Radio Broadcast (May 1928-Apr 1929)

RADIO BROADCAST This audio-frequency oscillator is used in the Van Cortlandt Park Laboratories for acoustic measurement work Company and well known to all readers of Radio Broadcast, J. Marsten and H. Kayser, both well-known radio engineers. In succeeding years, without counting the thousands of men who studied radio while the College of the City of New York became a training ground for Signal Corps radio men with Dr. Goldsmith in charge of instruction, many have definitely started on a radio career through Dr. Goldsmith's influence. The Youngster s Reaction "VX7"HETHER the youngster who accom' * panied us will become a radio engineer as a result of this visit, I am hardly qualified to state. During most of the time we went through the laboratories, his eyes bulged in uncomprehending astonishment, much as mine, in 1912, had bulged at the sight of a three-stage, audio-frequency amplifier. It was the largest collection of tubes which I had ever seen at any one place at one time. When phones were connected in the output of this magnificent equipment, I heard, for the first time, the tinkling signals of European and mid-Pacific stations. The youngster of 1928 was more impressed by a demonstration of three power speakers with large baffles, reproducing simultaneously and with amazing volume, a Moran and Mack record. Astonishment soon gave way to laughter at the witticisms of the comedians. The period from 1918 to the present day has witnessed not only amazingly rapid technical progress in the radio art but a great increase in the ramifications of the radio industry. When I first visited Dr. Goldsmith in 1912, radio communication in the United States was controlled by the British-owned Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Shortly after the War, the Radio Corporation of America was formed to take over its ship-to-shore business and to build up a world-wide transoceanic communication system. The Corporation's activities were limited strictly to radio Special bridge used in the Van Cortland Park Laboratories for measuring the electrical characteristics of radio vacuum tubes telegraph communication. Its successful activities in this field have been largely overshadowed by the business incidental to radio broadcasting. More recently, it has entered the talking motion-picture field and it is rapidly acquiring motion-picture studios. By alliances with chains of vaudeville and motion picture theatres, it is establishing its own outlets for the sound films which it is to produce. Badio transmission of pictures, both across the ocean and to various points in the United States, is slowly developing and is likely to lead ultimately to home television. But, in spite of these broadening activities, radio broadcasting remains, for the time at least, still a field of paramount interest. One of the cardinal principles to which Dr. Goldsmith is committed is the use of high power in broadcast transmission. He believes that we now have a disproportionate system, launching only moderate power into the ether and requiring, in turn, excessive sensitivity and amplification in the receiver to secure a satisfactory volume in reproduction. As a penalty for this unbalance, the receiving equipment responds to every kind of electrical disturbance, even though minute. But, no matter how great the power of the broadcasting station, it cannot hope to overcome every kind of power interference. "Badio is a comparatively young art and it has not yet had time to influence the electrical industry as a whole," said Dr. Goldsmith. "Within ten years, the manufacture of electrical equipment which causes undue disturbance to radio reception of signals of reasonable strength will be barred, not by legislation, but as an obviously necessary measure in the interests of public convenience, just as the muffler has become a part of every automobile. It is quite possible to design elevator motors, cash registers, bell-ringing equipment, electric refrigerators, and any kind of machine involving the making and breaking of electric circuits so that it will cause little fluctuation or disturbance in the power system of which it is a part. It will require time to accomplish these things, but unquestionably it will be done. With greater power in broadcasting and greater amplification in the receiver, necessitating a smaller pick-up device, the annoyance of static has been reduced to a point where it may be considered negligible. The next to go will be excessive man-made electrical interference with normal signals." Picture Broadcasting WITH respect to the broadcasting of pictures, Dr. Goldsmith feels that the possibility of amateur participation in picture experiments should be encouraged, but that apparatus so far developed is not sufficiently simple and reliable to appeal to any but the experienced set-builder and experimenter. "While I believe experiment should always be encouraged and the participation of amateurs in practical picture reception will hasten the day that the apparatus will be of a form suited to general sale, I do not believe the public should be deprived of entertainment by the broadcasting of pictures for the benefit of a few experimenters. Picture broadcasting, when conducted for experimental purposes through broadcasting stations, should be primarily confined to such hours that the average listener does not use his radio. This consideration confines most experimental picture broadcasting to the early morning hours. It should remain thus restricted until substantial audiences are built up, a possibility only when practical and foolproof apparatus is available. It may then be necessary to transfer picture transmission to other and more suitable wave bands." This observation reveals the underlying foundation of Dr. Goldsmith's attitude toward the public. Zealous as he is to encourage picture broadcasting, he does not believe it should be permitted to interfere with regular entertainment until it is ready, by reason of low cost and reliability, for general public consumption. And likewise, every new development of the laboratory, however promising in its experimental stages, must stand the test of public service before it is truly a practical device. Bridging the gap from the laboratory to the public is the problem to which Dr. Goldsmith has so ably devoted himself. • february, 1929 page 229 •