Television digest and FM reports (Jan-Dec 1948)

SIGHT AND SOUND Holelevision Inc. proposes to finance expansion by sale of 160,000 shares of $1 par value Class A stock at $3, filing registration statement with SEC. Chief underwriter is Cantor, Fitzgerald & Co., New York. So far, company has installed TV sets in rooms of Roosevelt and New Yorker hotels (cost to guest $3 per day), and in Cleveland’s Hotel Cleveland; is also equipping New York’s Essex House, New Weston, Roosevelt Hospital, and Chicago’s Hotel Sherman. Principal stockholders: Jack M. Winer, president of Dynamics Electronics-New York Inc. (distributor), president, holds 30%; Adolphe A. Juviler, president of Olympic, which makes the equipment, 30%; Samuel J, Gardiner, v.p. of Olympic’s distributing subsidiary, treasurer, 20%. Other stockholders have less than 10% each. All-out enthusiasm for Phonevision was expressed by FM inventor Maj. Edwin Armstrong in recent letter to Zenith president Eugene McDonald. Maj. Armstrong said he had same idea about 15 years ago but dropped it to work on FM. He goes on: “After having overcome the technical difficulties, all you have left to overcome are those forces set in motion by men, the workings of which are known to both of us from our experience in getting the FM system into operation . . . While I would not want to say that television stations may not support themselves in other ways, it looks to me as though the greatest attraction of all — movies in the home — will have to be paid for directly, and phonevision seems to me to be the only way." That quaint old fellow from Hamden, Conn., Charles A. Birch-Field, has replied to our query about the tube he’s supposed to have invented to adapt AM sets to receive TV (Vol. 4:44). He says he has contract with “group of New Haven financiers’’ who have whole program of exploitation worked out (renting rather than selling tubes, etc.) — all depending on FCC approval. Commission engineers have yet to hear from him. Fine article on TV news in November Quill, of Sigma Delta Chi journalistic fraternity, by WGN-TV’s news chief Spencer Allen, terms medium “ideal . . . almost the ultimate . . . showing news as it is happening.” Radio-TV news is prominent on agenda of SDC convention in Milwaukee Nov. 10-13, with WTMJ-TV’s Walter Damm and Richard stations’ Frank Mullen among speakers. And new TV committee (Jack Krueger, WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee, chairman) of National Assn of Radio News Directors has prepared Getting Ready for Television, collection of articles by TV newsmen. The gentleman disagrees with our estimate of TV’s election coverage (Vol. 4:45) — and almost everyone else’s — he being the sometimes heart-bleeding Jack Gould, radio editor. New York Times. Quoth he Nov. 7: “Radio had much the best of it over television, the video art fumbling rather badly in its first full-dress effort to cover the outcome of the Presidential campaign. The main reason for TV’s inadequacy no doubt was due to the fact that counting ballots is hardly a function w'hich lends itself to much visual excitement [sic]. Probably the most distracting fact was the large charts ... it being much easier just to listen . . .” “Is It Time to Buy Television?” An emphatic yes, is answer in article thus titled in October House Beautiful, which offers ideas of room arrangements, etc. December Parents Magazine will also carry article on TV’s effect on average American household. Radio dominates G. I. correspondence courses, said Veterans Administration. It accounts for 45,386, or 26% of enrollments; next highest is engineering with 21%. RCA is continuing 500 me TV measurements in Wash~ ington, reports no substantial change in opinion that great power is needed (Vol. 4:39). Tube failures have made it difficult to keep transmitter on air; 850 me transmissions have been discontinued. All converter locations will be revisited about Dec. 1 to see how absence of leaves from trees affects reception. First request for permission to delay TV construction until troposphere mess is cleared up went in this week from John Kennedy’s WSAZ-TV, Huntington, W. Va., granted CP July 29, 1948. It wants a declaratory ruling on whether it can get extensions of completion date on plea it would rather wait for final decision on new standards, new allocations, than go ahead now. If changes are made in Huntington assignment, station is afraid it may have to expend large sums to revise equipment (antenna, crystals, etc.). Latest legal maneuvering on TV fronts: Pauley group in Los Angeles (Vol. 4:33) wants oral argument on Commission’s denial of its petition seeking breakdown of Thackrey-Warner Bros, package deal (Vol. 4:44). (Warner, meanwhile, has applied for uhf experimental.) Omaha’s KFAB has appealed to U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals in District of Columbia against recent FCC denial of its petition to recall KMA’s Omaha CP, put all 3 applicants (for 2 channels) into hearing. Grant to KMA was made just before Omaha’s KOIL applied, throwing KFAB into competitive hearing for single remaining channel. BBC’s pictorial brochure Eye of Britain, covering British TV through summer of 1948, contains interesting postscript by BBC’s TV controller Norman Collins. It plumps for superiority of 405-line British standard (U. S. is 525-line), says it’s sticking to it: “Ask anyone, from home or overseas, who saw the pictures of the Olj-mpic Games taken with the latest super-sensitive British cameras, and he vnll tell you whether the BBC is right or not.” Collins is also governor of Britain’s National Film Institute, which this week worked out reciprocal BBC-film industry agreement permitting the former to telecast movies to home viewers and the latter to show special events and live programs to theatre audiences. “Electron wave tube” developed by Dr. Andrew V. Raeff, of Naval Research Laboratory, can amplify 1mm wavelengths 100 million times. Dr. Haeff says he doesn’t know whether tube can help achieve high powers in uhf TV. Here’s how it works: Streams of electrons of different velocities are injected into evacuated space. Repulsion between electrons causes radio signals applied to the streams to be amplified as electrons drift through space. Drop in number of radio manufacturing employes from 96,800 in August, 1947, to 86,900 in August, 1948, was reported by Dept, of Labor this week. But payroll index rose from 459.7 to 468.9 (1939 equals 100) in same period. Allen B. DuMont Laboratories Inc., 100 Main Ave., Clifton, N. J., has published a 63-page C-R Tiibe Primer, non-technical discussion of cathode ray tube and its functions. It’s free to professional electronics workers or teachers; otherwise costs 50^. Now come the greeting card people with new lines — printed invitation cards, with designs and gags, to your “Television Party.” None we’ve yet seen offers hints to bring your own liquor, nor has anyone printed a card yet gently telling you wffien not to come. GE’s new TV slide projector (PF-3-C) has dual lenses, allow’s single or simultaneous projection of opaques or transparencies. New FCC FM attorney is Max Paglin, who comes from common carrier section.