AM Broadcasting History - Various Articles

List of Broadcast Deletions and Consolidations 1934-1941

1942 Broadcasting Yearbook

1934

WJEM, Tupelo, Miss. Licensee (Britt A. Rogers Jr.) failed to renew construction permit. Deleted Oct. 2.

WKFI, Greenville, Miss. Licensee (J. Pat Scully) failed to apply for renewal of license. Deleted Oct. 3.

[WOQ, Kansas City, a deletion originally ordered in 1931, was not in this list. WOQ's license was deleted June 14 and its facilities given to KFH, Wichita, Kansas--Mark Roberts]

1935

WLIT, Philadelphia, Pa. Licensee (WFIL Broadcasting Co.) consolidated facilities with WFIL, Philadelphia, effective Feb. 12.

WNBO, Sliver Haven, Pa. Licensee (John Brownlee Spriggs) voluntarily surrendered license March 15.

WWPA, Clarion, Pa. Licensee's (Clarion Broadcasting Co. Inc.) construction permit expired. Deleted April 15.

KWFV, Hilo, T.H. Licensee's (Hilo Broadcasting Co.) construction permit expired. Deleted April 16.

KGIX, Las Vegas, Nev. Licensee's (J.M. Heaton) construction permit expired. Deleted May 14.

WAMC, Anniston, Ala. Licensee's (Raymond C. Hammett) construction permit expired. Deleted May 14.

WDAG, Amarillo, Tex. Licensee (Plains Radio Broadcasting Co.) consolidated facilities with KGNC, Amarillo, effective June 4.

WRRX, Roanoke, Va. Licensee (Richmond Development Corp.) voluntarily relinquished hours of operation to WHIS, Bluefield, W. Va. Deleted Sept. 23.

WBHS, Huntsville, Ala. Application for renewal of license of licensee (Virgil V. Evans) dismissed with prejudice Nov. 19.

KPJM, Prescott, Ariz. Application of licensee (M.B. Scott and Edward C. Sturm) for renewal of license denied. Deleted Nov. 19.

1936

WOS, Jefferson City, Mo. Licensee (Missouri State Highway Patrol) voluntarily relinquished facilities to KFRU, Columbia, Mo., effective March 27.

WCAC, Storrs, Conn. Licensee (Connecticut State College) voluntarily surrendered facilities effective April 30.

KGBZ, York, Neb. Renewal application of licensee (KGBZ Broadcasting Co.) denied. Deleted July 28.

KWEA, Shreveport, La. Renewal application of licensee (International Broadcasting Corp.) denied. Deleted Aug 1.

WEHS, Cicero, Ill. Licensee (WEHS Inc.) voluntarily relinquished facilities to WHFC, Cicero, effective Nov. 10.

WKBI, Cicero, Ill. Licensee (WKBI Inc.) voluntarily relinquished facilities to WHFC, Cicero, effective Nov. 10.

1937

KELW, Burbank, Cal. Licensee (Evening Herald Publishing Co.) voluntarily relinquished facilities to KEHE, Los Angeles, effective Jan. 15.

KFJR, Portland, Ore. Licensee (KALE Inc.) voluntarily relinquished facilities to KALE, Portland, effective Feb. 2.

KFPM, Greenville, Tex. Licensee (New Furniture Co.) voluntarily surrendered license April 2, 1935. Application of Voice of Greenville for renewal and reinstatement dismissed March 2.

WNRI, Newport, R.I. Licensee (S. George Webb) denied modification of construction permit. Deleted Aug. 19, and facilities given to WTHT, Hartford, Conn.

WJBR, Gastonia, N.C. Licensee (J.B. Roberts) denied modification of construction permit. Deleted Oct 28.

1938

WRAX, Philadelphia, Pa. Licensee (WRAX Broadcasting Co.) surrendered hours hours of operation to WPEN, Philadelphia, effective May 11.

KGDY, Huron, S.D. Licensee (Voice of South Dakota) denied renewal of license. Deleted June 24.

WMBQ, Brooklyn, N.Y. Licensee (Metropolitan Broadcasting Corp.) denied renewal of license. Deleted June 24, facilities given to WWRL, Woodside, N.Y.

WLMU, Middleboro, Ky. Licensee (Lincoln Memorial University) voluntarily surrendered construction permit July 6.

