Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

892 Radio Broadcast THE FIRST TELEPHONE RECEIVER WITH A PERMANENT MAGNET The case is of wood. The diaphragm is made of an old tin-type with an iron magnetic core around which the wire coil was wound. This receiver was made by Professor A. E. Dolbear while he was a student in Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio. It was recently brought to light again in the University's physics laboratory Mr. Hoover's letter covering the transmittal of his suggested bill to Mr. White shows how well he has grasped the essentials of the radio industry as it exists to-day. After reviewing the advances and changes during the past year, all of which indicate the inadvisability of governmental regulation at this time, he says: "I hope that another year's experience will show what direction of legislative course must be pursued. Meanwhile I feel that we would gain by allowing the industry to progress naturally and unhampered except by the maintenance of a firm principle of governmental control of the ether and the elimination of interference so far as possible." An Epoch in Broadcasting SETTING a rapid pace for 1925 broadcasting to follow, WEAF announced that through cooperation of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, The Victor Talking Machine Company, and the various artists involved, January ist and succeeding nights saw the inauguration of a great broadcast experiment. On that evening John McCormack and Lucrezia Bori, two of America's bestknown operatic stars, gave a program of arias and favorite old songs which all radio listeners hailed with delight. These were exactly the type of programs which we have always visualized for broadcasting. To be sure, lots of folks can enjoy jazz and second-rate humor, but many of us prefer other than vaudeville programs. To suit a million people who are listening, a program of variegated character is required, but in this program lovers of real music had their turn. It was suggested that if this experiment was successful, more programs of like quality would follow. The artists who have agreed to assist in this new phase of broadcasting, all of them Victor artists, are Alda, Bauer, Bori, DeGogorza, DeLuca, Fleta, the Flonzaley Quartet, Gordon, Jeritza, McCormack, Martinelli, Matzenauer, Ponselle, Schumann-Heinck, Scotti, Whitehill, Paul Whiteman, Crooks, and the Shannon Quartet. There are still a number of wellknown Victor artists who have not yet agreed to broadcast, but it is quite likely that if the quality of WEAF'S transmission keeps up to its present high standard and the public show a real appreciation of the programs rendered by the artists who have already agreed to broadcast, the others may join in to give us, the "dead-beat" audience, broadcast entertainment to which we are not at all entitled by any right of payment, but which we shall welcome nevertheless. Radio Dispatch for Harbor Tugs WHERE other means of communication fail, let radio be used — seems to be a logical dictum by which to allot different communication tasks to the different possible mediums. Certainly contact with moving vessels can most conveniently be had by radio and we believe that the attempt of the New York Central Railroad Company to handle its harbor traffic by radio is justifiable. The company operates forty-three tug boats in New York harbor and undoubtedly this harbor traffic could be speeded up if the chief tug dispatcher could talk to his captains whenever he wanted to. Although the experiment is being started on a 660 meter wave, it seems as though a much shorter wave would have been preferable, much below the normal broadcast range. As the distances to be covered are small, probably a 5-watt set operating at, perhaps, 20 meters might do the work very well, certainly much better than the channel at present being used. How to Calibrate Your Receiver THE latest list of "standard frequency" broadcasting stations put out by the Bureau of Standards is well selected to help the radio enthusiast who wants to construct an accurate calibration curve for his receiving set. Of the following stations, whose frequencies reach right through the broad