Radio and Television Today (Jan-Nov 1941)

## TELE" COMMERCIAL STARTING JULY 7, TELEVISION STATIONS CAN SELL ADVERTISING Television was officially approved for commercial operation beginning July 1, and television stations in nine or ten U.S. cities are now being made ready to go on the air with paid visual programs. These cities include New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, San Francisco, Washington and Schenectady, N. T. At New York, three video transmitters will soon be spreading pictures and sponsored programs over the surrounding territory. The NBC station atop the Empire State tower, with studios in Radio City, has long been operating experimentally, and was ready July 1 to start commercial television programs with some seven paidadvertising features. The Allen B. Dumont Laboratories have completed elaborate new studio and transmitting equipment at 515 Madison Ave. and expect to be on the air by August 1, as does the Columbia Broadcasting System with its transmitter in the slender spire of the Chrysler Building. SETS WORK OK The initial program of NBC's WNBT included the showing of a watch-face, with moving second-hand (cost $4) ; a baseball game from Ebbets Field, Brooklyn ; Lowell Thomas' news commentary; "Uncle Jim's Question Bee," and "Truth or Consequences" in special television versions. Owners of television sets in the New York area who purchased equipment under the earlier merchandising campaigns and television standards, find that their 1939 and 1940 video sets will readily adapt themselves for the new 525-line FCC standards. Also, by a little detuning of the former amplitude modulation television-sound receiver, this receives fairly well the new frequency-modulation sound which is now standard for all television programs under the new FCC rules. Local service organizations are, however, now arranging to convert older models to the new standards. RCA and Dumont are converting sets sold by their dealers, without charge to the public. The NBC station in New York, WNBT, will be on the air 15 hours a week, with daily schedules from 2 to 11 p.m. six days a week. For the present, Sunday programs are omitted. CBS has been trying out color transmissions of valuable art objects of New York's Metropolitan Art Museum. These art broadcasts have been scheduled for Tuesdays, with a repeat Television windows like this one, initiated by G. Schirmer, New York, may soon be in evidence in a dozen U.S. cities, as commercial television transmitters go on the air during the next twelve months. performance every Thursday afternoon for junior lookers-in. For demonstrating television to dealers and to the general public interested in television reception, new sales offices have been opened in New York City by Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., whose plant is at Passaic, N. J. Previously occupying part of the 42nd floor of 515 Madison Avenue, the sales offices are now located in suite 1714 on the 17th floor of the same building, while Du Mont television studios and station W2XWV occupy the entire 42nd floor. Du Mont sales activities are headed by Mark B. Lajoie. At Passaic, N. J., additional factory space has been acquired, outside the company-owned factory building, which is already crowded with cathode-ray tube and instrument production as well as National Defense contracts, in order to meet the anticipated demand for television receivers. OTHER CITIES At Philadelphia, Philco has been operating a television station (W3XE) for a number of years, so that local residents have become familiar with telecasts. NBC is now entering the City of Brotherly Love with television, and has selected a site for its station which is expected to be operating by July 1, 1942. At Washington, D. C, NBC has applied for an extension of time to complete its Capital City television transmitter, but expects to begin testing in November, and to be ready for commercial service by March 1, 1942. Don Lee Broadcasting System, W6XAO, Los Angeles, and Zenith Radio Corporation, W9XZV, Chicago, will continue to transmit scheduled programs over their respective stations pending the formality of shifting from experimental to commercial operation at an early date. Recorders Teach Budding Naval Engineers In training men for marine engine rooms, recordings are now being made at sea of the characteristic sounds in internal combustion engines, effects of faulty valves, etc. These recordings can then be brought back to the classrooms on land, amplified to corresponding loudness, and played for the budding engineers, enabling them to hear actual sounds of engines running normally and engines in difficulties, — while the instructors point out the significant sounds that the trained engineer strains his ear for. 28 RADIO TODAY