army, for instance, has planes equipped experimentally