Fcc Allows Television to Support Itself
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Leg DIRECTED TO BROADCAST ENGINEERS AND EXECUTIVES FCC ALLOWS TELEVISION TO SUPPORT ITSELF STARTING JULY ist ,1941 May Of, By, and For the Broadcast Engineer 1941 www.americanradiohistory.com Covers substantially everything in the radio 1,10 kc). A few of its services are: time signals, spectrum. You can use one, two or all three units coastal and ship telegraph and t. lephone, air- simultaneously through the separate antenna craft beacons, standard broadcast. relay broad. switch. Monitoring speaker connects to any one; cast, aviation, amateur, international short wave in addition separate speakers can be connected bands, police, government, press and educational as you wish. Headphone monitoring jack ties channels. FM broadcast and relay bands with into output of any one of the three receivers. high fidelity audio for best FM reception. Is The only receiving unit made which tunes 29,2" wide, 30" high, 18" deep. Sells complete continuously from 1.82 t6 2730 (165 me to t o r 7150.00. +he ñallicrafters co. CHICAGO, U. S. A. USED BY 33 GOVERNMENTS SOLD IN 89 COUNTRIES www.americanradiohistory.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Volume 8, No. 5 ,-:, 409 May, 1941 Cover Cartoon by Ross Plaisted, NBC Television Engineer Page An Orchid to the Broadcast Engineers 2 Microphone Problem Solved 4 The Forgotten Men 5 KG() Wins G. E. Plaque 6 You, Too, Can Own a Boat 7 A Portable Applause Meter 8 Jn f«íeinoriutn -- :instal; Alm 9 Jack Benny's Radio Anniversary Party 10 Safety Bulletin - THINKS 12 The "10070" at Short Beach 13 Inside the Recording Bed of a Scully Master Recorder Biographies: W. A. R. Brown George M. Nixon 14 Your Recording Clients New York Engineering News 15 CAN Be Satisfied Who's Who in Chicago - Harold & Marvin Royston 16 Professional Recording Engineers Overwhelm- Stripers on the Eastern Seaboard 18 ingly Prefer SCULLY (ASTER RECORDERS be- cause of their undisputably superior performance Denver News 20 -a Natural Result of Scully's Pioneering Work in On the Airialto With Tom Gootee 22 the Recording Field extending over a Score of Years. San Francisco News 24 Scully's Proven and Earned Reputation is Your ASSURANCE that the recordings made on a Scully Master Recorder are the finest that human A.T.E. Publications, Inc. ingenuity and scientific development have yet TRUSTEES devised . AND . that these superb record- E. Stolzenberger G. E. Stewart G. M. Sellar ings can be duplicated 24 HOURS A DAY1. F. R. Rojas R. W. Clark ATE JOURNAL STAFF Managing Editor E. STOLZENBERGER Coordinator F. R. ROJAS Specify Director of Sales and Promotion E. C. HORSTMAN Press Photographer JOE CONN Circulation Manager TED KRUSE for Case of Operation Staff Assistants H. GRELCK, BOB WARD TE Treasurer C. W. PHELAN Dependability w/ Assistant Treasurer D. J. MOLONEY Precision RE [ORDERS ASSOCIATE EDITORS e.r4 Chicago T. E. GOOTEE AND Permanence Cleveland J. D. DlssRow Denver J. ROHRER Engineering Chapter R. A. ISBERG If you are seriously interested in Recording, we are in a Hollywood RAY FERGUSON position to show that, on a long time basis, the Scully KFI-KECA H. M. MCDONALD Master Recorder is the most economical "Buy" in the Mutual Broadcasting R. A. SCHLEGEL industry - and absolutely cheaper than price -designed New York TED KRUSE equipment. Write, phone, or visit - But San Francisco LEE KOLM Washington DORSON A. ULLMAN INVESTIGATE BEFORE YOU INVEST The ATE Journal is a privately printed monthly publication, issued by the Ass'n of Technical Employees Publications, Inc., a cor- poration of the State of New Jersey with office at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, N. Y. City. Editor's office: E. Stolzenberger, 116-03 91st Avenue, Richmond Hill, L. I., N. Y. SCULLY The A.T.E. Journal is the Official Publication of the N.A.B.E.T. Advertising rates and information supplied on request. Subscrip- tion, $1.50 per year. Single copies, except Christmas Yearbook, 26c; Machine Company Christmas Yearbook, 50c, subject to availability. All remittances in advance. Foreign: Add postage. 