WFAB, New York City. Licensee (Debs Memorial Radio Fund) surrendered hours of operation to WEVD, New York. Deleted Nov. 7.

WHEF, Kosciusko, Miss. Licensee (Attala Broadcasting Corp.) denied renewal of license in default. Deleted Nov. 7.

WHAL, Saginaw, Mich. Licensee's (Harold F. Gross and Edmund C. Shields) grant of Feb. 9, 1937, ordered vacated in accordance with mandate of court of appeals. Deleted Nov. 28.

1939

KDNC, Lewiston, Mont. Licensee's (Democrat-News Co.) construction permit expired. Deleted Jan. 24.

KGCI, Coeur d'Alene, Ida. Licensee (Clarence A. Berger and Saul S. Freeman) denied modification of construction permit as in default. Deleted Feb. 20.

KGVL, Greenville, Tex. Licensee's (Hunt Broadcasting Assn.) application for modification of construction permit dismissed as licensee association dissolve.d Deleted April 23.

WRKL, Rock Hill, S.C. Licensee (P.W. Spencer) requested construction permit to be cancelled, effective April 24.

KECA, Los Angeles. Licensee (Earl C. Anthony, Inc.) consolidated facilities with KEHE, Los Angeles, effective July 31.

KFJZ, Fort Worth, Tex. Licensee (Fort Worth Broadcasters, Inc.) voluntarily surrendered license. Deleted Sept. 6.

KWTN, Watertown, S.D. Licensee's (Greater Kampeska Radio Corp.) application for renewal of license denied. Deleted Nov. 6.

1940

WBIL, New York City. Licensee (Arde Bulova) surrendered license. Deleted Jan. 3.

WPG, Atlantic City, N.J. Licensee (City of Atlantic City) surrendered license. Deleted Jan. 3.

WOV, New York City. Licensee (International Broadcasting Corp.) surrendered license. Deleted Jan. 3 but takes over facilities of WBIL and WPG and continues operating as WOV.

KUMA, Yuma, Ariz. License of licensee (Albert H. Schermann) revoked, effective Feb. 1.

WSAL, Salisbury, Md. License of licensee (Frank M. Sterns) revoked, effective March 31.

WMVD, Salisbury, Md. Licensee (Delmarva Broadcast Co.) voluntarily surrendered construction permit. Deleted May 21.

KWBD, Plainview, Tex. Construction permit of licensee (W.B. Dennis) cancelled. Deleted May 28.

KPRO, Riverside, Cal. Construction permit rescinded July 26. (Regranted in 1941.)

WRTD, Richmond, Va. Licensee (Richmond Times-Dispatch) consolidated facilities with WRNL, effective Sept. 1.

WGMA, Schenectady, N.Y. Construction permit rescinded, effective Oct. 2.

WSSJ, San Juan, P.R. Construction permit rescinded, effective Oct. 22.

KCCA, Decorah, Ia. License of Charles Walter Greenley not renewed and facility assigned to KGLO, Mason City, Ia. Effective Nov. 4.

1941

KFUN, Las Vegas, Nev. Construction permit voluntarily surrendered by Las Vegas Broadcasting Co., Inc., Jan. 10.

KHON, Honolulu, Hawaii. Construction permit of Hawaiian Broadcasting System Ltd. (KGMB) rescinded, April 29.

KYAN, Cheyenne, Wyo. License of Western Broadcasting Co. of Wyoming voluntarily surrendered, March 29.

WBBC, Brooklyn Broadcasting Corp.; WLTH, Voice of Brooklyn, Inc.; WVFW, Paramount Broadcasting Corp.; WARD, United States Broadcasting Corp., all of Brooklyn, consolidated under call letters WBYN and license issued to United Broadcasting Corp., Brooklyn. Effective May 1.

WCAD, Canton, N.Y. License voluntarily surrendered by St. Lawrence University, June 3.

WFAM, South Bend, Ind. License held by South Bend Tribune voluntarily surrendered, March 29.

WFLA, Tampa, Fla. Facilities granted WSUN, St. Petersburg, with which it formerly shared time; new station granted to Tampa Tribune interested on new frequency, and it assumed call letters WFLA. Effective Jan. 21.

WMWH, Augusta, Ga. Construction permit held by W. Montgomery Harison voluntarily surrendered April 30.

