Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

THh MARCH OF RADIO NEWS AND INimWHAIION SE3ZEEEESI EMEU KVt NTS New Allocation Repairs the Broadcast Structure THE Federal Radio Commission has, at last, bestirred itself. It has formulated an orderly plan of allocation, based upon conservative engineering estimates of the capacity of the broadcasting band. When the plan is in smooth operation, it will increase the program service obtainable with any radio receiver capable of reaching out beyond neighborhood locals. We hesitate to praise any constructive step announced by the Commission because, up to this time, it has always reversed itself before promised reforms have been put into operation. It proposed to eliminate all stations persistently wandering from their channels, but backwatered before the echo of its brave statements had died out. It called a host of stations before it to prove they were operating in the public interest, necessity and convenience, with a grand fanfare to the effect that many would thus be weeded out. but the actual result of the hearings was negligible. From past experience, we cannot avoid fearing a complete reversal of form and a repudiation of the meritorious broadcast allocation plan. We hope that public approval of the announced plans will be so forcibly expressed that, this time, there will be no turning back. The plan itself is a normal and sensible classification of channels into local, regional, and national groupings. Forty channels, eight per zone, are nationally cleared for exclusive service by stations of 5000 watts or more. Only one station is in operation on each channel at a time, although time division may be employed in the case of stations not prepared to operate on a fulltime basis, or to permit division of channel facilities among the states according to population, as required by the Davis Amendment. This exclusive service band lies between 1 190 and 640 kilocycles. Four channels, 1460 to 1490 inclusive, are devoted to stations of a maximum power of 5000 watts, to be shared by two zones, presumably on opposite coasts of the country, thus providing good regional service. Thirty-five channels, ranging throughout the dials from 1430 to 580 kilocycles, are assigned to stations having a maximum power of 1000 watts. These channels will be used in not less than two nor more than three zones simultaneously for night broadcasting, although in isolated instances, the maximum will, for the time being, be exceeded when no serious interference is caused. These are the so-called "regional channels." Five additional channels, ranging throughout the band, for stations up to 1000 watts, will be duplicated in every zone, thus providing medium power, local, and limited regional •service. Finally, six channels at the lower end of the dials, will be thickly populated with 100-watt broadcasters, accommodating a great number of stations providing strictly local service. This, in brief, is the skeleton of the allocation plan, as it was first announced by the Commission. Undoubtedly, it will be modified. Such dubious features as limiting the maximum power of permanently licensed stations to 25,000 watts, on the exclusive channels, is a useless curtailment of the service of these channels. Did it serve to increase the number of stations which might be assigned to a channel, it could be justified on that ground. It amounts only to an order compelling stations to render less than their best possible service. Apparently, it is a concession to Judge Robinson, who wanted to put a 5000watt power limit on broadcasting, thereby reducing the total area of the United States served by high-grade broadcasting to considerably less than ten per cent. EFFECT OF THE DAVIS AMENDMENT HP HE Davis Amendment requires equal dis*■ tribution of channels among the zones, and their distribution within zones according to population. As a consequence of the varying areas of the zones, more than half of the desirable regional and national channels necessarily are assigned to the Northeastern quarter of the country, comprising the first, second and part of the fourth zones. The Western half of the country, the fifth zone, has only one-fifth of the total number of cleared channels. The Southern zone, comprising an area of about a fourth of the country, is given only one third the number of preferred channels assigned the Northeastern quarter of the country. The Commission naturally has found these silly requirements of the pernicious Davis Amendment a serious handicap in its work and has not overlooked any opportunity to impress MA This tains RCONl's NEW 6-KW, 2000-METER TRANSMITTER wireless telegraph station at Grytviken, South Georgia, maina daily telegraph service with the Falkland Islands which in turn communicate with Montevideo 16 the public with the effect of the provisions of the Amendment in unnecessarily depriving theSouth and West of broadcasting stations. However, had the Commission acted promptly upon the various allocation plans offered it from the very day of its organization (of which one, submitted by a member of the staff of Radio Broadcast, provided almost precisely the structure at last agreed upon), the Amendment never would have been passed. The year and a half of dilly dallying which preceded the adoption of the present plan has inflicted a more or less permanent handicap upon the broadcast structure in the form of the Davis Amendment. To the broadcast listener, the faithful adoption of the present plan means clear reception on most of the positions of the dial. Forty channels are completely cleared, providing for eight stations in simultaneous operation per zone. Thirty-four channels are partly cleared for regional service, offering a standard of reception about equal to that heretofore found on the so-called cleared channels. The number of stations reasonably clear of heterodynes, is vastly increased and chain programs will no longer crowd the few choice dial positions. By taking into consideration the channels which will be used simultaneously by more than one zone, the total number of stations in the regional class, operating simultaneously at night, will be 125, or 25 per zone. These regional stations will give satisfactory service for moderate distances beyond the so-called "high-grade service range" and should be entirely free of heterodynes within the high-grade service area. The six channels devoted to local service may be duplicated at fairly short distances, but again the Davis Amendment acts to curtail the potential service of these channels. The number of stations per zone upon these channels must be equalized although, for example, there could otherwise be about twenty times as many local communities using these channels in the fifth zone as in the first, without having any greater congestion than is found in the first, so marked are the differences in the areas of these zones. Another curious consequence of the Davis Amendment is the somewhat diverse effect it has upon the two centers of broadcast congestion, New York and Chicago. Because New York has such a predominant proportion of the population of its zone, it suffers a somewhat smaller curtailment of assignments than Chicago. Casual observation of the Chicago situation shows a heavy mortality in time on the air of its all-too-numerous 5000watt stations, but the actual effect will not be nearly as drastic as it appears. Many of Chicago's 5000 watters have been operating on extensive time division in the past and others are merely call letters rather than actual stations. Practically no licenses will be cancelled any