62 Walter Street Bridgeport, Conn. Nothing appearing in the ATE Journal shall be construed to be an expression of the A.T.E. Journal, or the National Association of Telephone Bridgeport 5300 Broadcast Engineers and Technicians, but must be construed as an individual expression of the author or authors, A.T.E. Journal 1 m-1941 www.americanradiohistory.com An Orchid to the Broadcast Engineers By Emil Corwin Music Editor, National Broadcasting Company SEVERAL years ago Leopold Sto- control knobs are rarely adjusted, unless To appreciate the significance of the kowski gave radio men a start by it is for applause and bravos. criticism it is necessary to know that the wandering from his podium, where The engineer's job is simpler because dynamics of the two selections singled for mention are at opposite poles. The they thought he belonged, to poke the technique of broadcast music is simpler. Not six, but a single microphone "Queen Mab" work contains long in control room, sacred to around the is used, for example, to pick up the per- stretches of soft, shimmery music so fra- the engineers. Stokowski, one of the formances of the NBC Symphony Or- gile and delicately pianissimo as scarce- first of symphonic conductors to explore chestra of more than 100 men. If there ly to be heard in a concert hall. The the possibilities of perfecting the tech- is a soloist with the orchestra, no matter Rackozy March, on the other hand, is nique of music broadcasting, had no illu- whether he is vocalist or instrumentalist, heavily scored, being one of loudest com- sions about the microphone from the he uses the same microphone, suspended positions in symphonic literature. very start. It did queer things to sound. from the ceiling in front of the stage. Here was a situation not likely to oc- The way music came out from the loud- The one -mike idea is likened to hearing cur in one concert in fifty: two works speaker wasn't always the way it went with one ear. When several mikes are of such dynamic extremes presented in into the microphone, and Stoki would used, it means that the man in the con- juxtaposition. If there were no experi- find out why. trol room must resort to balancing, de- enced control room engineer to ride the It was an awesome thought to this stroying the conductor's balance and re- ga'n, the soft music would have been man that the destiny of a program over constructing one of his own. too low to register on the air and the which he and his musicians labored The single microphone, Dr. Black says, loud music coming through unchecked rested in the ten mightily for hours is like a camera. It takes an over-all pic- would have thrown Mr. Toscanini off inscrut- fingers of a dial twister sitting ture without distortion. "There is a the air, which was Mr. Stokowski's ably in a control room set apart from the school," he adds, "which holds all-import- experience a decade before. As it was, nuan- orchestra. The carefully rehearsed ant the attainment of one single end. the "Queen Mab Overture" came over be by ces of tonal balance might ruined That is the projection on the air of a only a "little louder", which is better, flip of an an impulsive or unwarranted musical picture of the performance as of course, than not coming over at all. engineer engineer's wrist. After all, the true as would be heard in the studio or was a radio man, not a musician. There is never a dull moment in the concert hall." control room. Every new program, every So the inquiring conductor went to If the engineer's job in the control new artist, presents a problem of some the crux of the matter. He set up a glass is room simplified, he has himself to thank sort. Take such a simple sounding af- cage in front of the orchestra and took for making it so. For it is through his fair as four men playing four pianos over the controls himself. Everything ingenuity that important advances have simultaneously. Sounds easy, but I am went fine-but in the control room only. been made in the creation of higher qual- told eleven engineers heads The knob twisting was well and good that put their ity microphones, in circuits that prevent together to for the music coming into the control on the "First Piano Quartet" overloading, in gadgets that have en- work out some problems of production. room, but not so good for the listener. abled music to be broadcast with greater Problems? Well, what are you going to The music was sometimes too low to fidelity and in broader tonal ranges. register over the air, and at other times do when none of the four pianists plays It must not be assumed, however, that with the same strength? How about the the orchestra was so loud it was knocked the control room engineer is twiddling his fact no have the same off the air thirteen times in an hour. that two pianos thumbs instead of the knobs in the con- dynamics, meaning that piano A sounds This happened more than a decade trol room now. He hasn't got it that easy. louder than piano B, though they are ago, when musically trained men were He is still very much in the picture, and played with the same touch? not engineers, and engineers functioned I would be overlooking an important as- as importantly as musicians, for it was pect of his function if I neglected to men- After trying a pickup with half a in their power to "mix" music from tion a criticism of a recent NBC Sym- dozen mikes, and much shifting of con- various microphones, to magnify the soft hony concert by Olin Downes, music cert grands, it was found that a single tones and tone down the loud tones.