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Show OOOOOClOOOOOOOOOOOOCIOOOOOOO 8 SIMPLICITY t OF RADIO P By POWEL CROSLEY, JR. COOOOCXDOOOOCXXXX30C)CKDOOOOO THE BROADCASTING EQUIPMENT The first piece of apparatus that we see when visiting a broadcasting studio Is the microphone. This mysterious mys-terious looking device is really nothing noth-ing more than an especially designed and highly sensitive telephone transmitter, trans-mitter, such as one talks into whenever when-ever one carries on a conversation v ever the telephone. The transmitter unit Itself Is hung by springs inside a microphone case, to protect It from shocks and jars, and what one sees, therefore. Is really the case, the little microphone hi-ing suspended inside It. The sound waves in the studio are picked up by the microphone and carried car-ried us telephonic current over regular regu-lar telephone lines to the broadcasting station. Both at the studio niul the station, amplifiers consisting of radio tubes, coils and other equipment are connected to the lines to strengthen the telephonic currents. At the station, complicated electrical elec-trical equipment Is provided for generating gen-erating alternating electrical currents of high frequency. In reality, this .'qtiiptnent Is not any more complicated, compli-cated, ami not nearly so massive, as that of the ordinary electric power plant. The currents generated by it are alternating, or vibrating lit nature, na-ture, flowing for an instant in one direction di-rection and then in the other, just like the electric current In your light line. They are different from the light current cur-rent in that they Uncinate, vibrate, or hange their diroe:ion of tlow, many more times per second. Tr create these rapidly vibrating CS. "iimnls. especially built generators. Koniowh.it resembling those use.' in power plants, i.iey be employed. A much simpler method, and a much more satisfactory one, is to use le.nl ndU. lubes --merely large oditicis of the tubes used In radio receiving sets, j When connected to the proper equipment, equip-ment, and properly adjusted, these bulbs of mystery act as generators of alternating, or vibrating electric current. cur-rent. Now a characteristic of these rapidly rap-idly vibrating electric currents Is that they send off "radio waves" from bodies In which they are flowing. It Is merely necessary to connect this generating equipment to a wire, or system of wires, suspended high In the air, and ji considerable amount o! energy will he sent forth as radio waves. Tiie highly suspended system sys-tem of wires is called "aerial" or "an tenna." "Tt is like the mouth whence comes a loud voice, calling around the earth to radio sets everywhere." The telephonic currents from the studio are so connected to the transmitting trans-mitting equipment that they control the strength of this radio voice. Tluis, the transmitting station sends out n replica of the telephonic currents, the chief difference being that instead of traveling along wires it goes through I space as radio wines. . i |