First Experiences of a Radio Broadcaster

MILLIONS of persons have enjoyed ‘listening in’ on the radio telephone during the year of its marvelous popularity. The history of communication shows no such phenomenal advance. Hundreds of textbooks have been issued, and there are a score of magazines published in the interest of radio telephony. Besides (and here is probably the secret of this remarkable growth) all the newspapers regularly feature radio concerts and lectures. Although thousands of lecturers, musicians, and other artists have used this latest means of reaching the multitude, but little, strange to say, has been written concerning the art of broadcasting. Here, then, is the confession of an amateur broadcaster!

A few days before the occurrence of this initial experience, I had been given notice that I would ‘have the air’ for fifteen minutes at a certain hour. Realizing that all new experiences provided their own thrills, whether they were flying, submarining, or any other unusual performance, I made careful preparation in advance: the twelve hundred words comprising the talk were carefully written out. This draft was corrected; it was talked into a dictaphone, and in listening to my own voice I detected several faulty voice placements.

These errors were corrected, and the roll was laid aside for a few hours; then, on taking it up, I imagined myself a ‘ man on the street ‘ picking up the ear-phones, and listening. With that imaginary circumstance in mind, I found numerous spots where the ‘story’ could be improved. This made another dictation necessary, and another manuscript. In short, nothing was taken for granted.

Fifteen minutes before the fateful evening hour, I hailed a taxi and was driven to the broadcasting headquarters. The radio station was on the roof of a large office-building, the lower floor of which was unlighted save for a desk at the entrance.

As I opened the door, a small figure stepped out. He was in the uniform of a hotel page, which was tight-fitting, begilded, and emblazoned with the insignia of what we shall call ‘TFI — The Tribune, Los Angeles.’ Before I could open my mouth in inquiry, this diminutive person said to me, with a comical insolence impossible to describe, ‘Walk to the end of the hall; take the elevator to the roof — they’re waiting for you!’

‘But — ‘ I ejaculated, ‘I am — ‘

‘That’s all right,’impudently interrupted the boy; ‘I “called” you the first time; you ‘re one of those broadcasting guys, a — a regular scientific gent that comes up here to give the radio fans highbrow stuff.'

I made no reply; for, indeed, what could I say? As it was after business hours, the office elevator was out of commission, and I opened the door of the automatic lift. These highly efficient but mysterious contrivances always fill me with apprehension; I’d rather take a fifteen-thousand-foot flight any day in an airplane, or get into a diving-suit, than risk myself in one of those boxes with their rows of buttons marked ‘B, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and R.’

I mustered up courage and touched ‘R.’ There was a clang of iron in the basement, and I rose steadily, stopped; and before I could open the elevator door the outer door swung wide and a smartly gowned girl greeted me with that ‘afternoon-at-home’ air, but with the addition of that grave, subdued professional welcome we associate with an undertaker’s assistant.

‘We are all ready for you; just step this way, please. Mr. Smith is expecting you.’

The lobby was hung in lilac tapestry; all lights as well as sounds were subdued; the environment was calculated to fill one with that awesome feeling incident to undertaking-parlors. And when Mr. Smith, who was ‘TFI — The Tribune, Los Angeles,’ appeared dressed in funereal black, patentleather shoes, and a black moustache to match, I was ill prepared for his cordial greeting. But my fears were realized when, with finger on lip, he opened a heavy, padded door and ushered me into another lilac-tapestried room.

This room was without windows, the walls were thick and evidently soundproof. Softly shaded lights shone from sconces, and the word ‘Silence! ‘ glowed in electric letters on the walls. A grand piano occupied a prominent position, and before it, like a lectern, rose a black disc.

There was another such disc on a little desk at which the announcer was about to seat himself. I was waved to a place on a bench already partially filled by a somewhat agitated row of ‘artists.’ Said the announcer,‘TFI — The Tribune, Los Angeles. Master Robert Bruce, the boy soprano, will sing “Autumn Leaves" by Nevin, accompanied by his mother, Mrs. Matilda Bruce.’

Robert, who had been apprehensively sitting by me, now rose unsteadily to his feet and stumbled to his place in front of that mysterious black disc.

The fond mother struck a chord, the poor boy opened his mouth; but not a sound came forth. He tried again, and as I sympathetically watched him I saw that, although he stood sturdily enough on his pipestem legs, his knickerbockers flapped about them in his nervous chill.

The mother struck another resounding chord; a faint squeak came from those agonized lips, and ‘Autumn Leaves’ by Nevin was radioed.

As I fatefully witnessed the performance (such was my own excitement that I heard not a word), my companions on the bench trembled violently in sympathy. I thought of that other performance witnessed many years ago, when Los Angeles was a small town and the schoolchildren came in long processions to be vaccinated. As the public-health doctor scratched the arm of the child in the front row, the child next in line began to bawl, and the cry was taken up, and away down the line of children the wailing progressed. And so it was on that broadcasting bench: the ' buck fever ‘ was infectious.

When my turn came, and the blackcoated announcer proclaimed, ‘TFI — The Tribune, Los Angeles,’ and proceeded to give the title of the address and the speaker, I groped my way to the presence of the black disc, thanking my lucky stars that I did n’t have to stand, like the boy soprano, but was given a chair, and thus eased my trembling legs.

Realizing that every murmur would be reproduced, I as noiselessly as possible laid the crackling sheets of my address flat on the desk.

‘Speak in a natural tone of voice, don’t hurry, and remember that every sound you make will be heard by hundreds of thousands of people,’ enjoined my undertaker friend.

I began to talk, and I tried to appear unaffected; fortunately my address was memorized, for had dependence been placed on the written words alone, I should have broken down; for huge blank splotches appeared all over the typewritten sheets, and the words of my speech were invisible. It was a case of nervous astigmatism. Again and again I spurned my faltering self to action and to proper presentation. Platform fright is not usual for me; of course, like most public speakers, I keenly feel the focused attention of a thousand or more pairs of eyes; but after the first few seconds, I rally, and then their effect is to produce a tremendous reaction which is stimulating to a degree. Had I permitted my imagination to picture the countless number of men, women, and children from the Pacific coast to the Mississippi River, and from the Canadian boundary to the lonely ranches in Mexico, not to mention the many ships at sea, all ‘listening in,’ then indeed would my fortitude have forsaken me.

The next morning, one of my friends called me on the telephone: ‘Say, that was an interesting talk you gave; I heard you when I was having my after-dinner coffee in the den, and I could n’t help but think how comfortable I was, seated in my easy-chair with the ear-phones in place, and how uncomfortable you must be. But you did pretty well for a first time — you only gave three gulps.’

Radio-broadcasting managers tell me that invariably people are afflicted with stage fright when they first attempt broadcasting. Is it not the knowledge that every sound will be registered, and that they get no reflecting sound of their own voices?

Not long ago, ‘TFI — The Tribune, Los Angeles’ received an appeal by foreign mail, from Cuba: ‘For heaven’s sake, turn off that faucet: I hear the dripping of water every time you put on a programme and I tune in.'

Investigation showed that within sound-registering distance of the transmitting disc was the provoking leaky faucet.

Again, do not all unusual, not to say unnatural, environments inspire dread ? I know that my first airplane and balloon flights caused sickening nervousness, as also did my first descent into the sea, although clad in a diver’s suit. All children fear their first trip in an elevator as well as their first dip into the ocean or lake.

Doubtless fear of the unseen is largely responsible. With a multitude of people before one, the public speaker or singer becomes stimulated, and accomplishes much more than would have been possible if he had appeared before a few friends. Caruso once said that he would rather sing through an entire opera at the Metropolitan than make one phonograph record.