Television digest with electronics reports (Jan-Dec 1954)

3 3 MORE STARTERS AS EOUCATIOHAL QUITS: ^ cond outlets in Charleston, S.C., Ft. Wayne and Bangor, Me. are this week's crop — and educational TV's first casualty brings on-air total to 402 (123 of them uhf ) . Station quitting air is KTHE, Los Angeles (Ch. 28), second educational to go into operation, first being Houston's KUHT. It operated sporadically about a year, this week told FCC it was going off for 90 days from Sept. 10, though actually it has been dark since Sept. 2. Week's starters: WUSN-TV, Charleston, S.C. (Ch.2) begins testing this week end with 25-kw RCA transmitter, 850-ft. Kimco tower and 6-bay superturnstile antenna. Target date for commercial operation is Sept. 25, when.it interconnects with NBC and DuMont. It's city's second outlet — WCSC-TV (Ch. 5) having started last June. Chief owners are group headed by J. Drayton Hastie, with Charleston News & Courier and Post owning co-equal 25% (later to be 30%) and with 150 local residents to own remaining 40%. Same company owns radio WUSN (250 watts on 1450 kc, MBS), the newspaper company having recently sold its WTMA (5-kw on 1250 kc , NBC) to avoid duopoly (Vol. 10:26). Mr. Hastie is pres. & gen. mgr. ; Theodore D. Maybank, brother of the late Senator, v.p. ; Douglas Bradham, director of operations & asst. mgr. ; Philip D. Porterfield, ex-NBC & WOR-TV, sales mgr. ; Edward Brant, local sales mgr. ; Robt. M. Cawley, program mgr. ; Walter Nelson, chief engineer. Base rate is |300. Rep is H-R Television. WINT, Waterloo-Ft. Wayne, Ind. (Ch. 15) starts test patterns Sept. 11 and begins Sept. 26 as CBS primary and first competition for WKJG-TV, Ft. Wayne (Ch. 33), which opened in Nov. Offices are in Ft. Wayne's Lincoln Tower, studios in Waterloo. GE 12-kw transmitter and 800-ft. tower with 5-bay antenna are at "highest point in all of northern Indiana," 16 mi. north of Ft. Wayne. Controlled by pres. R. Morris Pierce and other principals in Cleveland radio WDOK, minority interest is held by John Patt and other principals in Detroit's WJR, which has CP for WJRT, Flint, Mich. (Ch. 12). Ben B. Baylor Jr. is v.p. -gen. mgr. ; Robert C. Currie Jr., program mgr. ; Charles Wallace, chief engineer. Base rate is $300. Rep is H-R Television. WTWO, Bangor, Me. (Ch. 2), second local TV project launched by the veteran Murray Carpenter, began testing Sept. 9, goes on commercial schedule Sept. 12 with no network as yet indicated. Mr. Carpenter formerly was co-owner of WABI-TV, Bangor (Ch. 5), which started in Jan. 1953; he sold his interest, and ex-Gov. Hildreth, now Ambassador to Pakistan, is present chief owner. He also recently sold his radio WGUY in order to concentrate on TV. Mr. Carpenter is gen. mgr. ; Clifton Reynolds, production mgr. ; Wm. Clark, operations mgr. Rep is Venard, Rintoul & McConnell. ^ * The Los Angeles uhf that's quitting had been on 2-hour day for most of time since it started in Aug. 1953. In view of paucity of uhf receivers in area, it's quite unlikely to be revived despite fact that civic leaders are to meet Sept. 16 to determine what, if anything, can be done to salvage it. After millionaire oilman Capt. G. Allen Hancock withdrew support (Vol. 10:24), U of So. California said it would operate KTHE (originally KUSC-TV) until June 30, 1955 pending take-over by a community group (Vol. 10:32). But the university, which had been lukewarm from the first about operating a TV station, decided that operating costs were too great. In city with 7 vhf stations serving some 1,500,000 TV sets, there are fewer than 15,000 uhf receivers, according to Los Angeles TV manufacturer H. Leslie Hoffman. INDUSTRY URGES COLOR TUBE STANDARDIZATION: With RCA preparing to demonstrate 21in. round metal-cone color tube at Princeton Labs Sept. 15, with CBS-Hytron already in production of 19-in. all-glass round tube, with Corning Glass due to sample all tube makers with 21-in. round all-glass bulbs before end of this month and then with a 22-in. rectangular all-glass bulb next month — the cry for "standardization" in color tubes is already becoming more insistent at all levels of the industry. Those set makers who don't produce tubes themselves are particularly anxious for tube makers to settle down to a very few types and sizes of tubes as quickly as possible — worried lest they be forced to tool and retool without ever producing enough sets of one type to bring costs down. It looks as -if RCA's 21-in. and CBS-Hytron's 19-in. will constitute most of