Postwar Bets

After compiling 4,559 pages of testimony for guidance, the Federal Communications Commission last week got ready to shift many a tenant of the U.S. airwaves. So doing, FCC laid some bets on the Buck Rogerishness of the postwar world.

The Commission seemed to find the most fascinating possibility of all in the civilian walkie-talkie. The walkie-talkie, which had not been allowed out in public before, got a ten-megacycle highway to stroll in. If a plane can now talk to the ground, and a tank commander to his tanks by walkie-talkie, FCC reasoned, why can't a store direct its delivery trucks while they are on the move? Or, suggested the New York Times, instead of an aproned farmer's wife yoohooing to her husband in the field to come in for lunch; why not just give him a call on 460 megacycles? Other possibilities: reaching physicians who are out on a call, finding hunters lost in the woods. "The essence of this new service," commented the Commission, "is that it will be widely available. Accordingly . . . only a few minimum traffic rules will be set up. ... No technical knowledge will be required."

Other FCC decisions:

Frequency Modulation (static-less radio) got twice as many commercial lanes as formerly. But it will be moved up into a higher frequency area, so that today's 500,000 FM sets or attachments will have to be converted or junked. FM operators were opposed to moving "upstairs," but FCC said it had inside military information that the present lanes are unsatisfactory.

Commercial Television was cut from 18 to 12 lanes. Eventually, FCC expects, it will have to move up to higher frequencies, to make possible full-color television, with bigger screens and clearer images. (If so, today's 7,000 sets will have to be junked. So will any manufactured later for the lower frequencies, unless designers can find a way to change them over.) But that day will not come until the advantages are "developed and proven."

Subscription Radio (subscribers pay 5-c- a day to rent a gadget for their radios; with it, they can tune in a station which carries no commercials; without it, anyone tuning the same frequency hears only a "pig squeal"). FCC has not made up its mind whether this is "technically feasible" now; meanwhile, no frequencies for it.

Most of these changes will not take effect until the war is over, and manufacture of civilian radio and television equipment can be resumed. FCC wanted manufacturers, station owners and gadget buyers to know well in advance where they stand, so they can plan accordingly. The Commission will listen to objections to its air-rationing plan, beginning on St. Valentine's Day.

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