World Radio

Every delegate of the 80 nations attending the International Radio Telegraph Conference, which closed seven weeks' work at Washington last week, who wished to do so walked into the State Department building and ceremoniously fixed his name to the conference's 26,000-word treaty. Thus ended the largest conference of nations in history. And there had been no broils.

The conference was necessary because there are a limited number of channels in the ether through which radio communication can pass. Several messages at the same time upon a particular wave length, or too near it, destroy each other over a wide area of the earth (interference). Traffic regulations were needed.

The conference allotted channels of from 10 to 100 kilocycles to long distance transoceanic service; 100 to 500 primarily for ship-to-shore and aircraft service; 500 to 1,500 to broadcasting; 1,500 to 6,000 (apportioned into 40 different bands) to four or five varieties of service, including amateurs. The 80 signing nations have entire freedom to make rules within their own countries. They must not interfere with neighbors. Distress communications have priority over every other kind. For wireless telegraphy (dot-&-dash) the universal distress signal continues to be SOS. For radio telephony (voice) the distress signal becomes the French M'aider, pronounced as the English May Day.

Secretary of Commerce Herbert Clark Hoover, who was president of the conference, epitomized its works for the delegates the last day; said: "We have dealt here with physical facts in debate and conclusion. There are problems in international relations which of necessity arouse natural emotions, and in such fields of imponderables they become doubly difficult of solution. There are many such possibilities in this conference, but through rigid adherence to the scientific approach and a fine spirit of co-operation they have been avoided. I wish again to emphasize the fact that 80 governments have been able to come to unanimous conclusions upon a most difficult question. It sets another milestone in the progress of international relations." The 200 delegates applauded.

A few minutes later they were subdued--in memory of Rear Admiral William Hannum Grubb Bullard, who had died the day before of heart trouble, aged 60. He had been an important U. S. delegate to the conference and spent very much time on several of its 150 committees. Also he had been chairman of the U. S. Radio Commission since it was formed last March to regulate the bedlam of the air. President Coolidge appointed him to that post because Admiral Bullard had kept in touch with every step of wireless communication since it first became practical in the 1890's. President Wilson also appreciated him; detached him from naval duties so that he could act as director of the Radio Corporation of America.

The Radio Corporation of America is really Admiral Bullard's personal achievement. In 1919 British Marconi interests wanted to buy patent rights to the Alexanderson alternator, invented at the General Electric Co.'s Schenectady laboratories. This was considered the best device for trans-oceantic and ship radio work. Admiral Bullard argued with every personage whom he could reach that Americans must keep ownership of those patent rights. The result was The Radio Corporation of America. But R. C. A. could never have been organized except for the hearty co-operation of U. S. manufacturers of radio devices. Owen D. Young of General Electric became R. C. A.'s chairman, General James Guthrie Harbord its president, David Sarnoff its managing vice president.

He was the second member of the U. S. Radio Commission to die. Commissioner John F. Dillon died in September. Last week Commissioner Henry A. Bellows, high power salesman of his own optimistic ideas and the dominant member of the commission, resigned. Only Commissioners Orestes H. Caldwell and Judge Eugene O. Sykes of the original five remain and only the appointment of Commissioner Sykes has received Senate confirmation. Last week President Coolidge named Sam Pickard a commissioner. He had been the Commission's secretary. Another new appointment is Harold Lafount. They have no chairman. When the commissioners organize they will probably again rearrange wave lengths assigned to broadcasters.