THE VOGUE OF RADIO

Shannon News, 8 April 1927, Page 4

THE VOGUE OF RADIO

CONGESTION IN TITE AIR. DIFFICULTY IN AMERICA. SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 24. It is estimated that there are now about 20,000,000 listening regularly to radio broadcasted and it is expected that the number wiir be 28,000,000 at the end of the present year, with the gradual reduction of the cost of receiving sets below the present minimum of £1 per set. This has created a serious .congestion In the air. There are 700 broadcasting stations competing for the favour of the radio audience in the United States. It is impossible to find a wave-length that is not being used by half a dozen stations while many of them are serving fifteen or more stations, some of which are too close together. To meet the difficulty of congestion in the air, a new science, that of electro-acoustics, has sprung into being, and is devoting itself to the task of clariying programmes where they overlap through the multiplicity of wave-length users. Already some advance has been made in handling sound in tho air. Microphone technique has been improved to the extent that not only the middle register, but the high notes and low notes of music can be handled by the microphone. Modulation systems have been worked out by which distortion in radio transmission is being gradually eliminated.