Television digest and FM reports (Feb-Dec 1947)

scribed in Vol. 3, .No. 4)' in -hands of about 20 dealers there; it's a console v/ith AM band added, priced at §549.50 in East, §565 in West, plus §65 installation and servicing fee. Its No. 802, looking very much the same but including EM and automatic phonograph, was announced as 2-3 months away, will be priced around §800. Stewart-Warner showed its "Videorama11 receivers in Chicago a few weeks ago, had models of its 1-711 and T-712 consoles, one bleached and one natural" walnut , on display in Los Angeles. It has 10-inch tube, includes AM band, will retail around §700 plus §50 installation-servicing, should be ready for quantity delivery to dealers next month. Largest displayer in Los Angeles, of course, was RCA; its price for 621-TS there is §264.50, for 630-TS is §397.50 (as against §250 and §375 in East). You can also expect, fairly soon, formal announcements from Philco, whose "secret" IV Set (Vol. 3, No. 5, 7) is in production, and whose ad agency (Hutchins, Philadelphia) is now preparing literature to break when sets reach dealers’ hands; and from Farnsworth, whose table model set with 10-inch tube will start reaching dealers in late April. "Our prices," Farnsworth President E. A. Nicholas advises us, "will of course be competitive, with the possibility of certain models (particularly our table types) being slightly lower priced than competitive models now |in the market." Only table models now on' market are RCA’s. Farnsworth plans 4 TV models, other 3 being a console, a lowboy modern combination TV, AM, phonograph, and a. highboy TV-AM-FM-phonograph. Decision to produce TV sets in Fort Wayne instead of Marion, Ind. , plant has resulted in temporary delays, but offers advantage of producing under actual telecasting conditions from Farnsworth's own experimental TV station in Fort Wayne. m MEEDS MOB'S CHAHm SPACING; Latest of FM's age-of-puberty growing pains: Stations in same area are too close together in frequency. At time basic allocation was proposed, set manufacturers agreed with proposal to assign every other channel in same area, saying their sets would separate stations adequately. Now that some cities have stations on air with considerable power, it turns out that receivers don't do adequate job of separation. FCC has made tests at Syracuse and is testing receivers at its Laurel (Md.) laboratories, and although it hasn't yet all the data it wants, consensus of outside experts is that reallocation with 3-channel separation is most practicable solution. Receiver makers say it's too expensive to overcome problem in sets. If such a reallocation is made nation-wide, it seems that only very largest cities are liable to lose some channels, with rest of country not seriously affected. Interlacing channel assignments of adjacent areas would take care of most localities. Experiments at Syracuse were carefully controlled, we're told — no question of transmitter overmodulation or uncalibrated receivers. In addition to FCC engineers, GE, Stromberg and Zenith men were present. Philco, Hallicraf ter , GE and Pilot Sets were among those used. In addition to interference problem, broadcasters are now convinced of bad psychological effect of having a city's stations bunched in small segment of dial. Listeners are hazy about station's identity iJntil station break. TO SET ITS liO'OSS IM 0BBEIS: There isn't going to be any "czar" in the Eric Johnston Happy Chandler sense to clean up radio's alleged overcommercialism — Wednesday's ardent front-page outburst by that self-annointed mentor of radio's morals. New York Timesman Jack Gould, to the contrary notwithstanding. But there is a movement under way, which Gould more accurately reported on inside page Thursday, to form coalition of the men who foot radio's bill, advertisers and their agencies, with broadcasters to work out code of practices to govern them all and put end to constant carping over who's to blame for alleged abuses. "Czar" idea may have grown out of several trips NAB's counsel Don Petty has taken to Hollywood to study how Motion Picture Association polices its industry. Acknowledging cascading criticism, top level advertising and radio executives have been discussing subject several months — sparked by CBS's Frank Stanton, great believer in polls and surveys, and General Foods' Charles Mortimer, major