CQ-KHBRC

When Howard Robard Hughes took off from Floyd Bennett Field last week (see pp. 36, 43) engineers feared that he might be flying out into radio silence. There was sunspot trouble. Only a few-hours before the take-off RCA's mighty Riverhead, L. I., communication station had a complete wipe-out of shortwave signals. The Hughes route (a northern circle notably poor for radio transmission) did not look promising.

But hour after hour, as she crossed the Atlantic, the Hughes plane's KHBRC signal thundered down the ship's wake into Ground Radio Chief Charles Perrine's receivers at Flushing, L. I. In the plane, Radio Engineer Richard R. Stoddart adjusted the length of the trailing antenna, controlled at will the direction of the radio beam he was transmitting. He had achieved in the design of his transmitter an efficiency formerly impossible in airplane radio.

From Yakutsk, Siberia, his CQ (calling all stations) carried 4,837 miles to Hermosa Beach, Calif. During earlier tests from Wichita, Kans., it was heard in Honolulu, 4,226 miles away. Altering the length of the harmonically operated antenna gave his radio beam virtually any direction he chose. When the antenna trailed its rubber wind sock at full length, the signal was concentrated straight on the spot to which the plane's nose pointed, straight back in the opposite direction. This gave maximum performance down the two most desirable paths, forward to the next destination, back to the last point of departure. With the beam so concentrated, the 100-watt main transmitter's effective power swelled to 250 watts. When sending to a station out of the direct line of flight, reeling in the antenna changed the beam's direction. For a long antenna wire sends short-wave signals in directions close to its own line; a short wire fires the signals broadside. A rigorous test of this transmitter was one of the chief purposes of the flight. It stood the test.

On the receiving end, NBC, CBS, MBS pricked up their radio ears, stayed on the air all night, vied for scoops. CBS estimated total costs for its coverage of the flight between $15,000 and $20,000. NBC made an estimate of $12,000, not including talent costs for sustaining programs between Hughesflashes. MBS did the job for $1,500, playing records during the spare time.

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