Radio digest (1922)

51 1 1 your set to a lively dance tune. Boy you have to fight them I I off! Of course there is a drawback there, too. They usually I I want to follow the music through the air and streets to its 1 1 source and the best music seems to come from places where the 1 1 cover charge is equal to the price of a new set of B batteries, f I (That's also an argument for getting a powerful motoradio it so you can drag in music from another state.) * * * [ A little cruising around will acquaint you with the best spots f i around town for good reception. Usually these places are on || the outskirts of the city, down shady, unfrequented roads I formerly used by horse and buggy riders and dubbed "Lover s [ Get a girl real interested in Radio and suggest a trip to one f of these places in the interest of Radio science. W hen you |J arrive there tune in one of those dreamy crooners, and let little I Rudy Vallee advance your cause. Reception is usually best on clear moonlight nights. * * * But don't get into the jam a Chicago boy did while on one of || these scientific expeditions. He had a great big date with a little bitty girl whose motto I was "home by 11 every time." J Accordingly he set his auto clock two hours slow and called 1 for the miss. They motored to the "best reception" spot and I started their "scientific studies." Time passed. More time passed. Then she turned on the dash light and noted that it was only 1 half after nine. The light went off and the boy friend turned I the dial in search of the recommended crooning music. I He got it. And as he and she were about to obey the comI mand of a soprano singing Victor Herbert's "Kiss Me Again," I the melody stopped and an announcer bent on giving public I service disturbed the quietude of the sylvan parking space with: I "The correct time is now 11:30." "You big bum," cried the little bitty girl. "You have fixed I that clock again. Take me home." "You are wrong, dearie, that announcer is in Atlantic City." "Oh, yeah, since when was there two hours difference beI tween Chicago and Atlantic City: WPG has been pounding in I to our house too long for me to swallow that stuff. Tune that I set to a station playing 'The End of a Perfect Day' and see I how good your reception is at t>0 miles per hour headed in the I direction of home." VXD another tip! Do not leave j our Radio set running tuned in to a base1 ball broadcast when you draw up to a curb on a business street I and get out to buy a cigar. If you do, one of two things, and f maybe both, will happen to you. You either will be pinched 1 for blocking traffic on the sidewalk or you will return to rind I an interested mob hanging all over your new chrome plate and I ready to commit mayhem if you drive away with the score tied, I the bases full and two outs in the ninth inning. Colored districts are also good places to stay away from when I parking with running Radio. Pickaninnies need only a wisp of I music to start them dancing and once started a race riot is apt I to start if you attempt to drive the music awav. I * * * Ralph Langley, Radio engineer, points out a curious pheI nomena brought about by Radio in automobiles. Through the I use of such you can hear the same band concert twice. Try this on your auto Radio. Drive up to a position on the windward side of a band stand B from whence a broadcast line is running. Tune your receiver to the station broadcasting the band. Listen! You hear the H band almost the instant the music is created because the Radio H wave bringing you the music travels at the rate of 180,000 D miles per second. A few seconds later you hear the same music after it has traveled through the air on slow sound waves. RECEPTIOX is often effected when driving between two large steel framed buildings. At one point on Washington | boulevard in Chicago is a sign — "Zone of Quiet — Hospital." My Radio always obeys this sign and volume diminishes the minute the car reaches the sign and does not come up loud I until the car has passed out of the zone. Although we tell the uninitiated rider that the Radio is a sign reader and believer. I the real cause is the steel structure of both the hospital and the building across the narrow street. * * * Pat Flanagan, sports announcer for W'BBM and CBS, who broadcasts all Chicago Cub games, whether at home or abroad, tells me that he is receiving more letters ever} day from radioball fans who have caught him on the fly. Then there is one told by Rob Kaufman, former automobile and Radio editor, and now president of K-B Motoradio. one of the pioneers in this radio-as-you-go business. In fact, I think Bob deserves credit for starting the craze. * * * UTT WAS during the big spring blizzard that hit Chicago A and a business man driving a Radio equipped auto got stalled in a snow drift on the outer-drive." tells