Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-27
NEW TYPE RADIO
MAY ROCK TRADE
Simple Machine Is Expected
to RevoIutionize Practices
of Industry.
BY MARTIN CODEL.
Ial Dispatch to The Star.

Special Dispatch to The Star.
NEW YORK, September 81 (NAN.A.).
l-Forty-two men, including captains of
the radio and allied industries, CAPT.
talists, engineers and patent attorneys,
gathered this afternoon in the Park
avenue apartment of Harris Hammond
to view and hear a ewly-developed
radio receiving set for which astounding
claims had been made.
The inventor and his hackers conf
IDENTIFY told the assemblage that the
principles upon which the set operated
revolutionize theories and practices that
now guide the field of radio. Moreover,
prominent patent attorneys asserted
that these principles avoid all existing
basic patents in the radio art and viz
tually create an entirely new field Of
radio development because of their
fundamentally new and radical char
acter.
DIR. Riggs Conducts Showing.
The demonstration of the set was
conducted under the direction of DR..
Alger S. Riggs, its inventor, a young
radio scientist from South Carolina.
The host, Mr.. Hammond, Is president Of
the Mexican Seaboard on Co. and a son
of John Hays Hammond, the noted min
ing engineer His brother Is John Hays
Hammond, jr. famous as a radio in
ventor.
For nearly two hours DR.. Riggs, who
is only % years old, held the fixed at
tention of the laymen, engineers and
technical counsel who had been invited
to the demonstration. When he was
through discussing his set and demon
Strating its operation by turning-in
various broadcasting stations they piled
him with questions.
Almost to a man the witnesses de-
clared they were deeply impressed"
Every engineer present agreed that DR..
Riggs had demonstrated that he could
accomplish what he claimed, although
the method of accomplishment was
withheld as the inventors secret.
The observers saw a small, compact
device, looking somewhat like a radio
receiving sets chassis, but free from the
confusion of wires and tubes usually
seen inside the cabinet Of an ordinary
receiver. They heard the receiver
broadcast programs reproduced through
a magnetic loud speaker of the ordinary
type. Then they heard monograph
records amplified through the new set.
Faithful in Extreme.
In all cases the reproduction was
quality and the clarity equaled, If it
did not excel. the best the auditors had
ever before heard. This held true Of
orchestral. piano, violin, chorus and
single voice reproductions alike. The
technical men heard and examined,
somewhat obviously at first but plainly
becoming more and more impressed Is
they pursued their inquiries and con-
Quoted few tests.
A representative of DR.. Riggs read
statement, prepared by the inventor, in
which it was asserted that the set
avoids all existing circuits, including
the basic tuned radio frequency; cir
cumvents practically all patents ever
issued to cover the radio art, and opens
fields of radio development hitherto
regarded as utterly impracticable.
In substantiation of DR.. Riggs claims
to the discovery of a radio system radi-
cally different from any ever before
evolved, signed statements by Douglas
H. Kenyon of the patent law flrm OF
Kenyon & Kenyon, and Thomas Ewing,
the former United States Commissioners
of Patents, were read.
Though radically new in design, the
set is extremely simple, and its inventor
and his hackers say will be much
cheaper to manufacture than the sets
now in use or on the market. Like the
ordinary radio receiving sets, 1t employs
tubes for detection, amplif1cation and
power OUIpuIs ouO, uIlllhC ILlC
receiver, its tubes must be of special
design and manufacture. Therein lies
the secret of the new system-a secret
the inventor is guarding zealously,
though he says the principles involved
are extremely simple.
Does Away With Many Things.
Mr.. Kenyon explained-and engineers
or amateur technicians will readily dis
Germ the radical departure from common
radio theory. involved-that the Riggs
apparatus docs not include the use of
negative grid bias, push-pull system,
tuned radio frequency, grid leak and
condenser. naturalization and balancing,
regeneration, reflex arrangement or
secondary emission"
Mr.. Ewing confirmed Mr.. Kenyon's
statement in its chief details, and the
engineers in the gathering agreed after
the demonstration that the inventor had
shown that the set could do everything
he said it could do. To them it was an
obvious but still unrevealed departure
from conventional radio theory and
practice. The hackers of DR.. Riggs,
who are New York and Detroit capital
lists, whose names are withheld at pres
ent, believe that because Of the avoid
ance of existing radio patents and the
excellent performance Of the apparatus