Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-01
"Grahan

II Ado is developing 50 fast that even
the people in 1t can't keep up to
date on all the latest wrinkles. once
upon a time I thought broadcasting
engineers were infallible, but now
know they are as frail as the rest of us.
The other day visited the transmit
ter of one of our stations in company
with an engineer who is chief of very
important branch Of our engineering
work. A few years ago he was assigned
TO transmitter operation, but he's been
out of that about three years. 1 was
rather impressed with the elaborate ap-
paratus necessary just to shoot the pro-
gram out on the air after it had been
delivered over the wire from the stu
dos and asked couple of questions
as to the use of some odd-appearing
jiggerS on one of the panels. The en-
gineer with me looked intently at one
of the doodads, scratched his head re-
flectively and finally had to ask one of
the resident engineers how it worked
AS a mater of fact, the different
branches of radio are becoming so spe-
cialized that one man can't keep up
with all the developments. This is
having o noticeable effect on the en-
cheering personnel in the broadcast
ing studios. In the beginning most of
the men were recruited from the radio
shacks of ships. Stations had to have
men who knew something about radio
and there weren't enough of them with
general engineering background to go
around. The situation Is changing now,
however. Almost every young man who
Is taken on In the engineering depart
mentS of broadcasting companies is a
graduate engineer or has had equiVa-
lent training. The men most desired
are those who, after obtaining their en-
cheering degrees, have gone to sea as
radio operators to obtain the practical
experience. But before even these men
can be of much use around the studios
they have to go through an intensive
training course. When they have fin
ished with this they are ready to begin
their careers of usefulness.
Many ships operators who learned
their stuff from experience without
much academic guidance have made
themselves into mighty fine general
the minority. Generally, 1t Is the
thoroughly trained man who gets the
chance to advance, and the percentage
of university trained men in the tech
nical side of broadcasting is growing
rapidly But even the best of them
can't name all the gadgets offhand.
have added Ramon Novarro to my
list of people call real troupers-
regular guys" to slip from theatrical
into common slang. He was up against
q tough proposition in his recent broad
cast and he came through with plenty
of credit to himself.
Novarro has never sung over the air
and he was frankly nervous about 1t.
When he agreed to broadcast he stip-
ulated there should be no visitors in the
studio. He felt he couldn't concentrate
on his job before the microphone II
the place were filled with spectators, as
interested in seeing him as in hearing
him sing.
When he arrived in the studios in the
afternoon to give the engineers and
acoustic technicians a chance to get
his mike measurements" physically
and vocally, work stopped. Every man
on that floor of the general Offices found
himself suddenly bereft of his secretary.
1t turned out that about 40 of the girls,
knowing Novarro was coming, had
brought autograph albums to work that
day and the rest wanted to get q good
look at him. It took small bodyguard