Evening star., 1928-11-04
s'Graharr

Ny friends in the radio audience will
be reading this two days before the big
gest broadcasting event in the history
of America From New York City the
results of the presidential election will
be sent out over a network which, with
all associated stations, will reach just
about every home in the country where
there is radio receiver.
Here at the studio, 1t is something
like our own world series, with, every
body rehearSing with switches, controls.
batteries and all the rest of the trans
mitting machinery being tested and re-
fined to a gnat'S heel. Voices are being
nurSed as carefully as Herb Pennock'S 5
pitching arm When you think of tell
ing biz, news like this to so or 70 mil
lion people, spraining your voice seems
worse than breaking your neck. At
home I'm afraid somebody will leave
the cover of the sugar bowl and cause
draught.
The studio is being fixed up just like
| big newspaper Office. All the press
associations will start shooting in their
bulletins as soon as the polls close, and
there viii be a crew of political experts
to sort them out. so the public will get
mot cnly these early scattering returns
as they come, but win be told what they
mean. Announcing viii start at Z
O'Clock Eastern Standard time and keep
on until the reports for the leading
contests are all in.
This will be tae first time that a
radio studio with national hook-up
has been made a clearing house for the
returns from the entire country, and
its going to take a whole lot OF system
and some mighty quick action to Jug
gle all these bulletins and keep the
most important stuff on the air. as the
experts pick out the most significant
and important material At the same
time, Schenectady and Pittsburgh will
be doing some fast Short-wave shooting,
landing the election results In Europe
end Australia and other countries.
Nothing like it ever happened before. 1t
makes you feel solemn when you think
you have to break bad news to so many
miIlicns-for this is going to be bad
news for lots of folks, whoever wins.
People often ask me why 1t is that the
whole volume of radio broadcaSting is
bound from the East to West. Why
shouldn't there be just es many east
bound programs On the air? WHY
couldn't San Francisco and Denver and
Omaha, for instance, broadcast their
returns to the East, as they come IN, in
stead of everything being telegraphed
to New York and broadcast from there?
This is due to the fact that the tele-
phone company has not yet developed
a two-way broadcasttng circuit-that is,
one wire which VIII carry programs
either east or west.
When We send a program on the wire
from New York to Chicago to be
broadcast from that city. it goes over
specially engineered and balanced wire.
capable of carrying al frequencies of
voice and music. In Morse telegraplly
repsaters allow any number of messages
to go back and forth, but the present
radio hook-ups allow only the one-way
trafic.
The mechanical difficulties can be
overcome 1t is question Of there be-
ing sufficient demand for EaSt-to-West
broadca sting to Justify additional wires.
1t seems to me that this will eventually
come Cleveland and Detroit, for in
stance, have fine symphony orchestras
end MANY splendid artists. It would be
fine If they could find an eastbound
track as easily as We in the East find
the opening to the West. Radio has
done lot to help different parts Of the
country get acquainted. and 1t will do a
lot more as the West gets more of a
chance to join with its famous speakers
and fine musicians OF course the
telephone company sets up circuits on
demand, and this demand is getting
bigger right along haven't any doubt
that before MANY years it viii be quite
possible for Portland, Greg. to put a
symphony or speech on national