.

In den RCA "BROADCAST  NEWS" - Vol. No. 91 - October, 1956 - steht ein längerer Artikel über die Entstehung dieses speziellen News Blättchens für dei Radio und Fernseh-.Profis. Die RCA News für ddie allgemeinen Kunden, die Consumer, die gab es bereits, darüber gibt es noch mehr zu lesen.

.

Broadcast News Number One, the cover and title page of which are reproduced on the opposite page, appeared in mid-October 1931. Since that date Broadcast News has been published continuously (and regularly, except for the war years) by the Broadcast Equipment Department of RCA.

In this 25-year period Broadcast News has grown with the industry - from 12 pages in the first to 72 pages in the present issue. And, like the industry, its interests have broadened to include FM, television, UHF, and now color television. However, during the whole quarter century there have been only minor changes in format, and no changes at all in editorial policy.
.

Broadcast News was started to provide a means of bringing information on RCA equipment, its uses, its advantages and its operation, to the broadcast station engineers - who are RCA's customers. That was, and still is, the primary purpose of this publication. However, it was recognized from the first that the magazine could at the same time serve the broader purpose of providing (as was noted on the title page of the first issue) "a pleasant and convenient medium for the exchange of ideas and information'' among broadcast engineers everywhere.

To this end the articles printed in Broadcast News have not been limited to those authored by RCA personnel but, from the first, have included articles by station engineers, consultants and others.
.

Moreover, the subjects discussed have included many other than those directly related to RCA equipment. The happy result is a publication which serves our engineer-customers (by helping them in their work) while at the same time serving us by publicizing our products.

As a result of this policy, broadcast engineers early accepted Broadcast News as an ally in their work, and have supported it not only with letters of approval but, more importantly, by contributing to its pages. Other members of the industry - including some of the best-known consultants and designers - have done likewise.

The subject matter, over the years, has touched almost everything of interest to station engineers. Only one limitation has been imposed. It was early decided that Broadcast News was properly concerned only with broadcast equipment design, installation and operation.

While broadcast engineers certainly have other - and wider - interests, it was felt that these were adequately covered in general magazines. On the other hand, broadcast equipment per se. received relatively little attention in the radio journals existing in 1931.
.

And even today, there is no magazine which devotes a major part of its content to the technical side of broadcasting. The reason, of course, is that the field is too specialized and too limited to support a paid-circulation magazine devoted exclusively to the field. Broadcast News, at least to a degree, fills the gap.

By strictly limiting its coverage to the subject, it is able to print far more information on broadcast equipment than can be found anywhere else.
.

During its twenty-five years Broadcast News has had four editors, numerous assistant editors, and literally scores of editorial advisors and consultants.

Many of these have lavished on it time and effort far beyond the possible return in either pay or glory. Were Broadcast News a private publication, this twenty-fifth anniversary issue would nostalgically note their names and credits.

But Broadcast News is not a personal organ - rather it is the symbol of a very special business - the broadcast equipment business of the Radio Corporation of America.

Thus the important thing in its twenty-five year history is not the names of the many individuals who contributed to it, but - almost contrariwise - the fact that despite individual comings and goings, depression and boom, freeze and unfreeze, war and near-war, it has held steadfastly to a policy set down a quarter of a century ago.

In doing so it has reflected the continuity, the stability, the foresight of the RCA Broadcast Equipment Department. Only for this reason is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Broadcast News important.

FIRST 50 KW WEST OF TEXAS is the way KFI's then brand-new RCA 50B Transmitter was described in the lead article of the first issue of BROADCAST NEWS. Author was I. R. Baker, manager of RCA's transmitter business from 1930 til his death in 1943. It was "Bake" who set the high standards by which RCA has built and sold broadcast equipment for 30 years. BROADCAST NEWS. too, was Bake's Idea, and it was he who formulated its policy of "service to the industry".
.

MICROPHONE TECHNIQUES were discussed in the second article of the very first issue. Microphone around which the article was written was the now long-departed (but not much regretted) condenser type. Simplified diagrams indicated placement of various musical instruments for best pickup balance. Author of this article was Ted Smith, then an RCA Broadcast Salesman, later manager of transmitter sales, and now Executive Vice President, Defense Electronic Products.
.

FIELD INTENSITY SURVEYS, which were just then coming into general acceptance, and which were still unfamiliar to most station engineers, were the subject of the third article of the first issue. Use of surveys in determining coverage and interference was briefly described as was the RCA TMV-21 Field Intensity Meter - first commercial instrument of its kind. Author was John P. Taylor, then sales engineer, now Advertising Manager, Commercial Electronic Products.

