Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

JULY, 1918 A CURIOUS FEATURE OF THE RADIO ACT 131 INTERFERENCE PREVENTION IN CANADA Part of the license revenues received from radio listeners in Canada is used to make listening more pleasant. The Radio Service has established an interference-tracing and prevention service, with specially equipped cars to locate the trou- ble. The illustration shows the portable super- heterodyne set which is part of the equipment of each of these cars lation of its zone. The total zone powers com- puted were 137,000, 217,000, and 250,000 watts. A second chart based equalization upon the number of station licenses issued per zone. The zone totals offered were 110 and 140 stations, or 550 and 700 stations for the United States. The committee actually suggested increases in num- ber of stations in most of the states of the Union and only very slight decreases in New York and a reasonable decrease in the Chicago area. It had no suggestion to offer as to how any of these figures could be applied in practice. When asked specific questions regarding the application of its plan to the actual situation, its proponents claimed they offered only a method of procedure and that any basis of total power or total number of stations might be substituted. In short, the associations disclosed how long division might be used in dividing power, number of stations, or anything which may come to mind, among the states in each zone in proportion to each state's share of its zone population. The nearest approach to a concrete suggestion offered was the advice that the Commission proceed cautiously and gradu- ally in altering the present structure and post- pone any real action as far in the future as possible. The Federal Radio Commission has so em- phatically demonstrated its lack of courage and understanding of the broadcasting problem that encouragement to continue its vacillation and its jellyfish policies is bound to be harmful. "1'he broadcasters may be excused for seeking to protect their property interests, but the set manufacturers displayed an amazing lack of foresight, because receiving set sales certainly are curtailed by the listeners' widespread dis- gust with congested broadcasting conditions. The listener, as usual inarticulate, has never, and apparently will never, present his case be- fore the Federal Radio Commission. Radio will continue to be guided by such persons as Repre- sentative Davis, who believes that a power of 10,000 watts is the maximum that should be permitted on a clear channel. Ten thousand watts creates no less interference than 50,000 watts, yet such powers would make it impossible for rural listeners to hear the better stations at any great distance and would deprive large metropolitan areas of their principal program sources. "Furthermore," says Mr. Davis, "in spite of the statement of interested engineers to the contrary, chain programs can be success- fully broadcast on the same wavelength." We wish Representative Davis were right, but simply to call qualified engineers liars does not solve the problem. The Inequalities of "Equalisation" A FEATURE of the so-called equalization amendment which has generally escaped attention is that equalization of power by zones and state populations within zones will deprive large areas of the country of ade- quate radio service or else force confusion on other areas. Broadcast carriers of a given power travel certain distances regardless of whether the areas covered are highly populated or not and regardless of the geographic dimensions of the zones in which they are located. Under any method of applying "equalization," states of large area and small population must he deficient in radio service while congestion is forced upon states of large population. This is due to the ridiculous manner in which the five zones were prescribed by Congress, or rather to the error of using the zones as the basis for power allot- ment. The fifth zone is approximately 1190 by 1160 miles in dimension, while the first zone is but 700 by 570. The third zone has about the same width north and south as the first, but it is three times as long from east to west. Under the equalization amendment, therefore, the South, which Representative Davis claims to protect, cannot legally have more than one third the service in broadcasting allotted to the first zone. The first zone, furthermore, is so intertwined with the second that, if the same standards of channel separation and powers which must be adhered to in order to give any kind of service to the listeners of those zones are applied to the third and fifth zones, large areas in the latter two zones must be without adequate broadcast- ing service. If equalization is applied to Representative Davis's own state of Tennessee which, accord- ing to the latest figures, now has 3.3 per cent. of the nation's total broadcasting power, its total must be reduced to i.i per cent., i.e., 335 per cent, of its present power. The reduction is likely to be still larger, however, because the complaints of excess power in the more progres- sive zones will require lower total powers per zone than the present average. Whatever the amount of power assigned to each zone under any equalization plan, according to the law, it should be divided among states according to their population. For example, California, with a population of four and a half million, will have 41 per cent, of the power of the fifth zone, while Texas, with a population of 5,487,000 will have but 19 per cent, of the total power of the third zone. Since both zones are required to have equal power, California must have double the radio service of Texas. The blatant Mr. Davis has done a wonderful job of protecting the in- terests of the South! The state of Massachusetts, with a popula- tion slightly less than that of California, will have but little more than a third the power al- lotted to California. Porto Rico will have ten times the power of Alaska. The entire New Eng- land states will have but three fourths of the power assigned to Pennsylvania. The suggestion is frequently made that chan- nels be borrowed for congested areas. A free channel, available to Arizona or Oregon, cannot be loaned to New York or Pennsylvania, because that channel is presumably already occupied there. There is no surplus of cleared channels. Borrowing offers no substantial relief to miti- gate the abuses of so-called equalization. Hampered by the asinine equalization clause, the Federal Radio Commission must adopt a standard of power for each zone sufficiently high so that the large areas of the West and South can have reasonable service. This will require hopeless congestion in the first and second districts, and in the eastern part of the fourth district, which are compact geographically and have numerous large cities worthy of local ser- vice stations. The only effect of the law will be that, rather than to destroy what is left of radio, the Commission will disregard it and conditions will be made neither worse nor better than they are to-day. The hoped-for improvement of con- ditions, which the establishment of the Federal Radio Commission was intended to accomplish, has been made a practical impossibility through the muddling of Congress and nearly every other body involved in the problem. Another Non-Radio Man for the Commission WE HAVE hesitated to comment on the appointment of such an estimable gentleman as Judge Ira E. Robinson as a member of the Federal Radio Commission. Later he was unanimously elected its Chair- man. We weary of complaining of the Presi- dent's appointment to the Commission of men totally unfamiliar with the problem. Judge Robinson is a delightful character and adds de- cidedly to the social grace of the Commission. Years of legal training have vested him with what might be termed as an excess of caution, and the President may rest secure that, while the Commission is under his leadership, nothing but well-considered steps will be taken. The Judge is totally unqualified from the radio standpoint, having not the least understand- ing of service and heterodyne ranges, and broad- cast congestion. He was confirmed by the ^•ii •MoV* ^L^ Jf 1 lb» W ^ *** A TELEPHONED MOVIE FILM Recently, the American Telephone & Telegraph Company transmitted a motion picture film be- tween New York and Chicago. The strips of film were cut, three were placed side by side and these transmitted by "telephoto"