WQDM, St. Albans, Vt. License of Regan and Bostwick rescinded, and facilities granted to new company owned by Lloyd E. Squier and William E. Ricker (WDEV, Waterbury, Vt.) to operate new station in same locality under call letters WWSR.

KFDY, Brookings, S.D. License voluntarily relinquished by South Dakota College, Dec. 1.

KAWM, Gallup, N.M. License renewal denied in default to A.W. Mills (station destroyed by fire one year prior), ordered Dec. 9.

The "Why" of Call Letters (1931)

Their Origin and History Traced

No doubt there are thousands of radio enthusiasts who have deliberated as to why call letters are assigned to radio stations, especially broadcasting stations, and as to what significance there is in the different groups of these letters.

In the early days of radio, or wireless, as this science of communications at one time was called, there was not very much system in the use of these calls for station identification.

After the establishment of the Radio Division of the Department of Commerce, on July 1, 1911, to enforce the provisions of the Radio Act of June 24, 1910, which was the first radio act enacted in the United States and following the ratification of the Berlin Convention of 1908, this country was allocated all combinations beginning with N, W and all of the K combinations with the exception of certain calls then assigned to stations in other countries. Subsequently, all the K, N and W calls, with the exception of the groups beginning with KA, KB and KC, were reserved for the United States.

The Radio Division, in order that the identification of stations may more readily be ascertained, allocated all K calls to land stations on the Pacific coast and to ships plying the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico stations. The W calls were allocated to Atlantic and Gulf coast stations and stations on the Great Lakes. Ships plying the Pacific Ocean were also assigned W calls. This practice worked smoothly until the opening of the Panama Canal. From that time on, with ships going from one ocean to the other, either K or W calls were of necessity used and assigned to vessels in both oceans.

During the infancy of radio practically all land stations were on the coast, as all communication was done between ship-to-shore stations, there being no point-to-point communication between stations within the country. K calls at the time of the beginning of broadcasting were assigned to inland stations east or west of the Mississippi River; however, after the first broadcasting stations were erected, that river was made the dividing line of K and W calls. KDKA, East Pittsburgh, and KYW, Chicago, are among the pioneer broadcasting stations which accounts for these stations having K calls assigned to them.

Along about 1917, when this country entered the world conflict, the call combination of three letters were exhausted, making it necessary for the grouping of an additional letter. The International Radiotelegraph Conference held at Washington in 1927 allocated the remaining combinations beginning with KA, KB and KC to the United States, due to the arrangement decided upon to assign only three-letter calls to stations in the international service, that is, land stations communicating with ships at sea and land stations communicating with foreign countries. The number of stations of this category had increased tremendously. Four-letter calls under the Convention are now assigned to ships and land stations in domestic point-to-point service and five-letter calls are given to radio-equipped aircraft.

Shortly after the inception of broadcasting, the idea of giving calls to broadcasting stations that would have some special significance was conceived and, to begin with, assigned KOP to a station of the Detroit police department which since then has been placed out of commission. With the popularity of this call came a deluge of requests for calls designating the initials of a slogan, the owner's name, the name of a city, or state in which a station may be located. The station of the Radio Corporation in Washington asked for WRC, which readily can be seen to stand for Washington Radio Corporation. Then along came a number of stations, including WGN, Chicago, which stands for the slogan of the Chicago Tribune; WCCO, St. Paul, Washburn-Crosby Co.; WACO, Waco, Texas, as one can observe, spells the name of the city in which this station is located; WJJD, Mooseheart, Ill., forgetting the initial letter which must be assigned, stands for James J. Davis, Director General of the Loyal Order of Moose, former Secretary of Labor and now junior Senator from Pennsylvania; WMMN, Fairmont, W. Va., stands for Senator Matthew Mansfield Neely, of that state; WGP, Atlantic City, World's Greatest Playground, is very appropriate.

There are many others using exceptionally appropriate calls. In Florida, at Miami Beach, officials could not assign the call requested, but, thinking of Florida's semi-tropical climate, assigned WIOD which became the initial letters of that station's slogan, viz., "Wonderful Isle of Dreams." The corporate name of this station is now Isle of Dreams Broadcasting Company. A number of broadcasting stations which are incorporated have used their call letters for their corporate name or as the name of ownership.

