Evening Star Newspaper, December 14, 1930, Page 75

F THE SUNDAY._ STAR, WASHINGTON, HIGH-POWER TEST ] Radio News and Gossip SET-UP ARRANGED Auxiliary of KDKA Will Use 400,000 Watts in Special Broadcasts. BY MARTIN CODEL. Four hundred kilowatts of power— 400,000 watts—will soon be projecting special programs into the ethereal | spaces nightly from station WBXAR, | auxillary of the pioneer KDKA at Fast ! Pittsburgh. The experimenters have informed the Federal Radio Commis- sion that they are now ready to broad- cast with this power, the highest ever employed for broadcasting anywhere in the world. Because W8XAR will go on the air between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m., when silence | Teigns over most of the broadcasting channels and when night reception con- ditions are at their best, its programs | should be heard more or less clearly over the length and breadth of the North American continent, and possibly | in foreign lands, too. Listen in, you radio fans everywhere, on the 980 Kilocycle ¢hannel, as soon | as the announcement comes from East Pittsburgh that the past-midnight ex- periments are starting. They may the way to the futurc of broadc: Jjust as KDKA 10 years ago pointed the way to the development of present-d: broadcasting. Will Boost Power Gradually. Two giant new 200,000 each standing 6 feet high a the passage of tons of cooiing w: to keep them from overheat bursting, are making possible th worthy experiment._ H. P. Davis, directed while Dr. Frank Conrad engi- neered the pioneering broadcasting from KDKA a decade ago. stated in his license application to the commis- sion that the power will be boosted gradually from 50,000 watts to 400,000 watts—but there is also evidence that the power may ultimately go even higher if the tubes prove their worth. Today the highest powered broad- casting in the world is done from Radio Moscow and Radio Roma, each rated 100,000 watts, although WGY at Sche- nectady, has conducted some convincing experiments with 200,000 watts. Equals 540 Horsepower. Just how much power is 400,000 | watts? Well, one horsepower is the equivalent of 746 watts, so 400,000 watts will approach 540 horsepower—enough to drive five or more of the highest powered motor cars now on the market. This is the energy that wilk be thrust from the aerials of W8XAR. It is tre- mendous power in the radio sense, yet not very considerable when you observe that the receiving sets only a few miles away from W8XAR will measure the energy they pick up in infinitesimal fractions of a watt—fy-power. A 500-watt radio station uses less power than is required for the average electric iron. All the broadcasters in the United States. according to Federal Radio, Commission records, use an aggregate of 1453355 watts, a little less than 2,000 horsepower. Probably all the received energy of the 13,000,000 or more sets in the country would ag- gregate one watt or two. The rest is| dissipated in space within a few blocks of the transmitter. Comparing with the 1453355 watts of power consumed in this country by all broadcasting stations are these fig- ures showing the aggregate aerial energy used abroad: Germany, 535,000 watts: Great Britain, 470,000; Russia, 222,000; Sweden, 120,000; Czecho- 107,000, and France, 64,000. et 2 S il MUSICAL INDUSTRY BUSINESS SLUMPING Manufacturers Are Principal Vic- tims of Radio and Talking Pictures. Radio and the “talkies” have sent the musical instrument industry skid- ding for an appalling drop in bu: S, Just as bobbed hair played voc with hairpin sales, so have these in- novations in the entertainment realms, combined with minfature golf, automs biles and other allurements from the fireside. taken a toll of 60 per cent of musical industry manufactures, accord- ing to statis made available yester- day at the Census Bureau Saxophones, banjos, cornets and the other brasses, or the so-called jazz in-| struments which have come into their | own during the past decade, tapered off | in production along with the pianos, violins and organs. Based on statistics for 1929, as compared to 1927, when the previous musical instrument census was taken, the analysis shows that ship- ments for last year totaled $75,726.560 as compared to $127.350,987 in 1927. The manufacturers, of course, have been the chief sufferers. Retail music stores hardly without exception flocked 1o radio several v ago and have been reaping “the harvest of the tre- mendous sales. The current year, ho ever, has been a hard one for radio | manufacturers as well as those who make musical instruments. i Radio's inroads on instrument manu- | facture are unquestioned. In the case of the “talkies,” however, C. J. North, chief of the Commerce Department’s | motion picture division, said today that | the tendency away from orchestras and “lving music” in motion picture house: and for musical | Consequently musicians are turning to other lines of endeavor. But there is also a bright side to this picture. Mr. North said the introduc- tion of new musical numbers over ti radio and on the spe! lates them out on may biay specialties divisi concurs in that farther. D. C. Pianist