Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1922-05-02
Radio Equipment
Infant Industry
Justify Growing

LuSClly drOWlIlg
Chicago, May 1-(By The Associ-
ated Press)-A new infant industry,
the manufacture of radio equipment,
| has sprung up with an amazing
growth within a year and much of it
within few recent weeks. From
few manufacturing shops a year ago
! to thousands now, an increase Of six
| ty thousand per cent. in demand in
! two years; a business in which both
! boys and great manufacturers are
taking profits; all this is the romance
of the new industry.
! The demand which. called it into
existance is at present as tremendous
as il has been sudden. The new,
! small concerns manufacturing radio
! supplies are estimated by the Radio
q, Corporation of America as number
| ing thousands. Figures of the same
/ corporation show that whereas two
years ago 1000 tubes year were in
demand, this year probably 100000
/ tubes month will be called for.
| Reports gathered from a number of
states by The Associated Press show
+ that many boys and other amateurs
are constructing and selling outfits.
Three years ago three boys in Chi
caga, sixteen and seventeen years
J old, began to make radio outfits.
They are now incorporated and car
rying on large business. Their
mr. ha oil
bilities in this new industry of adven-
ture. It's alleged hazards We're point
ed out in the prediction of an official
of one of the older and larger cleo
trical supply houses that if all the
concerns now engaged in making re-
dio equipment should remain in the
enterprise, before long parts would
become a drug on the market and
that by October 1 the makers of
complete sets would actively be So
Letting business.
That such situation would be a
reversal of present conditions is in
dicated in the report of another large
supply house that it is two months
behind in filling it's orders and word
from all parts of the country shows
a great shortage in apparatus. The
huge demand is ascribed to the prac-
tice of free broadcasting.
There are now 100000 receiving
sets in the United States, according
to the estimates of several companies
OF these 100000 were said to be in
the middle west, and $4,000 to 49,
000 according to varying estimates,
in Chicago.
Dealers declared that the sudden
ness of growth of this infant indust-
ry and the fact that the number Of
plants varies from day to day
made it impossible accurately to
guage it's proportions. One dealer
said that it was impossible to estim-
ate with any certainty the extent of
the demand. inasmuch as buyers in
their eagerness to get equipment as
soon as possible are placing orders
with dozens of dealers at once, and
purchasing from the first dealer who
is ready to deliver. For that reason
it was stated, what might seem to be
a demand involving $30,000,000
might resolve itself into a demand
involving 100000.
"There are more bootleggers in the
radio business than in the whisky
business" one dealer asserted.
People get hold of parts and sell
them for eXhorbitant prices; / have
known a single tube which is reg
ularly sold for IS to bring SIS.
Some of these spurious dealers come
in and try to bride our clerks to get
them parts"
An electrical supply house at To-
ledo, O., has begun to install what it
has announced will be one of the
most complete radio manufacturing
plants in the world. 1t proposes to
employ 100 workers at the outset and
more as the department is enlarged,
and plans for a daily capacity of 500
complete radio receiving and trans
hitting sets. In Toledo and Lucas
county, it was estimated, several
thousand sets are receiving daily
weather, market and other reports
throughout the country. Six con-
Germs are manufacturing radio equip
ment in Cincinatti, Ohio.
There are eighteen regularly estap-
lished concerns in Chicago manufac-
turing radio equipment, aside from
many boys who assemble parts and
distribute the sets thus constructed
among their friends.
There are 204 companies in Mis-
souri, manufacturing radio supplies.
OF these eleven are in st. Louis. In
st. Louis a twelve-year-o boy,
twenty-five business men, several
automobile mechanics, one plumber
one butcher, and several high school
pupils are making and selling radio
supplies during their spare time.
About twenty-five boys are con-
structing and selling radio equip
ment in Milwaukee, Wis. They
sometimes receive $50 or higher for
their outfits, it was said. The large
department stores Of Milwaukee arc
handling sets, and one of them has
large window trimmed to repre-
sent a family sitting around room
listening to a radio concert.
Dallas, Tex.i reported fourteen
dealers in radio equipment, one OF
them which sold such supplies ex-
| cusively, having built up its trade