Radio today (Sept 1935-Dec 1936)

below the other, the lifting and lowering of the pen will produce a picture. Small type can be reproduced in the same way, if the stylus is delicately adjusted to lines made very close together. The stylus or marker on the new facsimile systems may vary in type or design but in all cases it moves regularly across a paper in fine parallel lines, guided by the impulses received by the set in the same way that sound vibrations are reproduced in ordinary broadcasting. Replacing the loudspeaker on the home facsimile receiving set that is thus needed (1) a magnet coil to vibrate the stylus instead of the loudspeaker and (2) a synchronous mechanism to feed the marker across the sheet of paper, a line at a time, following the photocell at the transmitter station. The synchronizing may be accomplished either by timing signals sent along with the impulses, or by the use of a synchronous-motor mechanism hooked to the power system. The development of facsimile service in homes presents such boundless possibilities that some promoters of the system have been inspired to suggest that facsimile broadcasters be given a special set of shortwaves. Not confined to the early-morning period on the waves, the service would allow users to tune in on printed features of all kinds at any time of the day — a continuous "magazine of the air" — comic strips, magazine displays, roto sections, educational material, and dozens of printed features which may be developed for that use specially. Facsimile broadcasting, it should be pointed out, gives the networks a perfect method of getting printed radio programs into local homes, if the newspapers ever decide not to print them. The new service may give the broadcasters the final advantage over the newspapers in the matter of news presentation, also, if press-radio relations are not satisfactorily settled otherwise. Broadcasters now have it in their power to deliver a complete newspaper into radio homes, which may be the next step, with display ads to finance it. Plans for the use of facsimile coupons, to give advertisers a definite check on audiences, have already been projected. The inevitable commercialization of facsimile transmission seems certain to lead the current newspaper owners to a back seat. The process of news and ad distribution will take on a lightning speed which will mark present lumbering newspaper plants as relics of a by-gone day. Awakened to facsimile possibilities, its enormous advantage, its directness of operation, the public will regard delivered newspapers as ridiculously slow and obsolete, except for review material. Quick news will go to the air. TELEVISION TODAY Facsimile receiver of W. G. H. Finch, Washington, D. C. * FIRST JOB of the new joint Television Committee recently appointed by RCA and NBC, to operate under chairmanship of Dr. W. R. G. Baker, will be to coordinate present knowledge of television art. Was found that specialists working with committee, while possessing profound knowledge of their own fields — cathode-ray tubes, transmitters, short-wave characteristics, etc. — were not sufficiently familiar with other possibilities outside own specialties. Television art is so complex that each specialist must know much about interrelation of his own field to potentialities in other divisions. Field tests come next, and apparatus is now being built for these. That million dollars mentioned is really going to be spent, but it may be a year before field tests get fully going. "At least a year or two" before television turns into Fifth Avenue, is the cautious answer given to the question everybody asks. Independents Plan Network Plans for an independent nationwide television network have been discussed in New York and Washington during recent weeks. It is proposed to set up fifteen 20-kw. key stations at $100,000 each; forty local 5-kw. stations at $25,000 each; and 250 beam relay stations having a 25mile range for interconnecting the network stations. Initial cost is estimated at four millions dollars, with operating cost of one million dollars yearly. In Philadelphia, Philo T. Farnsworth has been demonstrating his television system to audiences in his Germantown laboratory. The transmission consisted of Mickey Mouse, a musical comedy, and an orchestra's performance, and was received on a screen 5yi x 7 inches. While remarkable clarity for the images was claimed, at times they were observed to oscillate. The Farnsworth transmitter employs the oscillight and magnetic focussing in the studio pick-up. Reinforcing the television development program is the announcement of FCC authorization for the coaxial television cable designed by the Bell Laboratories, to be laid between Philadelphia and New York. Such million-cycle cable, costing about $6,000 per mile, offers a possibility of piping television programs over the country in the manner of today's chain broadcasts. The initial 90-mile installation will represent an investment of a million dollars, with terminal equipment for 200 telephone channels all carried over the single conductor. English Progress In England television has been presented to the public, but low-definition, 30-line pictures have been the rule. The transmissions, twice a week, last from half to three-quarters of an hour. Live talent is used and the pictures do have an entertainment value for short periods — on the order of half an hour. It is estimated that less than one hundred families in England have television receivers. The British Post Office hopes to have high-definition transmission late this winter or early in the spring. Ultrahigh frequencies will be employed in presenting daily programs of about three hours' duration. The minimum price of television receivers available in Great Britain is estimated to be $250. September, 1935 23