Joins Radio Chain. One of the most brilliant recent ac- | quisitions of network broadcasting is | Helen Corbin Heinl ¥ | that to England! There is no cause for alarm on the part of the millions of American radio listen- ers in the announcement, how- ever, for they are going only by radio, and the broadcasts each night will continue uninterrupted. Amos 'n Andy are going to Eng- iand only through a special short- wave broadcast to be sent across the Atlantic through N. B. C. short-wave transmitters and to be picked up and re-broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corpo- ration Wednesday afternoon, De- cember 31, from 3:30 to 3:45 o’clock. The special presentation of the “ Q MOS 'N ANDY” are going all records for popularity - in America will be given to English from America. It will be heard in England at 7:30 o'clock, British time, on New Year eve. The broadcast marks a new record hung up by the lovable pair of blackface comedians, for it is the first time any regular air ; | feature ever has been sent across g, | the Atlantic. The special broad- cast will not be a sponsored pro- gram, and will carry no adver- tising message to English aud ences. In the broadcast Amos 'n' Andy will present a sample pro- am written especially for the event, with no attempt to follow the story being presented to * % Kok \VITH!N three or four months, probably as early as March 1, the first actual day-by-day syn- tions will be tried. National Broadcasting Co. engineers are confident enough of their newly developed method of having two or more stations of high. power and in close proximity of one an- other broadcast on the - same channel to have laid a plan before the Federal point the way to a reorganization | some day of the whole broadcast structure. Stations WTIC, Hartford, and WBAL, Baltimore, now share the| 1,060-kilocycle frequency, one re- maining silent on alternate days while the other is on the air. If| they operated simultaneously, the | one with 50,000 watts of power and the other with 10,000, the heterodyning whistle would be so| great that neither would be heard | effectually. By the new scheme | both will stay on the air full time, | but each will use two wave| lengths. Station WTIC will syn—‘ chronize with WEAF, New York| key of the N. B. C., while WBAL | is using 1,060; WBAL will syn- chronize with WJZ, also a New| York key of the N. B. C.,, while| WTIC is using 1,060. Aside from the high-power ex- periments, it is the most impor-| tant technical development in| broadcasting in several years. If Hartford and Baltimore operate without interference on the same wave length as New York it means that ultimately one wave length can be used to convey a program to a network of sta- tions covering the whole country. | It means the ultimate develop—‘ ment of two systems of broadcast- ing—national networks and inde- pendent locals. xrE e HAT to use instead of a baton ~appears to be a problem of the | Columbia Broadcasting System orchestra conductors. It seems almost anything will do, so long as it is not a baton. For example, Mark Warnow, leader of the Cookies, swings a yellow pencil; Nat Brusiloff waves his violin, Vincent Sorey uses both violin| and bow to conduct his Gauchos, | Claude MacArthur prefers a| fountain pen, Howard Barlow possesses a wand so slender that musicians in the rear of the orchestra have difficulty seeing it, Paul Whiteman, King of Jazz, uses a bludgeon fully three feet long; | Freddie Rich of the Weed Chain/ and Necco programs marks time with his fingers plus the swinging of both arms, Billy Artz believes | in the conventional baton, as do Julius Mattfeld and Channon | Collinge, but Guy Lombardo al- ways uses a hand-carved engraved cane, which he received some years ago as a gift. can | ght in the eth physical equipment metal unless they can use it? The Supreme Court of the United States, having heard the WCRW and WMBB ca. last week, will| soon decide. The appellants, one having been reduced in power and the other having ordered off the air altogether by | the Federal Radio Commission, contended before the court that the commission’s actions deprived them of their property limiting or eliminating the use of it with- out due process of law. Solicitor Gene Thacher argued the rights of individual broadcasters are inferior to the “sovereign right to regulate”— even to regulate out of existence The appellants held that the of Washington, | SWeeping powers given the Fed- concert pianist, who recently made her | €ral Radio Commission as well as national network debut in the N. B. C. Melody Moments program and who is| were unconstitutional. It was the | shortly to appear on otber prograi Mrs. Heinl, wife of one of the Nation’: best known writers on radio subjects, ‘was a student of the composer Mac- Dowell and also studied with Harold Bauer in Parls. C. B. S. Now Has 73 Links. By the addition of WDRC, Hartford, to its network, the Columbia Broad- casting System brought its total of af- fillated stations up to 73, exclusiye of short wave auxiliaries. The National Broadcasting Co.’s networks have 76. Thus approximately one-fourth of the 613 stations