CLASS B MODULATION was used for the first time in a commercially built broadcast transmitter in the RCA Type 100/250-Watts transmitter described in this article. This transmitter doubled the power amplifier efficiency of previous models. It was the first "250-watter" - a size which soon thereafter became, and has remained, the standard of the industry. Author of this article was W. L. (Larry) Lyndon - who for thirty years has been helping to develop and design RCA transmitters.
.

FIRST VHF EQUIPMENT produced for general commercial use was the RCA ET-5000 Transceiver described in this early article. Previous to this time all police radio was in the 1600 kc band. The ET-5000, designed specifically for municipal police (Gemeinde-Polizei) use, established a trend which eventually led to the transfer of all 2-way radio services to the VHF bands. Development was considered of such interest it was included even though the subject was not strictly broadcast engineering.
.

DIRECTIONAL ANTENNA at WFLA-WSUN, subject of this article, was the first directive array used by a broadcast station. Suggested by Comm. T. A. M. Craven (then the station's consulting engineer) and designed by Raymond Wilmotte, it was installed under the direction of Walter Tison, Station director. Bed Adler, who was RCA sales engineer in the area helped the station with equipment problems, wrote this article - one of the very first reports on the directional operation.
.

THE RCA 44A VELOCITY MICROPHONE, progenitor of a long series of RCA high-quality microphones, and grand-daddy of today's widely-popular 44-BX, was described for the first time in this article by its inventor, Dr. H. F. Olson. Used for the first time in the "new" WCAU studios (which opened on Christmas Day 1932) it immediately swept the boards and has ever since been the most widely-used microphone in high-quality broadcast stations the world over.
.

LIVE-END, DEAD-END STUDIOS were first used on a station-wide scale by WNAC Boston in February 1932. This development in studio acoustics. together with the introduction of the velocity microphone late in the same year, resulted in a large improvement in the quality of sound pickup and led to establishment of new standards of audio quality. This BROADCAST NEWS article was written by Gordon Jones, then director of operations of WNAC and the Yankee Network.
.

NEW-TYPE STUDIOS, built by WCAU, Philadelphia, in 1932, started a trend in deluxe studio buildings. Designed specifically for broadcasting this building housed seven large studios each with its own independent control room. First with velocity microphones and other deluxe gear, it established a new standard- 14-page article by Tack Leitch was first "long" station story printed in BROADCAST NEWS. It set a pattern for picture-stories about outstanding new stations.
.

THE ICONOSCOPE was described in detail for the first time in this paper by its inventor. Dr. V. K. Zworykin of RCA Laboratories. Prepared originally for the I.R.E. Proceedings (and reproduced by permission) this paper appeared as an article in BROADCAST NEWS some six months before it was published in the Proceedings. The iconoscope was the first true "electronic eye" and its development made possible the first all electronic television system, - developed by RCA.
.

AIR-COOLING, all-A.C. operation, and modern styling were incorporated in a broadcast transmitter for the first time in the RCA Type 1-D Transmitter described in this article. Previously all broadcast transmitters employed motor generators to furnish d.c. for tube filaments. And all 1000-watt transmitters used water-cooled tubes in the output stage. The 1-D. first transmitter built in RCA's Camden plant, revolutionized the styling as well as the design of broadcast transmitters.
.

ALL-A.C. OPERATED studio equipment became practical in 1934 when RCA introduced the first A.C.-operated "studio" amplifier - the famous RCA Type 40-C. All previous equipment of this type had operated either from batteries or from an oversize plate rectifier. The 40-C was provided with a built-in power supply which also provided plate voltage for Type 41-B Preamplifiers. Used with a 94-B Monitoring Amplifier, it formed the first "all-A.C." audio channel.
.

500 KW TRANSMITTER, designed by RCA engineers and installed at WLW, Cincinnati, in 1934, is described in this article by Loren F. Jones, then manager of RCA Broadcast Transmitter Engineering. This mammoth "super-power" transmitter was operated (under experimental license) by WLW for several years. It successfully proved the possibilities of super-power AM broadcasting by bringing radio programs to thousands of rural (weit ausserhalb, ländliche) homes which were without primary service.
.

• Anmerkung : Alleine die Vorstellung, daß in einem Labor in der Nähe einer Großstadt ein 500 Kilowatt Sender nur mal so zur Probe gesendet hatte, ist schon erstaunlich, vor allem für die damalige Zeit. Die 500 Kilowatt müssen ja auch bis ins labor oder das Senderhaus gebracht werden.

.

CLASS B AMPLIFICATION considerations were discussed in this article by Loy Barton who developed the "Class B" modulation system while at the University of Arkansas. Soon after he joined RCA and helped RCA engineers design the first broadcast transmitters using Class B modulation. This is one of several articles on Class B modulation which Mr. Barton wrote especially for BROADCAST NEWS - typical of many advanced engineering stories in BROADCAST NEWS.
.

