Radio in Mass Transit

In the Fall of 1949 Chicago was installing radio in it's buses. A short list of stations were even being considered for the right to be aired inside the buses: WMOR-AM, WBBM-AM, WFMF-AM, WBIK-FM, WJJD-FM, This was a big change. Car radios debuted in the 1930s, but these were mostly add-ons. Cars did not come with radios standard for a couple more decades.  Ford pushed it as an popular option starting in 1950 and it took off. In 1952 Blaupunkt became the first maker to offer FM receivers but AM remained king for another 30 years. Why were Transit companies and city governments so keen on installing FM radios in their transit vehicles?

The first company was Transit Radio Inc. based in Cincinnati. In July of 1948 they launched the service in Covington, Kentucky installing 100 sets in the cars of the Newport and Covington railway. A Month later St. Louis was announcing plans to install radios in their buses to get news, time and weather reports from WXOK-FM. In Washington D.C station WWDC-FM  worked out a similar deal. Eventually over 1,000 buses and rail cars were equipped. Other cities followed in the first year: Houston TX,  Wilkes-Barre PA, Worcester MA, Huntington WV. It was a captive audience that advertisement wanted a piece of. The public reaction was mixed to say the least. A survey by the Edward G. Doody Company determined that 80% of riders found radio made their ride more enjoyable, 6% found it less enjoyable and 14% were ambivalent. They complaints were initially dismissed as a vocal minority.

When mass transit vehicles added radio to existing vehicles there was nearly no consideration for acoustics.  In the previous century acoustics had been acknowledged, but poorly understood. Even symphony halls were still designed in what's called a "shoebox configuration." The world's first scientifically designed symphony hall was only built in 1900, and it wasn't much different than those that preceded it. Imagine a 48-foot long aluminum and steel tube with an antenna, spark plugs, speakers and a radio. It's a metal box, it vibrates, sounds reflect and scatter. The saving grace of the bus was in that it is usually filled with humans. Compared to steel and aluminum we're pretty squishy. We provide a lot of acoustic absorption. In Chicago General electric and WGNB-FM tested their system and got specific complaints. One account in Billboard magazine described the reaction of the Chicagoan guinea pigs:

"One of the complaints of the public tested with sample uses of transit radio here has been irritation caused by lack of controlled volume. When vehicles were crowded, top volume was used.  But when there were fewer riders continued high volume was disturbing."

In the book Broadcasting the local news Lynn Boyd Hinds described committees forming opposed to radio in transit vehicles. Some people didn't like the idea of being bombarded by advertisements. In 1949, the first year of transit radio, complaints were being filed not just in Chicago, but with the transit authorities in Washington D.C. and others. Eventually it went to the courts. In 1952, after two appeals transit radio was declared constitutional. It was a show trial, with one justice even recusing himself. You can read the legal brief here.  Broadcasting Magazine summed up the verdict with a bit too much entitlement:  

"It sanctions the birth of a new advertising medium.  It affords opportunity to a substantial number of FM broadcasters to earn a return on their investments."

It may seem today to be an over-reaction. But try to compare it to the ire you give TV networks when the commercials are louder than the programs. The problem some thought, was really just one of volume. There was a valid argument for this. While loud speakers were already 70 years old, the electric amplifier was not. More here. Without a a modern amplifier, loud speakers aren't very loud in 1949 they were using tube amps, not solid state. Tubes themselves barely date to 1907 with DeForest. Radio was listed to at home in the parlor, car radios were a luxury.  So in every practical sense, these engineers had little prior work to base their implementation on.

General Electric, REI and Stromberg-Carlson came to the rescue with radios that automatically adjusted volume based on the number of riders. 21 Cities were using the devices so thsi was no small market.  Stromberg-Carlson probably got some Chicago contracts for virtue of being a local company. Alfred Stromgberg and Androv Carlson founded their first company in 1894, then a series of others. In 1910 they began making headsets, and other radio parts. They like others tried to tackle the problem in 1950, but as advertisers shied away in the face of the very public court cases... the service faded  away.

The binaural Emory Cook

For a number of years, Emory Cook was considered a truly exceptional audio engineer. He was born and raised in Albany, NY and attended Cornell University. He worked for the Audio Engineering Department at Western Electric. He was a strong proponent of binaural sound, an inventor and audiophile. He once described binaural sound thusly:

"Stereophonic recording differs from Binaural in that the microphone placements are selected for loudspeaker reproduction. Binaural properly applies to a two-channel system designed for headphone reproduction. It thus requires the use of two channels fed by microphones spaced about seven inches apart."

Those magic 7 inches represent the average distance between a pair of normal human ears. it's the founding idea behind binaural sound. It is supposed to put the listeners perspective sonically where the sounds on the recording or broadcast originated. I consider it a subtype of stereo sound. Stereo sounds being if nothing else.. at least less specific. More here.

It's strange, but binaural sound actually predates stereo. In 1881 Clement Ader installed pairs of carbon mics on a Paris opera stage for telephone subscribers to listen in. How is this separate from the evolution of stereo? It's not. They're inextricably linked. Every step in the evolution of stereo sound can also be claimed by the evolution of binaural sound. The only difference is snobbery. There is a gri-gri quality to binaural sound that stereo lacks. But let's get back to Emory. There was a lot of gri-gri to him as well.

Emory created a record player with two needles meant to play records with two parallel grooves. He founded Cook records in 1949 and eventually put out more than a hundred binaural LPs. His plant was based in Stamford Connecticut. Emory was using his personal brand recognition to hype a series of binaural LPs: Sounds of the Sea, Nightmare in the Mosque, Speed the Parting Guest. He demonstrated them at the Worlds Fair. They're all over eBay now for the kitsch.

But there were also radio broadcasts were live like Toscanini, WQXR string quartet and the Godina opera hour. But this was 1952. stereo sound was entirely new in broadcasting. WQXR was achieving "stereo" by using it's using its AM and FM stations towers as separate Left and Right audio channels. Was it stereo, was it binaural? I don't distinguish a difference. Binaural enthusiast will tell you this was the first binaural broadcast. I think it's bunk. In 1925, on 5XX the BBC had broadcast stereo with the Left channel on medium wave and the right channel on long wave. That's 27 years before WQXR. WGN-AM and WGNB-FM did the same thing in 1952 just a few months before WQXR. All they're beating their chests over is microphone positioning in the source audio. It's bunk; clever bunk, but bunk nonetheless.
The irony is that in the process of supporting the bunk idea of binaural audio the very educated and clever Cook actually made other developments. He made microphone and amplifier improvements that made it possible to record audio above 20,000 cycles, he even developed a process to press vinyl in a powdered form to reduce surface noise. Previous to this they were always pressed starting with a preheated puck of vinyl, a technique based on shellac 78s. He called the new technique “microfusion.” Sadly it didn't catch on.

Emory Cook died in 2002 at the age of 89. Emory donated his master tapes, patents, and papers to the Smithsonian Institution in 1990. Obit here.