Evening star., 1926-10-01
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

Yesterday we praised radio; today
we knock it. Turn about is fair play.
Too many letters of praise and no
"panning" make ABC a dull broad
casting station.
Radio. through it's very perfection
today, harbors one large, malignant
germ of i'll will, which may grow to
threatening proportions when least
suspected. (The brewers once laughed
at national prohibition)
In a letter recently received cor
respondent discussed the relative mer-
its of the phonograph and the radio,
and ended by saying 81 believe it is
fair to say that the interest in radio
is not increasing"
At first glance this statement may
not seem true Manufacturers would
face one with a flood of statistics
showing a steady increase in sales of
high-class sets. This would be offset,
in all probability, by a large decrease
in the sale of parts"
In the early years of broadcasting,
as the average person knows 1t,
every one was making sets. The
craze of the hour was to purchase a
boXful of variometers, coils, con-
densers, etc, and with pliers. solder
ing tool and assorted lengths of bus
wire fashion the lot into a radio re-
ceiving set.
Many men and boys throughout the
country gifted with the peculiar
did manage to contrive very good
radio sets. If they were perpetually
getting out of whack. that simply
made the fun the greater. To be
eternally monkeying with homemade
radio set was a mark of achievement.
Learn and grow" was the motto.
All that is over now. Even the
most intrepid set builder has been
forced to admit that one can buy a
better receiving set for less money
than he could possibly make an in
ferlor one for at home.
X X X X
We know personally several per-
sons who owned crystal sets who, no
longer being able to hear their local
station, have simply quit radio cold.
They are not interested in buying a
larger set. They are getting along
very we'll without any radio at all.
A letter from correspondent reads,
in part, as follows: II take the liberty
of writing to tell you to what a great
extent your letters voice the senti
ment Of the readers Of The Star, and
IlOW luOSc oetIIiC IRO AOl JOU
to speak for them. I refer particu'
larly to your articles on music. With
regard to the radio, as you say the
band has no place in the home. Even
the military band has become bore
How the charm Of the
gypsies, the troubadours, etc, is some
times murdered by an announcer who
tries to be funny! In my
boarding house, where there are II
radios, but two out of that number
get anything over the air."
The writer of the above letter does
not say so, but we infer that the sets
are mostly crystal or one-tube. From
our own experience with the smaller
sets, we can sympathize with the
owners. With crystal or one-tube we
never got WRC worth listening to-
With five tubes, on the other hand
Tor should it be ear?). we got WRC
better than WCAP, now Of memory.
1t will not do to say that a radio
listener must purchase a large set
There is no compulsion about it, and
many of them will not. Many in hos
pitfalls, etc, cannot. In this day OF
superpower the answer is more pep
at the sending end-at least, that Is
part of the answer.
What we are getting around to Is