Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

196 RADIO BROADCAST AUGUST, 1928 A working agreement among telegraph and radio interests is essential to our future in international communications. No one should be excluded from the field who can contribute needed service. The vast system of message collection and distribution of the established telegraph system must be made available to radio, and the revenue equitably divided so that cable, telegraph, and radio can continue to operate profitably without destructive competition. If such agreement is not equitably worked out by the interests involved, government meddling, with its paralyzing influence, will follow. If the problem is tackled with a spirit of conciliation, there is ample room for both the Mackay and the Radio Corporation interests. The American position in international communications is threatened by a destructive warfare of rival interests. The Commission Announces Its Short Wave Policy THE Federal Radio Commission on May 24 allocated 74 short wave channels for transoceanic services, as follows: Robert Dollar Company, 8 channels; Tropical Radio Telegraph Co., 7; American Telephone & Telegraph Company, 9; American Publishers Committee, 20; the Mackay Company, 1 5 ; Radio Corporation of America, 1 5. These assignments were made on the basis of a statement of principle adopted by the Commission: "That competitive service be established where there are competing applications to compete with already established service, and that in the grant of competing licenses fairness of competition be established, except that as to an isolated country, which in the judgment of the Commission will not afford sufficient business for competing wireless lines, only one grant of license shall be made, preferably the first application in priority." The table on this page shows the number of transoceanic channels in use, applications made, approved, and totals in use. How closely the Commission has adhered to the excellent principle which it has enunciated cannot be judged without knowledge of the specific purposes for which these applications recently approved are to be put. Perhaps in the most doubtful category are the assignments made to the newspaper publishers, inasmuch as most of their services are likely to duplicate existing facilities. The communication com A RADIO DEBUT IN THE FAR NORTH Old John Furth, Hudson's Bay factor at Fort McPherson, Mackenzie, Canada, is listening in on kgo as picked up by the portable receiver which Lewis R. Freeman carried on his expedition in Canada. Furth is standing by -a sun dial erected one hundred years ago by Sir John Franklin, the Arctic Explorer panies, so long as their own applications are granted, are not likely to oppose the assigning of channels to the press which, through its public influence, can embarrass them and which, from the revenue standpoint, does not make a desirable customer because of the special rates applying to its needs. CALDWELL HITS STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER ACCUSTOMED as we are to soothing propaganda from the Federal Radio Commission, it gives us no little pleasure to report as fully as space permits the remarks of Commissioner O. H. Caldwell, delivered through wor on May 22. After pointing out that the Davis Amendment must be enforced and that it offers an opportunity to better conditions for the listener, Mr. Caldwell continued: "Indeed, it is no longer a secret that certain members of Congress, after having secured the passage of the Davis-Dill Amendment hardly six weeks ago, would to-day Short-W ave Transoceanic Assignments in the United States Now using Applied for Approved Total as recently Pacific Communications Co. 8 0 0 Robert Dollar Company ■5 8 8 Tropical Radio Telegraph Co. 12 7 7 American Tel. & Tel. Co. 3 9 9 12 American Publishers 22 20 20 The Mackay Company 22 19 '5 37 Radio Corp. of America 50 55 15 65 TOTAL 75 140 74 149 like to see its enforcement indefinitely postponed, now that they have discovered what will be its effects on the various states (and their own political reputations) when actually applied. . . . The outpourings of a few self-seeking politicians on the menace of high power; tedious legal theories; convenient states' rights arguments borrowed to cloak promoters' profits; or the necessity for Podunkville to have a 1000-watt transmitter which can specialize only in phonograph records and county political oratory — these topics all have very little concern for Mr. Average Listener if only the wavelengths of the great popular stations he dials to, nightly, can be kept clear so that their splendid programs can be received as unspoiled and perfect as when they left the studio. That much, and only that, do the millions of radio listeners really ask of their Congressional representatives, their Federal Radio Commission, and their Government at Washington. And it is high time that they got it. "What the public itself has been demanding — and has a right to expect from the Commission — is prompt relief from the unhappy radio reception conditions which still persist, and have rendered large parts of our radio spectrum useless, particularly to distant listeners on farms, ranches, and in remote communities. "The station over which I am speaking, wor, now recognized as one of the great program sources of the country, frequently has its splendid programs ruined at some places within 30 to 35 miles of Newark and New York by the heterodyne moans and howls produced from another station on the same wavelength, wos, in Missouri. Meanwhile, wor inflicts similar interference on the good people of Missouri. The other popular 5000-watt New Jersey station wpg, at Atlantic City, is similarly spoiled at any distance by several Middle West stations — which, in turn, it similarly injures. "In New York City, reception from wnyc is continuously ruined by a Chicago station; whn is blasted by transmitters in Louisiana and Iowa; and wabc is injured by cross talk from an adjoining channel. Even weaf and wjz suffer Pacific Coast whistles on winter nights. "In Philadelphia, the popular pair wfi and wlit are badly heterodyned, right within the city limits, by carrier-waves from Minnesota. In Boston, wnac has a background of growls which come from Pittsburgh. Massachusetts' big 15,000-watt wbz station shares its wave with eight other stations, affording the farmer who tries to tune in on its agricultural programs all the variety of howls and roars incident to feeding time at the zoo. And this enumeration of particulars in the listeners' bill of complaints might be extended almost throughout the whole 89 wavelengths. "This is the real situation which the Commission was created to correct, and which the millions of the public have patiently waited to have remedied. This is the situation of nightly interference which will again be upon us in September, after the summer static has rolled away. "It can be remedied only by reducing the number of stations permitted to operate simultaneously on the air during night hours. The re G