Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

112 RADIO BROADCAST DECEMBER, 1928 on another occasion to fail entirely to "get out of town." There is also another factor which multiplies the above by another 10 or so. This is the fact that "you can always hear a signal on schedule" if it is even partly readable, through that same signal may have been begging vainly for attention for months past. THE FRIENDLY "RAG-CHEWER" CEVERAL years ago when engaged in the ^ process of exploring the wave band of 1 5 to 100 meters a group of experimenters became very much disgusted with the existing fad for extreme curtness toward any radio activity other than the handling of messages. After listening to a large number of the messages, and handling man}' of them ourselves, we became convinced that they were mainly of no consequence and could be replaced with profit by tests and friendly conversations. F. C. Beeklev, QST's Advertising Manager, and L. W. Hatry, wellknown to readers of this magazine, conceived a purely paper organization to be called the "Rag Chewer's Club." In order to become a member of this organization one had to furnish written proof of a 30-minute nonmessage-handling radio conversation with another amateur station, whereupon there was sent out a membership certificate made up as a burlesque of the I.A.R.U. and A.R.R.L. certificates. It was hoped that, if amateurs could once be induced to assume a human friendliness toward their radio contacts, they would never again lapse to the same machine-made routine. That hope was fulfilled to such a degree that the mailing of the "certificates" became almost a full-time job for one person. Even now, after a number of years, the idea is still alive and one may derive considerable pleasure from a friendly conversation with other transmitting amateurs in various parts of the United States. AND THE CALL CARD C EYERAL years ago Don Hoffman of Akron, ^ Ohio contributed to this picture the idea of sending a postal card as friendly acknowledgement of a radio conversation. His postal card had the radio call, 8ux, printed across its face in large letters, and other information was penwritten across it. Within a year the call-card was a fad and every conversation wound up with " Pse send card," or simply "qsll". Shortly after this the owners of active stations discovered that the cost of the cards, and the time to write them, would shortly compel abandonment of radio activity — and as a result they sent fewer of them. Then ensued a violent argument which has raged these three years with no conclusion arrived at. The amateur across the Atlantic especially is not at all pleased with the remarkable lack of consideration shown by his American neighbor who fails to reply to all of the apalling flood of cards and letters from European listening posts which have no transmitters. Meanwhile the varieties of cards grows, but no more colors are available, the limit having been reached in Lawrence Mott's famous Catalina Island series, terminating with an eagle-trimmed card in five colors and gold. Beyond that even the Southern California imagination has not gone. THE EXPERIMENTER 1 PROPOSE to give a considerable space to the * experimenter because he is in the most interesting of radio fields, also because he is least organized and least catered to. Let us begin by explaining the seeming contradiction in the preceding sentence. The experimenter, whether he uses a microphone or key, must say something with it, and unless he uses an outright automatically sent test signal there is no easy way to avoid "ragchewing" or "message-handling." This causes him to be included in one class or the other although he has no primary interest in message totals or call cards, does not gain any satisfaction from the activites of either of the groups, and intends to stop sending as soon as he has worked out the problem that happens to be under way — which is likely to be anything under the sun from an antenna test to an investigation of the electron distribution in the upper atmosphere during an eclipse of the moon. In addition to this Lightning Switch required by Insurance Company To Antenna ^-To Counterpoise Ground Separate Antenna FIG. I. ARRANGEMENT OF APPARATUS The table should be about 2Q to jo inches high. If much operating is done the leg room should be entirely free of shelves, batteries or other obstructions. The location of the key is optional, but the transmitter switch should be convenient to the left hand. the experimenter works best in small groups which break up and re-form about various problems, making it very hard to keep track of their performances or to give them any of that entirely proper publicity which will call in new aid. By tradition organization has centered about message-handling, and personnel or cash has never been placed in back of an attempt to create a coherent experimenter class or a clearing house for information. This has been done for other activities which, in some cases, have received support extending as far as the employment of laboratorians to solve problems by proxy! All of these things contributed to an unhappystate wherein the experimenter was an outsider, compelled to seek out his own co-workers, handle all his own correspondence without aid and then, if he had energy left to do any effective work, to take his reward in personal satisfaction. The experimenter is usually neither a publicity seeker nor a shirker, but even he resents such an unfair situation. Several years ago, in an attempt to even matters up, I formed the," Experimenter's Section, A.R.R.L." This organization was as loosely put together as the " Rag Chewer's Club" and the motives were not entirely different. The "Section" proposed to issue at intervals lists which would tell all members what work was being done, and by whom, thus facilitating inter-member contacts. To this were to be added occasional outline-suggestions and the results, which were to be circulated in mimeograph form or made into magazine reports when of sufficient interest. Although this work never received more than one fourth of one man's time it really made surprising headway. From it developed the Official Wavelength Station scheme of Don Wallace, the Standard-Frequency transmissions of Ixm and 9XL-WCC0 under Lansingh and McCartney, some really worthwhile information on transmission r.f. chokes, a variety of circuit improvements, the fine General Electric and amateur "April tests," much article-material and a considerable contribution toward a changed attitude of the amateur as to experimental work. IS IT WORTH WHILE? /^~\NE may question with perfect justice the value of amateur experimental work, since the professionally equipped laboratory seems so much better able to cope with questions than the amateur. This may be answered either by logic or from the record. First of all, the logic may be taken from (1 think) Josh Billings who said, " It's better not to know so much than to know so much that 'aint so." That is the handicap of the trained man seeking new trails — he is too sure of many facts that are not facts, too certain that a whole variety of things cannot be done, too inclined to reason out his course. Furthermore, he cannot escape this tendency, for he is always under the eye of his associates who feel likewise, and usually under the surveillance of an impatient production department which does not want everything tried and but one thing finished. The amateur is not so; he is not required to be logical, or to know any theory from which the result can be predicted. Therefore, he blathers around cheerfully with just the faintest contact with established knowledge, and often he falls over the most amazing and fundamental discoveries. Later the engineer and the physicist and the mathematician will refine and make useful these discoveries. However, it is a fact that a good share of the fundamental things in radio have been discovered with the poorest of equipment and in the face of contrary opinion. This is, of course, not a suggestion that all established information is wrong. It is. however,