A number of calls used today were formerly assigned to stations now out of existence, some of which have had stormy experiences. KGB, now assigned to a station, the transmitter of which is located in San Diego and the studio in Los Angeles, was at one time used by the steamer D. N. Luckenbach, sunk by a submarine off the French coast in 1917. KOB, State College, New Mexico, was formerly sued by the steam screw Princess Anne up to the time she broke in two on Rockaway Shoals, New York, with a cargo loss of $500,000. Radio played an important part in the rescue of the 106 persons on board.

In each of the three-letter call groups allocated, it will be seen that there are 676 combinations and in each of the four-letter groups there are 26 times that number, or 17,576, making a total of 54,756 combinations available for assignment to United States stations.

With the growth of aviation and the installation of radio transmitting equipment on the larger mail and passenger aircraft, all calls beginning with the letters KH were reserved for stations of this class. In addition to KH call signals of aircraft must have three other letters, making a total of five letters in the complete signal.

Numerous Stations Still Off Channels

50-cycle Deviation Exceeded By Half Checked in March

Although the 50-cycle deviation order became effective June 22, almost half of the stations checked by the Radio Division of the Department of Commerce in March deviated more than 50 cycles from their assigned frequencies. While the number that came within the order was greater than for the previous month, the percentages in proportion to the total measured was less.

Of the 519 stations checked, 274 deviated less than 50 cycles, 80 less than 100 cycles, 79 under 200 cycles, whereas 86 went beyond the 200-cycle mark.

Radio in Hospitals

One of the most beneficent fields of usefulness of radio is the reception of radio broadcasting in hospitals. Besides the benefit to patients through providing entertainment, medical authorities testify to the actual therapeutic value of the mental relief thus afforded. The Bureau of Standards is assisting in the technical phases of current movements to equip many thousands of hospital beds with radio service. Since the middle of March of this year there has been a popular campaign directed from one of the large broadcasting stations which has raised funds for the installation of radio in the United States military service hospitals. A technical committee of Government experts (representing the Signal Corps, Navy Department, and Bureau of Standards) is furnishing technical advice as to the material and method of installation for these hospitals. The first hospitals equipped were Walter Reed General Army Hospital, Naval Hospital, and Mount Alto Veterans' Bureau hospital, all located in Washington, D. C.

The general system employed is to use one receiving set and a powerful amplifier to supply the entire hospital, each patient being supplied with head telephone receivers which can be connected or disconnected at will. The amplifier used is capable of supplying about 3,000 head sets in parallel, and by reducing the number of head sets and using suitable transformers a number of loud speakers may also be used in the various rooms. At Walter Reed Hospital 1,500 head sets and six loud speakers are used, the loud speakers being provided for assembly halls only. This equipment requires the services of one man continuously while the set is in operation, to control the volume of sound delivered to the patients. The set used is capable of receiving distant as well as local programs, but because of disturbances that may be introduced in distant reception local programs are used except on special occasions where a program of very general interest is being broadcast from a distant station. The installation includes a microphone which is used for the distribution to the patients of programs given in the auditorium or elsewhere in the hospital. This microphone makes it possible for any person to address all the patients of the hospital simultaneously. The installation has been in operation for four months and has been very satisfactory.

The work of equipping other hospitals is being continued, and the material for all service hospitals in the vicinity of New York City has been ordered. The aim of the movement is to make it possible for every patient in all the military hospitals of the United States to listen to radio programs. A large part of the money for this purpose has been raised, and the campaigns are being continued. Similar campaigns for the equipping of non-Government hospitals in various places have been begun.

Radio Service Bulletin, Feb. 2, 1925

It will probably be helpful if when making an announcement the call letters of a station are followed by the name of the city in which the broadcasting station is situated and it would no doubt be appreciated by the audience if the announcers would announce distinctly the call letters and name of the city at somewhat regular intervals.

"Monster" in Tokyo

Army's Joke Broadcast Scares Americans and Britons

TOKYO, May 28 (UPI) An Army radio station described for a gag today a "battle" between American soldiers and a "twenty-foot sea monster" in the streets of Tokyo. The description was so vivid that Gen. Douglas MacArthur was reported to have been fooled, as well as thousands of Americans and Britons.

For more than three hours the telephones of Station WVTR and of Army agencies were clogged with telephone calls from Americans and Britons, some of whom were frankly frightened. According to a member of the station's staff, one caller was General MacArthur.

