Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1922)

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

RADIO BROADCAST 43 DR. ALFRED N. GOLDSMITH the wire telephone. The radio telephone has its own special fields of utility which will require the full use of all the wave lengths available in the ether for radio telephony. It is conceivable that great progress will be made in tuning apparatus which will allow a greatly increased number of radio telephone transmitters to operate at the same time without interference. But the special fields to which radio telephony is particularly adapted precludes its extended use as a competitor of the wire telephone. "The radio telephone is a new device with a new sphere of utility heretofore filled by no other agency. In general, there are three classes of communication in which the radio telephone will be supreme: communication where natural barriers, such as deserts, mountains or tropical forests, or great spans of ocean make wire telephony an impossibility; second, where the barrier of motion, as in the case of aircraft, automobiles, moving trains, and ships at sea, does not permit the use of wire telephony; and third, for broadcasting purposes, where audiences of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions are scattered over large areas." Speaking of the first field, Dr. Goldsmith stated that the radio telephone will be an important factor in preserving the unity of nations and empires and strengthening the bonds between men and their governments. Rome fell when her outposts were isolated by slow communication. Rome thrived when she could send her centurions over her marvellous system of roads to any outpost where danger threatened before her enemies could assemble in force. Roman roads permitted rapid communication, with the result that the Romans were invariably ready. But the laxity of Roman officialdom, which accompanied her social and political decay, led to the neglect of the system of highways. When the advantage of rapid communication was in this way lost to Rome, barbarians overran the Empire. When Rome fell, ours was a thirty day world. The cable and the radio telegraph has reduced its dimensions to a few hours. The radio telephone will make it a one seventh of a second world. That coordination and unity of nations is fostered by effective communication is well recognized by our own government. Our Navy Department has established a chain of radio telegraph stations linking America's outposts with the central government. The British Imperial communication chain similarly unites that empire by a series of radio telegraph stations.