ANTENNA CHARACTERISTICS were discussed in this first of numerous articles written for BROADCAST NEWS by Dr. G. H. Brown and H. E. Gihring. Dr. Brown's studies of current distribution on various types of towers, and the relation cf current distribution to radiation pattern, established the basis on which the design of directive antenna systems rests. Many of his articles were published in BROADCAST NEWS along with descriptions of station antenna installations.
.

HIGH FIDELITY standards for transmitters were discussed for the first time in this article. The term "high fidelity" was first used to denote high-quality audio reproduction by Dr. Irving Wolfe of RCA Laboratories in 1931 and it had been the subject of considerable attention in BROADCAST NEWS and elsewhere. However, this article stated, for the first time, the specific transmitter performance required for high fidelity broadcast transmission of the full audio range.
.

• Anmerkung : Bislang reden wir hier über Mittelwellen Sender, keine LW und keine KW Sender, auch noch keine UKW Sender. Die Audio- Übertragungs- Bandbreite bei Mittelwelle war auf etwa 70 bis 7.000 Hz begrenzt, sonst überlappten die Sender weltweit und die programe überlagerten sich. Von dem späteren UKW HIGH FIDELITY kann also keine Rede sein.

.

TRANSCRIPTION TURNTABLES came of age with the RCA 70-A introduced in this BROADCAST NEWS article. The 70-A was the first practical high-quality turntable designed specifically for broadcast station use. In a very short time after this article appeared the 70-A became the almost unanimous choice of stations large and small. During the two decades since then thousands of 70-A's, 70 B's, 70-C's and 70-D's have been manufactured and a large number are still in use.

TELEVISION PROGRESS REPORTS began in the fall of 1936, when RCA showed its first full-scale installation to newsmen, broadcasters and the industry. In the address printed in this issue, General David Sarnoff, speaking to the assembled newsmen, said "we have invited you here to witness an experimental television test so that progress in this new and promising art may be reflected to the public factually rather than through the haze (Dunstschleier oder Nebel) of conjecture or speculation".
.

TURNSTILE ANTENNA was described for the first time in this article by Dr. G. H. Brown of RCA Laboratories (reprinted by permission from ELECTRONICS). This first of many turnstile antennas developed by Dr. Brown and other RCA engineers was intended for VHF AM broadcasting (Apex), which at the time was enjoying some attention. Later it was adapted for FM, and - as the superturnstile - for VHF television where it is almost universally used in present-day stations.
.

STUDIO CONSOLETTE embodying an entirely new concept was described in this article by C. M. Lewis (now Manager Communications Products Department of RCA). Earlier studio control consoles incorporated controls only - amplifiers and power supplies were mounted on nearby racks. The RCA 76-A Consolette, described in this article was completely self-contained. It eliminated racks from the studio control booth and established a design pattern followed ever since.
.

TELEVISION IS HERE, said the signs and the newspapers. And it was, if only for a short time, simultaneously with the opening of the "New York World's Fair" in 1939 RCA began commercial telecasting. The July 1939 issue of BROADCAST NEWS for the first time offered commercial television equipment for sale. Included were the TT-1A Transmitter - first of an illustrious line - a field-type camera chain using an iconoscope as the pickup tube and accessory equipment.
.

TV CAMERA CHAIN described in this article was the first television camera equipment to be produced commercially. It employed an iconoscope tube in the camera but was otherwise very similar in arrangement and appearance to field-type equipment in use today. Equipments of this type were used by NBC for television development work during the war. At war's end they became the pattern for RCA post-war equipment and the same arrangement of units is still used.
.

POLYCYLINDRICAL DIFFUSERS for control of Bound were first used on a large scale in the WFAA (Dallas) Studios constructed just before the war. These studios were designed by Dr. C. P. Boner of the University of Texas using information supplied by RCA engineers who had used this treatment in several RCA Recording Studios. Dr. Boner's work, reported in this BROADCAST NEWS article, led to widespread use of polycylindrical diffusers in radio broadcast studios.
.

GENERAL SARNOFF'S "ATLANTIC CITY SPEECH", as it is now referred to, appeared in the December 1947 issue. This is the speech, made to the NBC Affiliates Meeting in Atlantic City in September 1947, in which he strongly advised the NBC affiliates, and indirectly all stations, to get into television. Those who took his advice found themselves on the high road. It was an historic address - and BROADCAST NEWS broke its "no speeches" rule to print it.
.

CONVENTION TELEVISION came into prominence at the National Republican and Democratic Conventions in Philadelphia in 1948. In a 20-page picture-article entitled "Philadelphia Story - How TV Stole the Show" the editors of BROADCAST NEWS described in detail the equipment setups of the "pool" and of each of the networks, together with a summary of how they operated during the convention. Probably no setup has ever been more thoroughly covered.
.