Radio "Island" Comes to Life

WABC's New Transmitter Is Called an Engineering Dream

Built on a Man-Made Rock in Long Island Sound

Fifteen miles northeast of Manhattan a tiny island of steel, concrete, copper and glass has grown out of the waves of Long Island Sound. From the midst of this man-made pile of metal and masonry a 410-foot steel tower projects upward. Adorning the top is a steel "hat" 85 feet square, wider by 10 feet than the base from which the tower sprouts. Crowning the hat like a wispy feather is a device resembling the antenna of a huge insect.

Ships that pass up and down Long Island Sound on clear days sight the tower many miles away, farther at night, because of the winking lamps around the brim.

Next Saturday, shortly after 10 P. M., at the touch of a button--"Columbia Island," as it is now called--will spring into ethereal activity for the first time as the new key station of the Columbia Broadcasting System--the newest, perhaps the most revolutionary, broadcasting unit ever devised.

Salt water is supposed to be the ideal "earth" medium over which to project radio waves. Columbia Island, new home of WABC, is surrounded with it. Large steamers may sail within a few feet of the strange-looking new outfit; made so, chiefly, because of a monstrous vertical lattice aerial. Except for this tower, which might pass for the fighting top of a battleship, the balance resembles a swanky, streamlined yacht club with business-like pier and boarding float. Even the concrete abutment on which the building and mast rest is streamlined--curved outward like a clipper's bow to toss high waves back upon themselves.

Everything about the station has been calculated to a nicety, even to the right-angled kinks deliberately built into the electrical "pipes" that convey WABC's 50,000 radio watts from water-cooled tubes to lattice aerial. These kinks are lightning arresters in disguise. If a bolt strikes the tower it is expected to leap off the electrical pipe at the first corner--certainly the second or third--and flash to earth over spark gaps to the heavy copper roof of the building and ninety copper cables extending radially outward into deep water.

The men who operate the station actually live within a grounded metal shell, under which are living quarters for engineers, workshops, electrical units to supply tube voltages, an auxiliary Diesel-electric generator that roars into use the instant a fault occurs in under-water electric cables from shore, and everything else that modern radio engineering can devise to keep a station on the air in spite of apparatus failure or fury of elements. If a subsurface cable springs a leak an internal gas, at high pressure, keeps the water out.

The radio plant is virtually two in one. Although almost entirely automatic in operation the eye of an engineer, sweeping a dozen control-room electrical meters, may detect failure in any part of the system. By pressing one of a series of buttons a train of events is started to eliminate the trouble--perhaps 100 of the plant's 500-odd selective electrical relays may open or close, cutting in or out of the circuit as many as half of the station's 500 vacuum tubes.

From water-line to tip of vertical lattice "radiator," every adornment has a purpose at the WABC plant. The wispy, feather-like object that tops the 410-foot tower--scarcely visible from below--is a receiving antenna for two microwave emergency channels between transmitter and studios at 485 Madison Ave., Manhattan. If land circuits from studio to New Rochelle and under-water path to Columbia Island fail, the microwave circuit cuts in an instant later and neither listeners nor engineers may be the wiser. The direct-by-air link operates on 330 and 335 megacycles (less than a meter) from a special sending station atop the Manhattan studios.

Because of the wide frequency difference between the WABC broadcast channel (880,000 cycles) and the ultra-short-wave link (330,000,000 cycles), no interference results despite the fact that incoming studio program waves arrive at Columbia Island in the midst of powerful 50,000-watt waves leaving the vertical radiator to serve millions of set-owners.

One of the features of the 342-ton vertical radiator is the part that spreads outward at the top like an umbrella. Commonly referred to as the "hat," this part perches on four large insulators. When supplied with broadcast power "a little out of phase" or electrical step with the main tower on which it rests, the WABC waves in space are made to "hug the earth" and become more effective in producing strong signals for receiving sets. Four huge insulators at the base of the main tower legs support the whole. Each insulator is designed to carry more than 3,000,000 pounds; the whole tower will perch upon three legs, if need be, and withstand 120-mile winds.

Supporting the aerial tower are four large steel-concrete blocks each weighing 2,500 tons--twenty-two feet square. Outside is a 3,000-ton sea wall and between tower blocks and sea wall is 8,000 tons of sand and loam fill upon which grass and shrubs will grow in the Spring.

