Show D Will Arrive They're Working on It Now By BAUKHAGE News Analyst and Commentator Is WASHINGTON Is television here to stay That has been the favorite crack in AM regular broadcasting broadcasting broad broad- casting circles for some time Now its it's been displaced by another Will arrive If 11 it doesn't say the enthusiastic stratospheric promoters millions of at people In rural areas will be unable to receive television programs for years if ever What is it The system simply puts the antennae and television transmitter in an airplane flying in lazy circles above the earth they explain I i and the sent out from this airborne k antennae blankets I j the earths earth's surface surface surface sur sur- face like a great i fl inverted Ice cream cone and covers an area aren approximately approximately ma tely miles across k v Since television waves travel in a a BA BAUKHAGE straight line and not in high leaping loops like long long- wave radio their range is limited just as human sight is limited You cant can't see nearly as far on a level city street as you can from the top of a mountain That parallel isn't an exact one but its it's a good rough comparison So television waves have to travel on a special cable underneath the ground co-axial co cable or else leap from one high tower to anther an- an ther microwave relay And the farthest they can travel is some 35 to 50 miles But waves come from a transmitter as high as the plane carrying the transmit- transmit r can fly feet well we'll say What about storms Well the say they miss most of them at that hei height ht and anyhow they can use more than one equipped plane so they can shift the point of transmission of a program from one to the theother theother theother other and thus dodge the storm They insist that they have al already already al- al ready demonstrated that this Is possible that they can deliver I haven't seen any of the recent tests so I dont don't know Naturally the although the oldest in television arc still pretty pretty pret prete ty new are arc skeptical After Alter a test held recently in Zanesville Ohio for the benefit of newspaper and radio radio radio ra ra- ra- ra dio folk many were still skeptical It t was admitted that conditions on the test day were not ideal by any means and it was claimed that there was interference from other stations which would be eliminated Variety magazines magazine's correspondent a keen observer of radio said Demonstration proved that the higher the altitude the clearer and more extensive the pick pickup For all practical purposes though the specific specific specific physical certainty of the Underground underground un Un- co-axial co or the thru the air microwave relay would seem to have the networking edge for the time being Be UBe not the first by whom the new is tried The backers of the new system Westinghouse Radio Stations Incorporated Incorporated Incorporated In In- think differently Their W t tf V f Af V Vt j. j i t V s K iv v T x j s 1 w i i This is the experimental strato- strato vision station station station-a a modified B 29 flying ying at an altitude of feet request for a commercial license was turned down by the FCC last month but they expect requirements require require- ments to be altered Glenn Martin whose aircraft company thought enough of the idea to work out the developments of the aviation end said Flying the transmitter Isone is isone isone one of the greatest single advances advances advances ad ad- vances In the history of f television sion I t talked with one of the very earnest young men who are attempting attempting at at- tempting to o convert the skeptics He seemed to have no doubts that the method equalled any other In fact he thought that competitors would fight it because it was so good The whole thing is a young mans man's I idea He is C. C E. E Chili Nobles year old radar expert whose work in that field was a valuable wartime wartime war warrn time c contribution He is a Texan hence the nickname I suppose and the story is that the idea first struck him when he was flying a plane high above his home As he ran ran over the various figures figures fig fig- ures which were in the back of ot his mind the number of miles his homo was from the nearest big city the altitude and the various other cal cal- I formulae logarithms and assorted humorous material which an electronic engineer toys with instead in In- stead of reciting limericks to himself himself himself him him- self to pass away the time he suddenly suddenly suddenly sud sud- denly thought If I J only had a transmitter with me mc and my folks had a n set and if I J had some other planes for relays they could get the tue same television television television sion programs New York does I II suppose long hours of intense work on military radar had so crowded my mind with details of its operation that I looked for radar possibilities in everything I saw the young creator said afterward Radio already had proven its adaptability and value for airplane communications and andin andIn andin in navigational aids including blind flying Turning these facts over mentally I concluded that Westinghouse Westinghouse Vesting house already had at nt hand basic engineering information which seemed to justify the ambitious plan He sold the idea to Westinghouse and Glenn Martin and they went ahead and backed his extensive not P A C. C E E. E Nobles originator of the airborne television system is shown at the twin video ideo monitoring boards in the experimental experimental mental plane to say expensive experimentation I caught some of at the enthusiasm which I know Chili must radiate from the young man who sat across the table from front me explaining the drawings Think of what would mean to the readers of your column column col eel he said We only asked for a license for forone one one- station but with more we could link up the Pacific and Atlantic coasts so that we could pick up Hollywood and New York studios I dont don't know why he left out Chicago Chicago Chicago Chi Chi- cago with only eight planes flying miles apart By adding six planes to the system to the Northwest and Southeast we could serve 78 per cent of the population lion tion And once we got the rural looking I thought what a lot of new material would be put into the telecasts to say nothing of the greatly broadened market for television sets and advertising which would be created The first experiments established the surprising fact that there were lots of television sets in areas which could not possibly be reached ordinarily by co-axial co Cable cable cable ca ca- ble or microwave At the first call for response to the test programs programs programs pro pro- grams many letters came from such areas Probably amateurs who had built their own sets and perhaps erected their own antennae anten nae on some high elevation It would seem that the country is willing to try the Nobles experiment experiment ment if it gets the chance The Russians Russian after claiming that I Inot not Marconi but a Russian invented I wireless telegraphy now are saying saying say say- ing that the electric bulb the flash light the transformer and electric welding all started in Russi Russia Next thing you know they'll claim an in invention invention invention in- in of the one thing which could make Ananias turn in his grave S S STo To get the most fun and enJoyment enjoyment enjoy enJoy- ment from bicycling it is well to know a few simple things about buying one one says the bicycle in information in in- formation bureau One thing it might be well to know is whether you have enough money to pay for it S S The biggest microscope cant can't see the cold germ but you can hear a couple of thousand coming in a sneeze S The type garden-type apartment Is the latest thing in tenant convenience About says the the Urban Land Institute only thing I was ever able to plant in an apartment was an electric light bulb but any Washington Wash Wash- ington fiat dweller can r ra rise se quite quite a herd of buffalo mot s. s |