x\Ir. Kaufman. "Several blocks away he could see one of the park commission snow plows slowly working its way to him through the snow. So he decided to sit and listen to a Radio program pending its arrival and his release. He tuned in a local station just in time to hear a news announcer reading the opening quotations on the New York stock exchange. "Having many holdings he proceeded to listen to what had been a dull market up to that day. W hat he heard was far from dull. Unusual activity in certain stocks had placed his own holdings in jeopardy. He shut off the Radio, locked his car and hit off across the park for a drug store. Reaching there he phoned his broker a selling order. When he finally got back to his car and free of the snow drift, he again tuned in market reports and found that the stocks he had just sold were on the toboggan. But his selling order had been received in time and his motoradio had saved him thousands. ' A travelling salesman who keeps his car in the same garage where mine is stored tells me his experience with Radio on wheels. "You'd be surprised how it helps me in business," he said. "I am a cigar salesman and have a route of rural stores. During the summer these shops are all equipped with radio setpulling in baseball broadcasts, and baseball is the topic of the counter crowd. "I tune in the game when it comes on the air and keep it on as I travel. When I hit a store I can enter talking about the progress of the game. I am right up to the minute on the play and can enter right into the conversation. This pleases the proprietor and it is much easier to sell a man who is thinking along the lines you are talking than it is to come in and interrupt him with 'what's the score"' " * * * IX THE White House automobiles (oh, yes both Mrs. Hoover and Lawrence Richey, one of the President's secretaries, have sets installed in their cars but do not want much saidabout them for fear they will be drawn into the controversy between manufacturers and officious state motor officials) the speakers are located inconspicuously in one corner of the tonneau. These sets are of the earliest design. Now days most of the speakers are located up under the cowl. Cowboy Weston, world's champion billiard player, has a convertible cabriolet with radio equipment in which he has radio-ed as he tours all over the country. He used to have his speaker attached to the top of the car. One day, it being balmy, he opened the top and folded the top back. He then turned on his radio set and the result was terrible. He had forgotten to detach his loud speaker and he smashed it beyond repair! Xow his speaker is under the cowl. * * * Most modern types utilize an antenna concealed in the top of the car. Fine copper wire mesh is used in most cars. In mine, a sport phaeton. I find that I can fold back the kaiki top containing the aerial and not injure it or interfere with reception. Batteries, of the B and C type are concealed beneath the car, being reached for replacement through the floor boards in the rear compartment. Juice for the A battery comes from the storage battery of the car. By setting up the generator charging rate there is no danger of running down the battery. Use of a Radio set does away with the need of burning the lights on long daylight runs. Just switch on the set and turn that heretofore wasted "juice" into music. * * * Radio sets on cars are great temptations for the night forces in public garages. They have a way of jumping the current across the lock switch. You can prevent this by taking a tube home with you or installing a very secret switch on your B battery line. * * * There seems to be no directional effect on standard motoradio sets. I have failed to notice any fading or gaining in volume when tuned to a station no matter in what direction the car was headed or at what speed it was driven. * * * This is contrary to experiences with portable and semi-portable sets operated in automobiles. I remember in the early days of Radio, setting out in an automobile to deliver a superheterodyne loop set to station WTAS, several miles west of Chicago. Paul Xeal. then a Radio engineer and now one of the guys who record squawks in Hollywood, my companions and I were not familiar with that section of the country. We got on the wrong road and could not locate the station. It grew dark and we knew we had driven far enough west to hit the station but could not tell whether we were north or south of it. Paul conceived the idea of hooking up our cargo and tracing the station with the loop. Wre found the signals from the station we were seeking to be coming in from either a northeasterly or southwesterly direction. We knew by the speedometer that we were far enough west so we doubled back, taking the next cross road to the north and eventually locating the station. (Continued on page 65)