The magic of the new WABC, however, is not all above the waterline; drillers were put to work to find a source of fresh water for drinking purposes and cooling the tubes. It was struck 910 feet down.

Incidentally, WABC after Saturday will serve a potential audience of 14,000,000 listeners, according to CBS engineers. Radio equipment was designed by the Federal Telegraph Company of Newark, affiliate of the International Telephone and Telegraph Co.

WGY Used as a Standard

The Bureau of Standards has announced that the transmission frequency of WGY is so constantly maintained that the station may serve as a frequency standard for the purpose of standardizing wave meters. The percentage of deviation of WGY from the assigned frequency on sixteen tests made by the Bureau of Standards was two tenths of one percent.

New York Times, Feb. 3, 1924

New York Times, Mar. 23, 1924

The equipment is now at Rio Janeiro, having been installed there for use at the Brazilian Centennial Exposition. It operated there under the call letters SPC from Sept. 7, 1922, to Mar. 31, 1923. It is reported to be an exact duplicate of Station KDKA, Pittsburgh.

Efforts will be made to have the station in operation by June in order to radiate news from the national Democratic convention.

New York Times, Mar. 23, 1924

The equipment is now at Rio Janeiro, having been installed there for use at the Brazilian Centennial Exposition. It operated there under the call letters SPC from Sept. 7, 1922, to Mar. 31, 1923. It is reported to be an exact duplicate of Station KDKA, Pittsburgh.

Efforts will be made to have the station in operation by June in order to radiate news from the national Democratic convention.

New York Times, June 22, 1924

WNYC Begins Broadcasting

New York's municipal radiophone station, WNYC, was officially opened last Tuesday by Mayor Hylan. The station is located on the twenty-fifth floor of the Municipal Building. It operates on the 526-meter wave length. [...]

International regulations made it impossible for the Department of Commerce to assign the call letters "CONY" to the municipal station as originally requested. [...]

New York Times, Apr. 13, 1924

During the past winter season an increasing number of stations have reported long distance reception and each in turn is establishing claims for the record. However, the long distance record established last year by WHAZ, Troy, N. Y., remains unbroken. In February, 1923, WHAZ sent special programs in the early hours of the morning on four successive days to Imbercargill, New Zealand, an airline distance of 9,577 miles from Troy.

WJAZ, Chicago, has been heard in the Samoan Islands, a distance of 7,000 miles from Chicago. Reception of WLAG, Minneapolis, has been reported from Batum, Russia, 6,683 miles. WGY has been heard in Cape Town, South Africa, 7,880 miles, about one third the distance around the world. WEAF, New York, longest record is also Cape Town.

Call Meeting on Radio Work

Secretary Hoover to Ask Action for Reduction of Interference

WASHINGTON, Mar. 6--Another conference, to consider what administrative action may be taken to extend the field of wireless broadcasting and to reduce interference, was called today by Secretary Hoover to be held here beginning Tuesday, March 20. Manufacturers of radio apparatus, operators of broadcasting stations, and others interested have been invited.

At a conference, held a year ago, recommendations were adopted for federal legislation upon the subject but the bill incorporating these suggestions failed of enactment by congress.

Since the last conference Hoover said the number of broadcasting stations had increased from 60 to 581 and somewhere between 1,500,000 and 2,500,000 receiving stations are in use. Interference, he added, has increased greatly, particularly since the sending stations are restricted to the 360 and 400 meter lengths.

As one method of straightening out the confusion, the secretary said it has been suggested that the navy department be asked to give up a part of its present control of the bands of wave lengths above 600 meters. There area number of universities and educational institutions equipped for radio sending, or which can be so equipped, on the 800 meter bands, he added, and since stations for receipt of this type of educational broadcasting might also be easily specialized to function for such a wave length, this radio area might be set apart for educational transmission exclusively.

Radio Experts Talk Problems

Will Discuss Ways to Combat Interference in Broadcasting by Public

WASHINGTON, Mar. 20--Experts in the radio field and government officials concerned in its extension met here today at the call of Secretary Hoover to consider various problems that have arisen, particularly with a view to interferences in broadcasting by the public. The preliminary presentation of views by the government representatives, officials of radio associations, manufacturers and broadcasting station operators, the conferees went into executive committee sessions for consideration of a new scheme of allocating bands of wave lengths.