TELEVISION EQUIPMENT PLANNING has been discussed in many BROADCAST NEWS articles. One of the first and probably the most comprehensive was this 28-page article which appeared in the December 1948 issue. It included block diagrams, floor layouts, and photographs of six basic equipment setups. Because of its completeness it became the station engineers' chief planning reference. The basic equipment arrangments portrayed in it are as good today as in 1948.
.

BASEBALL TELEVISION was a mainstay of the programs of many of the first television stations on the air - and it was one of the things that helped to publicize the new medium of entertainment Methods of camera placement and switching were of great interest to station engineers. BROADCAST NEWS did a lengthy story on "Baseball Pickup" in the September 1947 issue - followed it with this very comprehensive "roundup" story in the September 1949 issue.
.

WPIX BASEBALL was covered in a second article in the September 1949 issue. Purpose was to show, in detail, how one station did baseball pickups. Article included eight pages of "pictures from the monitor" showing typical scene sequences for various plays. Information for story was furnished by Tow Howard (then WPIX Chief Engineer, now Vice-President and Technical Director, WBTV, Charlotte) and Otis Freeman (then assistant engineer, now Chief Engineer, WPIX).
.

ENGINEERING DISCUSSION has often been prompted by articles appearing in BROADCAST NEWS, and this exchange of engineering opinion is, of course, one of the "services to the industry" in which BROADCAST NEWS takes great pride. The discussion note reproduced here resulted from a letter written to BROADCAST NEWS by an engineer of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation about the baseball article which appeared in the September 1949 issue (see left).
.

HIGH-GAIN TV ANTENNAS became of great importance when the "defreeze" set new higher maximum powers for all TV stations. RCA engineers, anticipating the eventuality of this action, had been working on the development of such antennas for several years. Although directional TV antennas have, so far, been used only in a few instances, RCA engineers have also been working on these. This article is one of many on this subiect printed in BROADCAST NEWS.
.

"UNOBTRUSIVE" MICROPHONES, of which there are now a number of types, were introduced for the first time in this article by Dr. Olson and John Preston of RCA Laboratories. The microphone described in this article was a laboratory model of a small-sized pressure-operated ribbon microphone. This is the microphone which in production became the famed "Starmaker". It led to a whole new technique in TV sound pickup, and to the development of a family of microphones.
.

TELEVISION STATION DESIGN has been discussed in many BROADCAST NEWS articles, from many different viewpoints. One of the most comprehensive and interesting discussions - especially in its forward-looking view - was the four-part article written by Dr. Walter I. Duschinsky, of which the first appeared in the October 1950 issue. Important basic concepts, such as the overall approach to "traffic flow" were clearly enunciated for the first time in this series.
.

COLOR TELEVISION was "covered" by BROADCAST NEWS for the first time in the January 1954 issue. It was not discussed previously because the standards were so controversial there was little a station engineer could do about color in a practical way.

However, in December 1953 the FCC finally approved compatible color. BROADCAST NEWS was ready, and within weeks the January 1954 issue - devoted exclusively to color - was In the bands of station engineers.
.

• Anmerkung : Hier steht es also, wann die FCC aus den damals von allen nur möglichen Interessenten deren Farbfernseh-Konzepte durchleuchtet (evaluiert) hatte und sich für das s/w kompatible NTSC entschieden hatte = in December 1953.

.

3-V COLOR FILM CAMERA was described in detail for the first time, in this article by Dr. H. N. Kozanowski whose advanced development engineering group was responsible for the development of this truly revolutionary color film camera. Previously used film pickup equipments - using the flying spot technique - had required unwieldy special-type projectors. The 3-V Camera, because it could be used with standard TV film projectors, made color film transmissions practical.

COLOR STATION INSTALLATIONS stories began with exhaustive descriptions of color installation and operation at WKY-TV, Oklahoma City; WBAP-TV, Ft. Worth; and WTMJ-TV, Milwaukee. These were the first three non-network stations (also nicht CNN, ABC oder NBC) to start regular color programming. Because their experience with color was of great interest to all stations BROADCAST NEWS "wrote up" their color operations in detail. Including not only technical operation, but also programming experience.
.

COLOR EQUIPMENT PLANNING was discussed at length in this 32-page article by L. E. Anderson, Supervisor of RCA's Studio Systems Engineering. Describing a "three-step" program for getting into color it showed by photos, block diagrams and rack layouts exactly how a station could progressively add equipment units to gradually step up its color facilities to "all-color" operation. A large number of stations are following this plan - it provides for expansion without obsolescence.
.

.