Radio Broadcast OY MASON, EDITOR ARTHUR H
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Radio Broadcast OY MASON, EDITOR ARTHUR H. LYNCH, TECHNICAL EDITOR CONTENTS FOR SEPTEMBER, 1922 Edwin H. Armstrong _______-_-___- Frontispiece THE MARCH OF RADIO - - - 367 HE HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE UNITED FRUIT COM- PANY'S RADIO TELEGRAPH SYSTEM - - ROY MASON 377 JEVELOPMENTS1 IN HIGH POWER RADIO I COMMANDER STANFORD C. HOOPER, U. S.N. 399 RADIO IN THE FOREST SERVICE DONALD WILHELM 407 CHARGING THE "B" STORAGE BATTERY G.Y.ALLEN 413 KING ELECTRON - - - - - - - - R. H. RANGER 421 ARMSTRONG'S SUPER-REGENERATIVE CIRCUIT - PAUL F. GODLEY 426 RADIO'S GREAT FUTURE -HERBERT C. HOOVER 433 5HALL WE HAVE MUSIC OR NOISE? PERCE B. COLLISON 434 ADDITIONAL BROADCASTING STATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES 438 BOOKS ABOUT RADIO JOHN V. L. HOGAN 439 PROGRESS OF RADIO IN FOREIGN LANDS - - - 442 U. S. WEATHER REPORTS FOR SHIPS WITHOUT RADIO- - S. R. WINTERS 446 THE GRID QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ------.--------- 448 - WHAT RADIO IS DOING FOR ME A. J. DELONG 452 Copyright, 1922, by Doubleday, Page & Co. All rights reserved TERMS: $3.00 a year; single copies 25 cents F. N. DOUBLEDAY, Pres. ARTHUR W. PAGE, Vice-Pres. NELSON DOUBLEDAY, Vice-Pres. RUSSELL DOUBLEDAY, Sec'y. S. A. EVERITT, Treas. JOHN J. HESSIAN, Asst. Treas. DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & CO. THE WORLD'S WORK COUNTRY LIFE THE GARDEN MAGAZINE SHORT STORIES EDUCATIONAL REVIEW CHICAGO: People's Gas Bldg. GARDEN CITY, N. Y. NEW YORK: 120 W. 32nd Street BOSTON: Tremont Bldg. LOS ANGELES: Van Nuys Bldg. EDWIN H. ARMSTRONG Inventor of the regenerative and super- regenerative circuits RADIO BROADCAST No. September, 1922 The March of Radio MARCONI'S VISIT MANY other occasions we hardly to be compared. Marconi's contribu- have unmistakably shown our tion to our lives is of lasting and growing im- appreciation of the inventor of portance; his work has probably stimulated radio, but never before have he popular interest in science more than the ON and his work been of such wide- efforts of a hundred teachers of Physics and spread interest. Technical societies have, in Electricity. the past, showered upon him tokens of their If we inquire as to just what specific contri- appreciation, universities have bestowed hon- bution to the radio art of to-day is responsible orary degrees upon him in acknowledgement for the bestowal of the much-coveted medals of of his scientific achievements, but on this oc- the Institute of Radio Engineers and the Am- casion a million radio enthusiasts from all over erican Institute of Electrical Engineers, which the country were directly interested in his Marconi has just received, the answer is not comings and goings. apparent. His improved coherer and magnetic The outcome of his pioneer wireless work was detector have long been relegated to the mu- of everyday interest to them. Tuning static seum, and his spark transmitting sets will soon wavelength interference words which on rapidly disappear. It seems, after reading Marconi's previous visits had been meaningless over his early experiments and efforts, that the terms to all but a few of the technical men, are most important of his contributions, which still terms which we use as glibly as we do spark dominates the radio art, is the grounded, ver- plug and carbureter. tical antenna. Probably no other inventor has seen the re- Hertz, of course, had not found it necessary sults of his early endeavors so rapidly become to ground either his transmitting sets or his a part of the life of the people, or has seen receiving loops for getting his wireless signals; himself so suddenly become a public figure. because of the short distance between his Of course a Babe Ruth can climb to popularity receiving and transmitting apparatus, the with even greater speed than has Marconi, but scheme worked perfectly well with ungrounded the reason for the popularity is hardly on the apparatus. Marconi, however, soon found out same plane with that which accounts for the that to communicate over greater distances, reception Marconi has just received. The a high vertical antenna was all important, and education which comes from seeing the ball that, further, its transmitting and receiving ac- fly out of bounds into the bleachers and that tion were both much improved if the antenna which one acquires in investigating and study- was suitably connected to moist earth at its ing the action of a radio receiving set, are lower end. This grounding of the antenna 368 Radio Broadcast seems to be the one contribution important But even though all of Marconi's specific still It , which persists. was not many years contributions