Radio Broadcast (May-Oct 1924)

402 Radio Broadcast International Broadcasting AT THE same session of the electrical dealers where our favored word, broadL cast, was being legislated out of existence, David SarnofT, general manager of the Radio Corporation of America, predicted that within the next year the farmers in Kansas and Missouri, as well as the city dweller, might hear radio programs from Paris, London, South America, and other parts of the world, according to a press despatch. International broadcasting which will link up the farthermost corners of the earth is closer at hand than the public imagines, said Mr. SarnofT. Greatly increased power of our broadcasting stations and more completely developed rebroadcasting schemes, he thought, would enable programs to be heard simultaneously over large parts of the earth's surface. Mr. SarnofT was careful in his choice of the right word. The word may denotes either a permission or a possibility, it by no means tells the man from Missouri that he will be hearing European stations next year but that he is allowed to listen for them and take a chance on the possibility of hearing something. REX F. PALMER. CHIEF ANNOUNCER Of the British Broadcasting Company's nine stations. His voice is one of the best known in England, for when S. B.'s, or simultaneous broadcasts, occur in which all the stations in the chain are linked together, the announcing is done from London with Mr. Palmer in charge Radio is a Career for the Trained Man APPARENTLY there are stili many boys /\ and young men to whom radio holds 1 V out the glamour and lure which the gold fields of '49 held out to their grandfathers — offers so wonderful a field of opportunity and advancement that the long hours of study and application, and the natural aptitude required, seem entirely to escape their notice. It is easy to comprehend this unwarranted judgment of the newcomers in the field. The radio art is not yet sufficiently old to have put into their proper perspectives the few dominant figures which rose more or less automatically on the tremendous wave of popularity which has swept radio along during the last year or two. Marconi, DeForest, Armstrong, SarnofT: in a few years one of them jumps from wireless operator to General Manager of the Radio Corporation — another from a poor student to a wealthy man — another from an embryonic scientist to the popularly acclaimed founder of the art claiming millions of devotees. With such feats accomplished before his eyes, it is no wonder that the young man with ambition (even though he has nothing else) should think of turning to radio. It is well to strike a warning note. The gold of to-day is not picked up as large nuggets by the lone prospector ignorant of metallurgy, geology, engineering and the like, but is obtained by the careful working of low grade ores which the 49'er would have passed by without a second glance. Staffs of skilled engineers and technicians, who have had education and experience, are getting our gold for us to-day and a very similar change has taken place in radio during the last few years. To-day there are hundreds and hundreds of men who can be truthfully designated as radio engineers, working night and day in intense competition with each other to capture the rewards which radio still offers. But these men are well educated in the principles of radio. Most of them have had engineering school training as electrical engineers or physicists before specializing in radio. They have accurate knowledge of the past development of radio and of the needs of the future, and their training enables them to attack new problems as they arise. While new ideas will pop up occasionally from the activities of an untrained experimenter, most radio advancement must come from the activities of these trained engineers.