Radio Broadcast (Nov. 1925-Apr 1926)

Radio Broadcasts Universal Receiver Being the Study of Several of the Most Popular and Most Effi Home Construction With a View to Adapting Theni to Fit Our H AVE you noticed that within the past few months the new Flexes, Dynes, and Supers described in the radio press have been extremely conspicuous by their absence? For some time, the passing of the trick circuit and its capitalization by the crafty and sometimes not too scrupulous publicist and manufacturer has been considered, by those who really understood the radio business, as a foregone conclusion. In passing on this interesting angle of the radio business, some of the older readers of Radio Broadcast will recall Zeh Bouck's article, entitled "The Truth About Trick Circuits" which appeared in our March, 1924, number. Some others may remember that we defended ourselves successfully in a libel suit for $100,000 which was brought against us as a direct result of the publication of this article and our refusal to make public apology for the things we said. We hope that article was instrumental in bringing about the situation with which the radio parts business is now blessed. Certainly, it is in better shape now than it has ever been before, even though there are those who would have us believe that, By ARTHUR H. LYNCH because the business in completed receivers has flourished so greatly, there is little or no parts business going on. And before going directly to the subject at hand, perhaps a few words about the parts business will be of interest to the home constructor and others. On the magazine, we are in direct contact with thousands of the listening public by mail who express their likes and dislikes to us in no uncertain terms. Through our short wave transmitting station in our Laboratory at Garden City (2 gy) we are in direct communication with amateur radio enthusiasts in all parts of the world. Many manufacturers avail themselves of our laboratory services and from them we learn much of what is going on in their particular fields. Then, too, our laboratory has been chosen to pass on the quality of the products radio manufacturers desire to advertise in The World's Work, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's Magazine, Review of Reviews, Scrihner's Magazine, and Country Life. From these contacts, we come in still closer contact with many sides of the radio business. There has been a considerable slackening off of the general parts business and there is no contradicting that fact. There are far fewer varieties of parts now to be had than there were a year ago. Allah be praised for that! Much of the older kind of parts business was little more than traffic in junk. Much of the junk has now been cleared out and it will not be long before the rest will have found its way to the scrap heap. Many of the junk dealers, who, a few months ago, believed themselves to be in the radio parts business have gone broke or have gone back to their old jobs, whatever they were. The parts merchant of to-day and to-morrow is not the fellow who attempts to unload a lot of radio jimcracks on credulous but misinformed radio buyers, but he is rather the man who understands the reason for every part he sells and is able to render the home constructor the sort of service he is reasonably entitled to expect. If more dealers would study some of the existing radio circuits and determine from actual performance just which is suited to their particular needs and then have samples made, which could be displayed in their stores and operated if need be, they would .00025 t.F.T. mfd. DETECTOR Loud Speaker Jack +B +B +B 45 90 90135 FIG. I This is the circuit diagram of the Universal Receiver. It consists of one stage of tuned radio-frequency amplification utiliz ing the Rice method of neutralization, a regenerative detector, and two low ratio stages of audio-frequency amplification. The wiring of the assembled receiver takes the same form followed in this diagram. For instance, the lower terminal of the radio frequency coupling unit is the lower end of L4 in the diagram