Radio: FM to Town

In the past fortnight the Federal Communications Commission has handed down two momentous decisions, one releasing Frequency Modulation broadcasting from the confines of experiment, the other locking television tight within it. By awarding FM the number one television sending band (44,000-50,000 kilocycles), FCC opened the heavens to FM broadcasting. Including the band it .had previously been allocated experimentally, it now has 42,000-50,000 kilocycles, will presently be able to spot stations all over the land. Meanwhile, television must plainly label television experimental, must readjust its transmitters in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to one of its other bands. Bubbling with confusion, excitement, hysteria, the radio industry, feeling the hot breath of revolution on its neck, last week gazed fitfully into the future. Some of its visions were sad, some glad. Among them:

> A boom in the radio set business. Already busy selling FM sets are Stromberg-Carlson, General Electric, Scott Radio. Ready to leap into the market are Stewart-Warner, Zenith, Pilot, at least three others. Ranging from $70 up, FM sets in the higher brackets will supply receivers for both the old type of broadcasting (amplitude) and the new (FM). Optimistic estimate of sales within a year: 100,000.

> A growing FM network to replace the present makeshift method of relaying existing programs.

> A scramble for mountaintops, high buildings. Since the power of an FM transmitter increases with height, the spread of FM broadcasting is expected to put a premium on lofty locations. Prize location in Manhattan is the Empire State Building, in which Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, FM deviser, experimented until RCA booted him out to make way for television.

> A raft of new laws and regulations. Still undecided by FCC are the rules that will govern FM transmission, the licensing of stations, power, coverage and engineering.

> Hundreds of new stations. When the FCC decision came through, 22 FM permits had already been allotted, several stations were in the process of being constructed. When FCC issues new licenses, these 22 and 135 other applicants who are now clamoring to operate FM stations will all start from scratch.

Real and immediate is the problem of clearing television’s number one band for FM. Now in the position of a landlord owning an apartment from which the tenant has not yet cleared out, FM will not really start to go to town until Jan. 1. By that time FCC expects to have the space cleared. Included in the megacyclic housecleaning will be 13 maverick Government short-wave services.