Science: Radio Giant

In the Hall of Mirrors of Cincinnati’s Netherland Plaza Hotel banquet tables gleamed, politicians and businessmen made speeches, a pastor prayed, breathless messenger boys brought in sheaves of cables and telegrams from President Roosevelt, Vice President Garner, Guglielmo Marconi, Albert Einstein, many another bigwig. Powel Crosley Jr., founder-president of Crosley Radio Corp. and owner of WLW, headed a six-hour program which 28 radio engineers broadcast from WLW’s plant at Mason, 22 miles away. Thus with pomp & ceremony last week was inaugurated by far the most powerful transmitting station on earth. Until last week Warsaw led the world with a 158,000-watt station. John Richard (“Goat Gland”) Brinkley’s troublesome XER, across the Mexican border, acclaimed itself largest in North America with 75,000 watts. WLW’s new 500,000-watt equipment makes it ten times stronger than any of its 20 biggest rivals in the U. S. Most spectacular item is its antenna—a steel frame 831 ft. tall, 35 ft. thick at the middle, tapering up to a slim spire and down almost to a point. Total cost of the venture was close to $500,000. WLW’s programs should be picked up by an ordinary set under any conditions within a 2,500-mi. radius, under good conditions anywhere in the world. Other radiocasters and the Federal Radio Commission feared the new giant might “blanket the dial,” drowning out less powerful signals by failing to stay within its assigned channel of 700 kilocycles. For months test signals have been broadcast before daybreak while the Commission’s investigators watched their frequency testers like hawks. Last month, satisfied that WLW would not hog the air, the Commission gave its authorization for the station to start regular commercial programs.