Evening star., 1925-02-23
BY e. r. MCDONALD. JR.

Radio has had the most remarkable
growth of any industry in the world.
Nevertheless and Notwithstanding the
extreme rapidity of its development
1t has followed along the lines of
other Industries. and chief among
these is the development of the au-
tomobile. There are practically
parallel conditions in these two lines
of achievement, and a study of the
automobile industry, which has pro-
gressed beyond the present point of
radio development, will be beneficial
to us in predicting the future of
radio.
The first outstanding point in this
analysis gives us the immediate con-
clusion that any radical or revolu-
tionary development or changes in
radio are unlikely. Nothing is found
in the automobile of today which did
not exist in 1905, with the exception
of the electrical self-starter and the
electric light, and, of course, many
spall mechanical refinements and
particularly those of body design.
There is the same general type of
clutch, the same general type of
transmission (planetary, of course,
has been eliminated in all but one
make), the same type of differential
used and the same type of brake and
gear shift-the same piston, the same
Noise Nearly ElIminnted.s
Automobiles today are virtually
what they were in 1905, except that
they have gone through a process OF
gradual and general refinement. Then
you could hear an automobile coming
three or four blocks away. Today
even the cheapest cars are quite
noiseless as compared with the best
1906 and 1907 cars. Yet the automo-
bile industry in 1905 was much more
of an infant from the standpoint of
years and development than the radio
Industry of today.
From time to time various new de-
velopments are heralded as tending
to revolutionize the radio art. Every
such rumor naturally has a more or
less panicky effect, but when the
smoke has cleared away and the real
ity is apparent the so-called new and
radical development" is at its best
only refinement. That has always
been true in~the past with the auto
mobile industry.
Finds Folly In Waiting.
In 1906 there were countless peo-
pie who made up their minds that
they would not buy an automobile
until it was perfected. Had they
waited for perfection they would
they would have been denied a great
deal of pleasure and convenience.
There are many people today walt
ing in the same way for the perfect
radio. That will never come to pass.
Perfection is never reached in any
mechanical line of endeavor, but
fundamentally radio has already
gone about as far as the automobile
went in 20 yers. 1t will always, as
fu "a cIIhlaNf n
finement chiefly of mechanical
nature. With present-day radio ap-
paratus we are able TO get high quail
tty entertainment from extreme dis
tances without interference and under
unfavorable weather conditions re-
gardless of the proximity of local
broadcasting stations. This puts
radio definitely in the class of enter
tainment rather than experiment.
There is one side Of the radio in
dustry, however, that has been more
strides which have taken place most
of the energy has been devoted to
electrical development and mechani-
cal development has been practically
ignored Whatever improvement in
radio which will come in the future
will not be in the electrical but
largely in the mechanical field.
Little or no mechanical ingenuity
has been displayed in radio so far.
This has been partially due to the
fact that chiefly electrical and radio
engineers have been working on re-
search along radio lines and very
few mechanical engineers have seri-
ously devoted their time and effort
to this work
The condenser, one of the most out
standing and the most necessary part