Failure of the last congress to enact regulatory legislation, Secretary Hoover said at the outset of the conference, has made necessary voluntary cooperative and administrative assistance to establish rules.

The objective, he said, is to guard against taking steps which might hinder the development of an infant science and to extend the usefulness of it which, he said already has enlisted 588 broadcasting stations and perhaps as many as 2,500.

The government might be willing to relinquish part of the present monopoly of them and lengths between 600 and 1,600 meters, indicated, should the conference so determine while Major General George O. Squier, army delegate said the military authorities would take a liberal view of proposals to reduce their radio scope.

C. F. Jenkins, in charge of the government experimental work in the transmission of photographs by radio, declared that within a short time research workers hoped to perfect even transmission of motion pictures and asked special consideration for the operation of such devices.

Commander Bingham, naval representative, warned against favoritism of broadcasting of amusement by radio which might interfere with its necessary utility in the operation of ships and aircraft and W. A. Wheeler, for the Agriculture Department, asked protection for farmers in the use of radio, in receipt of market, crop and weather reports.

Radio Experts in Conference

Go Into Executive Session To Solve Problems of Wireless

WASHINGTON, March 21--Informed by two days of discussions of ether conflicts and obstacles now hampering wireless use, radio experts and government officials attending the radio conferences here went into executive session late yesterday to consider action which may lead to betterment of conditions. Commissioner Carson of the Commerce Department's bureau of navigation, acting chairman of the conference, said a day or more might be necessary before the conferees could solve all of its problems.

The primary object will be to parcel out among users new and less conflicting bands of wave lengths, and to prescribe operating conditions which will allow commercial services, broadcasters, marine navigators, the army and navy and amateurs to be less hampered in their operations.

Problems put before the conference today ranged form the direct notice given by American composers, through J. G. Rosenthal, as counsel for the American society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, that they would strive to extend the copyright laws to give them royalties from radio broadcasting concerns, to the plea of Texas cattlemen for protection in the wireless launching of stockyard reports to give them a knowledge as to whether packing centers were ready for their livestock shipments. Operators of broadcasting stations, whose conflicts are considered most serious, argued for various rulings.

Commissioner Carson indicated that the conference considered that voluntary agreement of radio users to its decisions would be depended upon after its work is finished. It is possible, however, that President Harding will be asked to frame an executive order as to some of the wave length dispositions contemplated.

Are to Revise Wavelenghts

Decision Made Saturday at End of Second Annual Radio Session

WASHINGTON, Mar. 26--Recommendations for a revision of wave lengths in the ether for wireless use were completed Saturday by the second annual radio conference. Experts and government officials joined unanimously in suggesting to Secretary Hoover that President Harding be asked to open up to the public the wave bank hitherto reserved for military and governmental service and that broadcasting stations hereafter be given individual wave lengths on which they may continue their services with less interference to other users.

Present powers of the commerce department, the conference decided, are sufficient to establish and enforce the new regulations, and thus bring order to the radio world.

"Previously, all broadcasting was concentrated on three wave lengths," the official summary of the conference recommendations explained, "360, 300 and 485 metres. Now a new field extending from 222 to 545 metres can be created for the purpose. Within that field stations can be assigned individual wave lengths and divided into two classes: The higher power class "A" stations corresponding to the present class "B" stations can use the wave lengths between 288 meters and 545 meters, while lower powered stations "new class" "B" stations can use wave lengths from 222 (?) to [illegible]. This will enable the higher power stations distributed to 50 localities and comprehensively covering the United Sates to be within the reach of every listener. Suitable wave lengths are provided in the recommendations for the more than 500 existing lower power stations.

"The report urges that the field of amateur activity be extended by plotting a band extending from 150 meters to 222 meters in place of the waves up to 200 meters now used. The band from 200 to 222 meters can be reserved for high grade continuous wave telegraph transmitting stations operating under special license. Technical and [illegible] school licenses can also occupy this band. The report [illegible] spark-amateur radio telegraphs to the band 175 to 200 metres.

"It also includes the provision [illegible] ship using 540 metre waves to keep silent between 1 and 7 p.m. and as soon as possible, readjust their equipment for transmission to wave lengths above 600 metres. Provision is made in the recommendations for a new field of ship telephone service, enabling persons on shore to talk to those aboard ship. This can be carried out on waves far above broadcasting waves so that no interference can result."