Radio Broadcast (May 1929-Apr 1930)

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PROFESSIONALLY 3 4 2 9, 6, 7 6, 5 SPEAKING WE STILL HAVE GROWING PAINS The radio industry congratulates itself that it is no longer a boy's experiment — it is a man's business. It says it has graduated from the realm of home-made radio into that of standardized quantity production. The industry would have us believe that radio engineering is in a state of almost zero excitement; that as fast as new developments come along they are assimilated by set designers. But we are of the opinion that radio engineering continues to suffer from growing pains. We shall not mention the fiasco of a.c. tubes and receivers put into hurried production in 1927; but now that the screengrid tube is here let us look the situation in the face calmly before other new tubes make their appearance. It may be a fact that set designers have their business organized so well that once a receiver is turned over to the production department, they can look forward to another year's receiver — but visits to prominent set manufacturers disclose the fact that too many engineers are design men part of the year and production men the rest. There is too little time to sit down and think. It may be a fact that tube engineers know pretty well how to add another element to a tube, how to make machinery to speed up the production of a new tube, but our impression gained from walking the long aisles in tube plants is that the tube engineer is always too near the day when a new tube is actually needed by the sales force. There is too little time to work on a new project; too little time to experiment. There is still a greater source of trouble in the present set-up. It is the lack of liaison between set engineers and tube engineers. This lack of liaison is aptly illustrated by the present screen-grid rage. In May a prominent manufacturer of receivers announced that he would make screen-grid sets to meet the demand of those who liked to experiment and to try out things, but he hesitated to recommend or promote the sale of anything until it had been thoroughly proved. The announcement concluded with the statement that although the screen-grid set which had been developed was equal to any other set about to be put on the market, it was little or no better than a receiver constructed on older principles using three-element tubes. In July, a well-known manufacturer told us that of the many screen-grid sets sent into the field, nearly all, sooner or later, got into trouble. The difficulty is one of tubes rather than one of circuit. Some sets of tubes work properly ; others work very poorly. Some tubes "paralyze" when the volume control is varied, and the ordinary tube tests do not show up what is wrong. Apparently the trouble is gas or secondary emission which changes the characteristics of the tube when the volume control reduces the plate current. In August, the Research Division of Radio Broadcast got in touch with many representative dealers, asking them "What effect will screen-grid radio have on set sales!'" Some dealers felt it would have no effect; others thought that 90 per cent, of their sales would be of the new type. The consensus was that about half of this year's sales will be screen-grid sets. This is interesting. But the note of warning and hesitation that was in nearly every reply is more impressive. One dealer crystallized the general feeling by stating "We will endeavor to push sets that do not have screen-grid tubes. We have tried eight different makes of tubes and found that only a very small percentage of screen-grid tubes will function properly. The sets themselves operate very effectively when proper tubes are installed but the service problem will be tremendous." Why, may we ask, did not the set engineers and the tube engineers find out this potential grief before so many sets got into the field? The matter is put succinctly by Ernest Kauer, president of the CeCo Manufacturing Company. "There is too little preliminary contact between tube and set engineers. The ideal condition will be when the two branches of engineers consult together in advance of a desired development; define their problem together and work to meet it together. Just as a set can be no better than the tubes that are in it, by the same standard the tubes cannot give their full value if the set engineering fails to utilize the tube's characteristics." So long as tube engineers do not get together with set engineers, the public must pay for the early days of experimenting. We have long advocated that every tube plant should be equipped with a welltrained circuit engineer; we must add that every set plant should have a good tube engineer on its staff. The difficulty, probably, is to find the required engineers. FEATURES FOR 1930 RECEIVERS Will 1930 be a remote-control year? At the present moment there is no single feature in sight for next year which equals the screen-grid tube as a new talking point. The manufacturing department and the engineering department of radio plants are thankful for this; by the same token the publicity department and the sales department are worried. No new gadget to sell I Controlling a radio receiver from a distance seems to be the predominantly recurring thought in most receiver engineers' minds to-day. As one engineer-president puts it, "Remote control removes the talking point from radio and projects it into the realm of mechanics." We have seen several of these remote-control mechanisms and we have the same awe and respect for them that a mechanical engineer has for an intricate radio circuit. One such device has a time clock attachment which enables the user to pretune his entire evening's entertainment. By punching a series of buttons, or setting a series of levers, his radio will be tuned automatically to the Red network at 8:00 o'clock, to the Blue at 9:00, to another station or back to the (Concluded on page 368) • O C T O « E It 1 9 2 «> •