in the United States sub- seribe to network programs. Radio Service Phone Adams 3803 the actions of the commission first radio case ever to be taken under consideration by the high- est tribunal in the land, and the | s A AR e | 0000000000000000000000000 all — | ams 4672 1 %0" APITOL RADIO f \ SBRVICE § | Service Exclusively | & 00000,000’000000000000 VANYWHERE IN THE CITY PRODER | 6DECATU R Pos® radio feature which has broken | listeners as a New Year present| American radio audiences nightly. | chronization of broadcasting sta-’ X Radio Commission | Branson, leader of the Marine which, if successful, will doubtless | Band; Capt. William J. Stannard, | possible their long-distance “har- lA{A\'E broadcasters a property |y, ince their eflort will be made to enact the bill| n’t worth its | merging the Radio Division of the De- ; been | sion BY THE RADIO EDITOR. decision will determine the course that broadcasting and the Federal control of broadcasting will take in the future. e More than 200 concerts by America’s three leading service bands—the Marine, Navy and Army—will be " heard by radio throughout the United States under arrangements completed recently by the National Broad-| casting Co. The series, inaugu- rated this month, continues to September, 1931. even concerts a week, every day but Saturday and Sunday, with two concerts on Tuesdays and Fridays, will be broadcast. | More than 250 musicians make up | the membership of the three bands. The Army Band will be heard three times a yeek, the Marine | Band twice, and the Navy Band | twice. In all, the concerts will consume four and three-quarter hours of time each week over Na- tional Broadcasting Co. networks. Although the bands have been heard frequently over the air, the broadcasting schedule is the most extensive in the history of. the three bands. The schedule over IN. C. networks follows: | Mondays, 4 to 5 p.m., Marine Band. Tuesdays, 10 to 11 a.m., Ma- | rine Band; 3 to 3:30 p.m., Navy ! Band. Wednesdays, 9 to 9:30 am.,, | Army Band. | Thursdays, Army Band. Fridays, 9 to 9:30 am., Army Band; 3:15 to 4 pm., Navy | Band. Under the plans the bands will | play from their respective head- | quarters—the Marine Band from | Marine Barracks, the Navy Band from the Navy Yard, and the | Army Band from the Washington | Barracks. Negotiations for the concerts were made through Capt. Taylor 4:30 to 5 pm, leader of the Army Band, and Lieut. Charles Benter, leader of the Navy Band. * ok ok ok 'HE legendary master mind who threaded the labyrinth didn’t | know a soft job when he saw one, according to the men who last Sunday staged radio’s first broad- cast from a submerged submarine off New London, Conn. This decision of the National Broadcasting Co. engineers, an- nouncers and Navy officers and men with whom they worked is the outcome of the full week of intensive planning and rehearsal which preceded their 30-minute show. For the description of the under-water maneuver as it finally took the air represented a degree of exactitude in timing, cue handling and manipulation of pickups from moving points which set a new mark for intricacy in special events broadcasting. Only one of the unusual and fascinating upshots of the affair, according to William Burke Mil- ler, who supervised the program, was the fact that the broadecast was opened by two male quartets which sang in perfect unison, although they were on the decks of two different submarines 150 yards apart. The “artists” were the officers of the O-8 and O-4, the two par- ticipating submarines, and their song was a favorite ditty of their branch of the service, “Any Greasy Submarine Is Home Sweet Home to Me.” Earphones and intership communication made mony.” Spectators on the for- ward deck of the O-4, listening to the strains from the O-8 across the water, thought the two groups were out of time until they noticed that a waving arm on the distant vessel was in perfect time with the singing on the bridge of the| 0-4 behind them. ‘The 150 yards which the sound had to travel explains the seeming discrepancy. ————— RADIO SHELVING SEEN Chance of Important Legislation This Session Held Slim. There s little or no likelihood of the e of important radio legislation | during the present sitting of Congress, | according to Senator Dill of Washing- co-author of the radio act. An partment of Commerce into the Federal Radio Commission, he said. This bill the House leaders, the Senate y passed it o other radio legislation is in view, says Senator Dill. The Couzens bill for ing the Federal Radio Commis- ith a commission on communica- s necessarily being held in abey- > pending the bus and railroad bills now occupying the attention of the Tnte Commerce Comumittee. On | the House side the leaders, including | nator-elect Wallace White. are doubi- 1 whether cven the Rasio Division- Radio Commiscion merger bill will be ed this scssion To increase the use of electricity from the national Shannon hydroelectric | scheme the government Electricity | Board has established sales rooms for | appliances in 20 citles of the Irish \Fl'ec State. 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