Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

42 RADIO BROADCAST listener will be his own operator, critic, director, and even producer. There will be a great variety to select from, and each of the purveyors of this service will be on the continual lookout for suggestions and criticism. ' "Radio broadcasting can never quite become a case of 'see our picture or stay at home' and, besides, the Department of Commerce promises to follow radio broadcasting very closely in order to make certain that proper and popular programmes are provided. This is as it should be. One might even allow himself to imagine that some time in the future the popularity of a political party in office may hinge entirely upon the quality of broadcasting service." DR. ALFRED N. GOLDSMITH ON THE FUTURE OF RADIO TELEPHONY By EDGAR H. FELIX, A. I. R. E. WHEN Dr. Alfred Norton Goldsmith speaks of the future of radio communication, he speaks with authority. Since 19 12 he has been editor of the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers and has for the last five years been the institute's secretary. This body includes in its membership the two thousand leading radio experts, engineers, and executives scattered in all parts of the world. Its Proceedings is the recognized technical authority on radio. But Dr. Goldsmith's position of authority is based upon more than this. He is Director of Research of the Radio Corporation of America, the dominating organization of the radio industry. In this important work he is in closer touch with progress and development of radio communication than any other man in American radio. For many years. Dr. Goldsmith has directed the radio laboratories of the College of the City of New York. His interest in radio was born here when but a few advanced scientists had recognized the possibilities of the Hertzian experiments as a means of communication. Professor R. Ogden Doremus, one of the College's leading scientists, was responsible for bringing to the United States several important scientific discoveries. Although the early experiments of Hertz, which laid the foundation of radio communication, did not attract much attention even in the scientific world. Professor Doremus was one of the few who recognized their importance. He therefore, with painstaking accuracy, had exact replicas of Hertz's apparatus made by one of Hertz's coworkers and they are now a part of the equipment of the College of the City of New York. Unlike his fellow students. Dr. Goldsmith did not content himself with the brief reference to these experiments which were made at one of the physics classes. He obtained permission to set up the Hertzian apparatus and repeated with the fidelity of a real seeker after the truth the experiments which Hertz reported to the world. It was in this fashion that Dr. Goldsmith's interest in radio was born. And it is in this fashion, also, that he has kept himself before the radio world as its best informed authority. For instance, when Poulsen announced his first success with the arc for communicating speech, Dr. Goldsmith set up one of the first, if not the first, arc radio telephones in the United States. In this same way, each step in advance has been incorporated in Dr. Goldsmith's wide knowledge by actual experiment, sometimes even before its significance was appreciated by the discoverer himself. It was at City College that Dr. Goldsmith allowed me to hear the signals from the high power station at Honolulu shortly after Armstrong had made his discovery of the feed-back circuit which is now so widely used for reception and transmission. Dr. Goldsmith has seen radio grow from modest beginnings to a day when its spread resembles that of a hysteria. But, unlike some of his contemporaries, it has not distorted his vision of the future. "The first thing I wish to make clear is that I do not expect the radio telephone to replace