Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-26
Behind the MicrOphone
BY THE RADIO EDITOR.
- LARENCE A. O'BRIEN,
Washington patent au-
4 thority, an authority on

- LARENCE A. O'BRIEN
A Washington patent au-
y 4 thority, an authority on
basic patents, thinks that
the public, absorbed as it is in the
recent development of radio, is
prone to overlook its Indebtedness
to the hundreds of inventors who,
working over period of centuries,
have made radio possible.
The average receiving set, Mr..
O'Brien declared, contains thou
sands of feet of copper wire, but
how many radio listeners know
that the art Of drawing wire is
aScribed to Rodolph of Nuremberg
about 1410, and that mills for this
purpose were set up in Nuremberg
in 1868? Prior to that time, wire
was hammered out-wholly made
quate for the niceties of radio
where the wire is frequently finer
than human hair.
AS a reminder of the radio audi
ence's obligation to the inventors
of the Observation-Disclosures Ora
ham Bell in 1875, Edison, Gray,
Blake and others-Mr. O'Brien
points out that the National
Broadcasting Co. in it's national
network relies on from $4,000 to
$4,000 miles of telephone wire.
The microphone, as essential to
radio as to the telephone was in
vented by Emil Berliner.
Marconi's development of radio,
says Mr.. O'Brien, has tended to
eclipse the work of James Clerk
Maxwell, the great British physi-
cist who in 1865 first promulgated
the theory fundamental to radio,
demonstrated by the German
scientist Heinrich Hertz in 1887,
long before Marconi made his con-
tribution. The United States Pat
ent Office lists in the past few
years the names of numerous in
ventorS without whose work radio
would not have reached its pres
ent perfection.
Had Maxwell perfected a radio
back in 1865, Mr.. O'Brien explains,
radio broadcasting as now known
would then have been impossible.
There was no telephone or net
work of telephone wires. Dyna-
mos had not been developed to the
necessary efficiency, while the pos
sibility of electrical transmission
of power came later
1.-THE progress of electrical de-
velopment, so essential to radio"
says Mr.. O'Brien, must be traced
through hundreds of names -
Michael Faraday, who discovered
the principle of the dynamo in
1881; James Watt, James P. Joule,
Sir William Watson, Charles A.
Coulomb, Andre M. Ampere, G. S.
Ohm, Carl F. Gauss and many
others in addition to the long list
of American contributors to cleo
trical research, since Benjamin
Franklin's day.
GAS far back as 321 B. c., the
ancient philosopher TheophraStuS
mentions the power Of amber to
attract straws and dry leaves,
Pliny, in 10 A. D., writes concern
ing the same phenomenon, and 1t
is from 'electron,' the Greek name
for AMBER that we call this phe-
nomenon electricity"
Mr.. O'Brien also calls attention
to the fact that the radio tube is
a vacuum, and that Evangelist
Torricelli, Italian physicist, first
discovered the vacuum in his eX-
periments on the barometer, at
Florence, in 1913. The first pri-
mary battery was constructed in
1899 by Alessandro Volta, and de-
veloped by Daniel, Meidinger and
others, following the Leyden jaI
of 1745.
"All of these" says Mr.. O'Brien
"and many others working in
kindred fields have made diScov-
cries without which radio as today
known would be impossible. If we
go further into broadcast enter
tainment and investigate the be-
ginningS Of the various musical
instrumentS-the organ, the vio-
lin, and other orchestral pieces
we should again find long list
of inventors and contributors to
the improvement Of instrumental
music through the ages"
n Il II
A MOS M ANDY set another new
mark for the first time in
radio"
When the boys started their two
! shows a night it was an innova-
ton in the field of broadcasting
Now they go that schedule one
better. Beginning tomorrow they
begin showing three a night"
The only actual time change
will be in the central and noun
tain time zones. They will be
heard at 10 o'clock in the central
time belt and 8 o'clock from sta
lions in the mountain time zone,
instead of 1890 and $50.
The eastern broadcast will con-
tinue as at present, from TOO
to 7:15 pm. to eastern time zone
stations.
On the Pacific Coast, Amos n
Andy will be heard at the same
time as at present, $50 to 8:45,
except that it will be fed by a
special third broadcast from Chi
cago.
The third broadcast has been
arranged with the idea of fitting
the available time on the net
works to the time most convenient