Radio Broadcast (Nov 1926-Apr 1927)

182 RADIO BROADCAST DECEMBER, 1926 of Radio Broadcast. Mr. Dagg concedes that the symbol used is in accordance with the 1926 report of the Committee on Standardization of the Institute of Radio Engineers, but he argues that this picture (repeated here in Fig. 1 A), while well enough for the standard transmitter used in commercial telephone practice, does not properly represent broadcast conditions. He proposes the symbol shown in Fig. 1 B for a double-button carbon microphone of the type usually found in broadcasting studios. Brother Dagg's sketch is superior to the 1. R. E. symbol in that it shows the two buttons and permits a correct connection, graphically, in the circuit; the fact that we are dealing with a variable resistance is also emphasized. What is less advantageous is that the intersecting arrow is normally used to indicate a manual variation by an operator or user of the instrument in question, rather than the variation of resistance of audio frequency, in accordance with impinging sound waves, which we find in the microphone. Nor does Mr. Dagg's symbol cover electrostatic and electromagnetic transmitters. Figs. iC, D, and E show a possible set of symbols for carbon (doublebutton), electromagnetic, and electrostatic transmitters, respectively. In the first, the two variable buttons, the diaphragm, and the back are shown; the second contains the electromagnet; and the third is obviously a condenser. The variation mark in each case is a wavy diagonal line, to indicate both variation and the generation of an alternating current. But this is perhaps too complicated to meet the approval of the Committee on Standardization. They might prefer to compromise on something like Fig. iF, for a double-button carbon microphone, which is simply the standard symbol with the addition of a middle lead; while for electromagnetic and condenser transmitters the original standard symbol would serve, with a printed addition indicating the type. It is a question how far we wish to go in complexity in order to secure a more literal representation, when the primary object of a symbol is to depict by a simple graphical substitute apparatus which is inherently much more complicated, by regarding the principle rather than the machine itself. A Louisiana Tragedy REMONSTRANCE of a listener, unaccustomed to the vagaries of August . transmission, addressed from New Freedom, Louisiania to wjz, New York (transmitter at Bound Brook, New Jersey): I think the programs you give are about the best, and you will realize therefore that I am just a little disappointed when your waves do not YOU CAN HEAR THE MUSIC FOR TWO BLOCKS the cheapest, and the cheapest the costliest in the end, for them. Of course Mr. Brodie is right. Money makes the mare go, and likewise puts amperes in the antenna and pushes forward the shield behind which the tunnel construction takes place. In the particular instance I cited — the production of power tubes for radio receivers — the economic obstacle was not formidable. That step forward was delayed until a copiously emitting filament material had been developed, and the esthetic evils of output tube overloading were sufficiently realized. But in broadcast transmitter practice, the handicap pointed out by Mr. Brodie is all too often in evidence. There are many small stations operating on a shoe string, as they say down in Wall Street, with the owners demanding technical quality and service comparable to those of the large, relatively wealthy stations, but unable to put up the necessary cash. The position of the engineer in such a plant is most unenviable. The labor of Sisyphus would be a vacation for him. Let him emblazon the words of Mr. Brodie on a sheet of vellum and leave it on his employer's desk some fine spring morning. A1 come in strong. When it comes in strong you can hear the music for two blocks when the loud speaker is placed on our porch, but now you cannot hear it for more than half a block. Oral comments of three unfeeling engineers: He seems all broken up about it. Please frame this letter. That's easy. Tell him you have moved the station one and one-half blocks farther away. The Economic Aspect of Radio Engineering FTER some kind remarks about our article in the September issue, "A Lesson for the Radio Class," in which a comparison was drawn between radio and civil engineering design, Mr. Orrin L. Brodie, a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and one of the designing engineers of the Holland vehicular tunnel, adds this observation: Your novel application of the methods of structural design, especially of the tunnel, to the production of adequate power tubes for radio uses, attracted us also, for some of us are radio fans of a mild order. Nevertheless, the possibility occurs to me that the radio engineer is as his civil and mechanical, etc., colleagues are often confronted in higher and better aspirations with the item of cost. What is obviously and logically the best in design is often precluded by inability or unwillingness upon the part of those responsible for the finances to provide the funds, notwithstanding that the best is oftenest Memoirs of a Radio Engineer XV IN 1915 and 1916 I took electrical engineering courses at the College of the City of New York under Prof. Charles H. Parmly, at that time a member of the Physics Department. The Department of Electrical Engineering, of which Parmly was the first Professor, was not founded until 1917. Before that date, all technological courses at the College, except for the field of chemistry, were given by Physics professors. Professor Parmly, at the time I knew him, was a handsome, sparely built man in his late forties. He had a high forehead, penetrating eyes, and hair and mustache just turning gray. He was an engineer (E. E., Columbia University, '92), and he looked and acted the part. Parmly was the most orderly man 1 have ever known, bar none, and he knocked some of his regularity and logic into me, among others. He hated messy work and messy thinking, and tolerated neither in his students. We stood in awe of him, because he never pretended to know anything he did not know, and what he did know — and that seemed about everything — he had mastered with almost inhuman thoroughness. There was not the slightest hope of bluffing him in a recitation; if there was any portion of the problem wherein you were hazy, Parmly would find it out, and, on the spot, Microphone ® ®