Radio Broadcast (May 1923-Oct 1923)

132 Radio Broadcast Braille, or the raised-dot system, various combinations of dots representing different letters in the alphabet. But 1 learned from Mr. O'Keefe that there is nothing in the literature for the blind pertaining to radio. He said this was most unfortunate, for of all people in the world who stand to benefit from radio the blind would probably head the list. " 1 do not like to ask my wife and children to sit down and read to me, " he explained. " The wife has her family work to do and the children have to prepare their school lessons, and it would be selfish on my part to take up much of their time. No, 1 enjoy sitting here a couple of hours at a time listening to what's going on in the world. No one knows the amount of good I get out of this little set, and no one can know but myself, for it is like an emotion — very hard to explain. 1 am a great lover of music, and certainly get the concerts very clear — that is, unless some fellow with a tube set allows it to oscillate and send out a flock of ' birdies.' But that doesn't happen very often, for. I tune pretty sharply, and generally succeed in tuning them put. Music has a wonderful effect on me — simply lifts me right out of everything, and before radio came in I used to make a lot of it myself. "The trips you can take via radio are certainly great. , A short time ago the advertising manager of the American Express Company gave a series of travel talks on tours in foreign lands — and I went with him. 1 could visualize the foreign peoples he described, their ways of living, and every bit of the wonderful scenery. The Company never knew how much I enjoyed that trip! I have gone completely around the world, and it didn't cost me a cent. And then I went down to the dock on the East River and talked with an old salt who has been in every port in the world, one of those fellows who can describe things beautifully, and he went more into detail about the different places. But wasn't he surprised when I began to tell him all about Australia? He wondered how the deuce I knew! " But the best sport of all comes from people who don't know they are broadcasting. For instance, at some of these banquets, the speeches are picked up by microphone and re layed to a station to be broadcasted. Now the average man doesn't know how sensitive a microphone is, and unwittingly [two or three fellows sitting near the microphone will discuss the ladies and drop whispers to one another in a confidential tone. And away," perhaps for thousands of miles, , those little-confidences will be wafted by the radio waves to fall on listening ears. "At one or these formal gatherings the toastmaster announced that Charles M. Schwab would speak. Mr. Schwab gave a very fine address, and during the course of it he commenced to laugh. That laugh tickled me, and 1 remembered it. One evening I heard the same laugh again, and 1 said to my wife, 'My friend Charlie Schwab is here,' and sure enough he was afterward introduced to speak. He had evidently been sitting near the microphone, unaware that people with phones over their ears were enjoying the merrymaking too. "The world's series, the big football games, the horse races — all the sports come to me through the air. Last summer, a friend of mine dropped in and 1 began telling him all about the ball game. 'How did you hear about it?' he asked. He had been to the game that very afternoon himself, and had got soaking wet in the rain, whereas I sat here perfectly contented and heard Grantland Rice say 'Now the pitcher vis winding up, and now he lets it go.' And I didn't get wet, either. "Of course, my machine is limited to a radius of about 25 miles — the more powerful sets bring in the far-away station, but I get as much as I want at that. Next summer a friend and I are going fishing along the North Shore, and I am certainly going to take my little set along and rig up an aerial on the boat. Yes, indeed, radio is a wonderful boon to humanity, and I look forward to still greater things. Somehow I think that an artificial sense of sight could be stimulated in people who have lost the sight of their eyes. 1 haven't any worth-while suggestions to offer, but perhaps someone who knows more about radio than I do will discover a method. In the meantime, let the blind be thankful that radio is at hand — and, also, let them use it."