Radio Broadcast (Nov 1924-Apr 1925)

"As the Broadcaster Sees It" 869 broadcasting, as engineers know, has increased the already severe congestion in the ethereal highways. Marine radio is being forced down, amateur radio up, in the frequency scale. The art is not free from station interference in any of its branches; the problem is one which is taken up at every radio conference. What, then, would happen if every citizen got him a transmitter, when, even now, with one transmitter to about every sixty thousand persons in the United States, interference problems arise? We leave the answer to the feature writers, who are less troubled by such details than we are. Of course, there is the development of shortwave transmission to be taken into account. Here a great supply of new wavelengths and traffic channels is opening up. And it may also be pointed out that, while power normally involves size, in the case of firearms, for example, great power is secured in very compact form by extreme concentration of force. Furthermore, radiation varies as the fourth power of the frequency, and thus one may view short wave, high frequency radio as a vaguely analogous concentration process, with the added factor that these short waves may be directed in a beam instead of being diffused in all directions. Admitting these arguments as interesting and pertinent, nevertheless, to the engineering sense, the transmitter-in-the-hat development is a thing almost as remote as the Milky Way. Universal radio communication between individuals, without the agency of corporate, public service facilities, may arrive some day, but that the communication companies, wire and wireless, will rake in dividends for a few centuries first, is a safe forecast. The development of a practical serious speeches ore broadcast o2\e station specializes in jazz system of telepathy is just as probable, and telepathy is talked of glibly in much the same way, yet, to the writer's knowledge, no concrete demonstrations of the phenomenon have ever been given. It may exist, it may develop and supersede the laborious and costly forms of electrical communication which have been worked out in the last hundred years — but the vice-presidents and general managers of communication systems are not losing any sleep over that possibility. The possession by every individual of a radio receiver — that, of course, is another matter. That is already at hand. The Differentiation of Broadcasting Stations AT PRESENT all the broadcasting stations are trying to please everybody. This is not to say that all the programs are alike in point of quality, for as a matter of fact the large metropolitan stations are able to attract a better class of performers and to supplement these with out-of-the-studio broadcasting of a superior order. As yet, however, no station seems to have made a serious effort at specialization. In the field of printed periodicals we find a great range of contents and policies, with each magazine creating its peculiar atmosphere and catering to a particular class of readers. There are the vendors of fluffy stories, the "quality magazines," critical periodicals, humorous papers, political reviews, and so on. Each is supported by a certain clientele with its special interests. Each has a reputation for presenting such and such material so and so, readers buy accordingly, writers market their