to radio are supplanted by some- a of ago, at meeting the A.l.E.E. that Professor thing better (which must necessarily soon be in the work of said the Pupin, reviewing Marconi, case with such a rapidly advancing art) that the line of demarcation between the work Marconi will still be the creator of radio; its of Hertz and that of Marconi was that fixed apparatus may be much changed in appearance by the grounding of the antenna that Hertz's and action from that which he first used to electric waves were free to spread out in space span the Atlantic others may have appeared untrammelled by connection to the earth, in the radio field who understand the action whereas Marconi waves had their "feet" fas- of modern apparatus better than does Mar- tened to the earth. This fastening of the feet of coniapparatus and methods may be worked the waves to the earth's surface was what re- out which are millions of times as sensitive sulted from the grounding of the antenna. as anything Marconi was able to devise in So it seems that the grounded antenna may spite of all this Marconi is the one to whom all be regarded as Marconi's principal contribu- credit is due for the present status of Radio. tion to the art as we know it to-day. How He it was who conceived the idea of radio com- long the grounding of the antenna will be re- municationhe it was whose judgment and garded as important is problematical many perseverance accounted for the initial successes of the best stations, when using short waves, do which made the future of radio so promising not ground their antennas at all. Instead of and certain, and it is for these qualities and connecting the antenna to a water pipe, or to accomplishments that we now do him honor, iron stakes driven into moist earth, as is the giving him our medals and crowding his meet- custom, the "ground" wire of the set is con- ing places to overflowing. nected to a network of wires suspended several REFLECTION AND ABSORPTION OF RADIO WAVES feet above the earth, and carefully insulated therefrom. In many cases it is found that the the fact may have been stated use of this network, or counterpoise, as it is ALTHOUGHmany times, it is apparently rather diffi- called, makes the antenna much more effective cult for one to comprehend that radio waves that if it were actually grounded. The large and light waves are essentially the same in station at Sayville, which, during the early that they are governed by exactly the same part of the war, was the principal connecting laws. On the occasion of his talk before the link between Germany and America, does not Institute of Radio Engineers, Marconi showed ground its antenna, but uses such a counter- an experiment on the reflection of waves and, poise, the network of wires being many acres in from the admiration and applause which the extent. For receiving antennas we are in- success of the demonstration elicited, it was more and more to the coil aerial evident that even this com- clining ; prac- audience, largely tically the same thing as used by Hertz. posed of technically trained men, had not yet In the experiments which Marconi showed really accepted as true the fact stated above, to his audience on one occasion he used a simple that light waves and radio waves act alike. Hertzian oscillator for a transmitter and a In the demonstration there was used as a similar device for a receiving antenna. To be transmitting antenna a simple vertical copper sure, they were excited by waves generated in rod about 18 inches long, excited by a vacuum a modern vacuum tube instead of by the tube at the proper frequency so that radio sparks of Hertz, but in so far as the structure of waves about one meter long were sent off; the sending and receiving aerials was con- possibly one watt of power was radiated. cerned they were Hertzian rather than Mar- Suspended from a wooden framework built conian. For this backsliding from grounded about the transmitting antenna, were other Marconi waves to the ungrounded waves of copper rods, hung vertically, of exactly the Hertz Professor Pupin facetiously chided Mar- same length as the first, these other rods be- coni; he (Pupin) had previously shown that ing completely insulated from everything. Marconi had made tremendous progress over These additional rods were arranged about the the work of Hertz by using the grounded an- antenna in the form of a parabola; a view of tenna, and now Marconi had deserted his child, these additional rods from straight above the grounded antenna, and gone to tread in the would have shown them arranged in a curved footsteps of Hertz. line of the same form as the cross-section of an The March of Radio 369 AN IMPORTANT ADVANCE IN RADIO TRANSMISSION )rs. W. R. Whitney and Irving ingmuir showing Mr.