Radio Broadcast (Nov 1923-Apr 1924)

278 Radio Broadcast snow which separated him physically from his fellow club members, so that their dedication program could be actually carried out by their most distinguished member. Fading IN SCIENTIFIC Paper No. 476 of the Bureau of Standards, an attempt is made to interpret the results of the fading tests carried out by the Bureau with the assistance of about one hundred widely scattered amateurs who volunteered to try and get data which could be compiled in an effort to find out the how and why of fading. Does fading occur at all stations simultaneously and to the same extent? If so, it would seem to indicate a general absorption of the signal in the neighborhood of the transmitting station. Or does the signal increase in stations in one location when it fades in stations in another? If so, it would presumably indicate that the energy which should be normally sent in one direction had been refracted or reflected and sent in another. Is there any law or order about this fading phenomenon? The scientists at the Bureau attempt to answer the question, in the light of the results of the tests they had carried out, but the answer is quite evidently only conjecture. RADIOGRAMS TO AND FROM ENGLAND WENT THROUGH HIM In the recent transatlantic broadcasting tests. He is Mr. H. E. Fulton, operating at Radio Central, Broad Street, New York. The buzzer fastened on the telephone instrument was used in communicating with the Radio Broadcast receiving station at Garden City, N. Y. Sufficiently accurate data is not at hand to permit a reasonable attack on this problem as yet. Data of the kind required for the solution of problems of this nature cannot be collected by amateurs — that is, amateurs in the sense that they have had no experience in taking accurate radio measurements. If one judges radio transmission by what is heard in the telephone receivers, his data will indeed be of but little value. The ear is of practically no use as a measurer of sound intensity, as may be inferred by any one who has been listening to a signal, as the static gradually increased in intensity. The ear always interprets such an occurrence as a fading of the signal. This fading phenomenon will be analyzed and explained some day, but it will undoubtedly be solved only after skilled investigators, equipped with the very best radio measuring instruments, have spent much time and effort on the problem. As the question is an extremely important one, we may rest assured that the answer will soon be forthcoming, if one is possible. Batting a Dot About TO THE electrical engineer there is nothing novel in the idea of " remote control." Our great electric power stations, generating hundreds of thousands of horsepower, are operated entirely by one man in a small room overlooking the generator room, who manipulates a set of push buttons. All of the heavy switches and similar apparatus are set into motion by motors and electromagnets, the current for which is controlled by these buttons in the supervisor's tower. But the crowning achievement of automatic remote control was carried out a short time ago when two tremendous radio stations, one in America and the other in Europe, automatically controlled each other's apparatus. It is possible to put one of our large radio stations "on the air" by a series of very delicate electrically controlled switches, called relays. One of these