Radio today (Sept 1935-Dec 1936)

California sees sales double * Radio sales this season are expected by distributors and dealers in Southern California to double those of a year ago. Public interest in all-wave is resulting in definite increase in sales. Expect this winter to reach the highest peak of years. Helpful influence is the new spending idea that is beginning to be felt in all lines of merchandise. F.H.A. loans, while not available for radio purchases, are definitely stimulating buying. Another primary factor is improved tone quality of standard sets. It is pointed out that nearly every family in Southern California has from one to four radios. At least three-fourths of these are sadly out-of-date. Dissatisfaction with these old sets is being created by inferior performance and tone quality as well as growing need of service. Replacement Sets Better Quality Replacement sets, of necessity, must be superior to the deluge of cheap sets that flooded the Southern California market for several years. Dealers who sold little but cheap merchandise a year or two ago are today selling only sets priced above $50. Catering principally to the lowpriced field, local manufacturers have supplied the majority of sets sold in this territory during the last few years. Bulk of local products, however, has been manufactured for export. Regardless of local trends, it is probable that the Southern California manufacturers will continue to enjoy a good export business. Press ivants air censorship * Extraordinary tangle into which publishers have worked themselves over the matter of the broadcasting of news becomes further involved now that the Inland Daily Press Association urges the FCC to keep radio advertisers from manhandling news flashes. Its convention resolution said that news should be broadcast only as an unsponsored editorial service. President Noyes of the DDPA has the notion that news broadcasts are not now "plainly marked advertising." Spectacle of Publisher Noyes crusading in this direction is curious, considering what advertisers get away with in IDPA member sheets, by buying ad space. Also, he's getting very noble about the purification of Commander Gene MacDonald of Zenith plows the "unsalted seas" on his yacht "Mizpah." a medium which according to other groups of publishers is reaching nobody, anyway. While the IDPA were brooding over this, their neighbor publishers were addressing, in convention speeches elsewhere, the Newspaper Advertising Executives Association, saying : "The public appetite for news is whetted by the radio flashes and circulation rises as a result . . . radio opens the door for the newspaper salesman." Europe's "long ivaves" * Travellers starting abroad frequently ask American radio men what kilocycle range in receiving sets is required to hear broadcasts on other continents. All countries and continents use the "standard broadcast band" same as U. S. and North America — 550 kc. to 1500 or 1600 kc. In addition, European stations use the "long waves." One important European long-wave broadcast band runs from 155 kc. to 280 kc. Then there is a gap, and broadcast assignments begin again at 355 kc. and continue on into the standard broadcast band. Some of the most important European stations operate on these long-wave assignments. With the crowded condition of the European channels, these long-wave assignments seem a fixed part of the European broadcasting picture, according to NBC's C. W. Horn. Eor use in isolated countries where local broadcasting is not dependable, short-wave listening should be provided for down to the "international broadcast" bands at 11 and 13 meters. Facsimile marches on! Weather Bureau chiefs inspect new transmitter for sending weather-maps and tabloid newspapers to ships at sea. November, 1935