Mr. PLUMMER. I have already mentioned that. Those are used in vacuum tube factories in the industrial process of building tubes. They are essentially radio transmitters. It is possible for them to radiate. We have already had a number of cases of interference from these devices. The CHAIRMAN. General, if you differ with the engineer's answers, will you please speak up? General ANKENBRANDT. The question is whether they radiate or not. They are all potential radiators if hooked up to an antenna. They are normally not. In that respect I would say that none of them really are not, in the minds of the Department of Defense at least, being covered. However, if they become useful radiators by subversion or otherwise, then they do come within the provisions of this bill. The CHAIRMAN. The question is whether they are covered by the bill or not. That is the point we are working on now. Senator MAGNUSON. They probably all radiate. It is a question of degree. General ANKENBRANDT. May I make one general statement on that, Mr. Chairman? I would like to invite your attention to the first five sentences of the bill which describes the purpose, and that is where our minds are. It says: The purpose of this Act is to provide for the greater security and defense of the United States by controlling or using electromagnetic radiation in such a manner as to minimize or prevent navigational aid to any foreign country in an attack upon the United States. That is the purpose of the bill. Senator MAGNUSON. Those recitals sometimes do not mean too much. General ANKENBRANDT. No, sir, but that goes behind why I say if this is a powerful radiator, it would come under this because it could be useful. But if it is only a minor radiator or not radiating but a few feet or a few hundred feet, the answer is "No," it does not come under the purposes of this bill. The CHAIRMAN. The object of the present question that is before us is to reduce this language to cover specific devices. That is what we are trying to do here. We are trying to find out what devices are controlled. If you have any difference of opinion with Mr. Plummer, we would be very glad to have you speak up. If you agree with him General ANKENBRANDT. I think we have a complete meeting of the minds. These are potential radiators. Not all of them are radiating to the point that they fall under the purposes of this bill, normally. The CHAIRMAN. Let us get away from the purposes of the bill and stick to the technical language of the bill. General ANKENBRANDT. All right, sir. The CHAIRMAN. What the purposes of the bill are and what the bill does might be two different things, and that is what this committee is interested in and trying to find out at the present time. Is there anything further on vacuum tubes? Mr. PLUMMER. No, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Neon signs? Mr. PLUMMER. The next three-neon signs, Pasteur ray lamps, and mercury vapor sun lamps-are all devices used in the home or in stores to give a certain amount of radiation, broad-band radiation on which we get a certain amount of interference cases at the Commission, As to neon signs, there is one kind that is being manufactured now that gives a little more trouble. It consists of a 25- to 100-watt radio transmitter or generator, and the output is put on the neon sign behind the sign. The letters and the sign have no physical connection with the output loop. They plug in the letters so they can change the sign. The owner of the store has a lot of these letters made up and he can plug them in. We have run a lot of those on the west coast, manufacturers out there. We have tried to guide those on to the diathermy frequency, 27.12 megacycles. Food cookers are next. Those I believe we have all heard of. I often hear them called "hot dog cookers." They are manufactured by several manufacturers. The idea is to cook food very quickly. They again are small radio transmitters. I believe one manufacturer has about a 150-watt transmitter. It is around 2,400 megacycles. Potentially it can radiate. There are other possibilities. Senator MAGNUSON. That is what they call the radar ranges. Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir. Exactly what I am talking about. The CHAIRMAN. Do they have many of them in the city of Washington? I have seen one at the Statler Hotel. Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir; there is one there. I have not seen very many. They are used in hotels, restaurants. The CHAIRMAN. Your monitor system searches them out, does it not? Mr. PLUMMER. Let me say this about our monitoring system: We operate mostly on the basis of interference complaints. There is a vast difference in going out aggressively and finding potential sources of interference that may be in the radio spectrum and operating on interference complaints. The vast difference is the size of the budget, because if we chase everything down it takes a lot more people than we have now. The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you do not do anything unless somebody squawks? Mr. PLUMMER. That is about the present situation, Senator. The CHAIRMAN. And you do not keep any patrol or try to correct these electronic noises unless somebody complains about them? Mr. PLUMMER. I would not say any. In what spare time we have, between cases, we cruise the spectrum to look for various troubles. But our cruising is not anywhere near complete. The CHAIRMAN. This is a little off the subject, but it is very interesting. I would like to pursue it very briefly. How many monitors do you have operating in the 24-hour period in Washington, D. C.? Mr. PLUMMER. Our nearest monitoring station is at Laurel. We have an around-the-clock crew at that particular station. However, as I say, they are working principally on cases that come to us from many sources, the other Government agencies, including General Ankenbrandt's shop, and they are principally cases where somebody comes in and says "There is interference with my aviation frequency" or something, and we chase it down. We only sample check the spectrum looking for trouble. I do not know the exact figure, but I doubt if it is over 4 hours a day that we are just cruising to look for trouble. The CHAIRMAN. What do you means by cruising? Mr. PLUMMER. We set a man down with a receiver and he just tunes through the various frequencies looking for something that is unidentified or looks like it is giving interference, or trouble. The CHAIRMAN. Does he continue that during the 24 hours? Mr. PLUMMER. No, sir. We do not have sufficient staff to do that for 24 hours. We just sample check. The CHAIRMAN. Food cookers: you covered that. Mr. PLUMMER. And we have already covered motors and generators. Substation switching gear is next. The CHAIRMAN. On motors and generators, all motors and all generators do radiate, do they not? Every motor of every kind, even an electric razor? Mr. PLUMMER. An electric razor radiates. It is all a matter of degree. Well-built ones, there is practically nothing. When you get into some of the older motors we get interference complaints from listeners about interference to their radio. We generally find there is some motor in the building. There has been quite a bit of trouble with elevator motors. Substation switching gear, I have already partially mentioned. After the power gets out of the powerhouse, in some cases there are leaks in the switching gear or transformers or lines, and we get interference complaints from that type of situation. Senator MAGNUSON. Why is it that when you are driving, say, particularly in my country when you hit the great, big, huge transmission lines, your radio is so bad that you can not hear it? Is that radiation from the lines? Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir. Generally there is a little leak somewhere from that line to the ground which causes an arc which generates a form of radiation. Senator MAGNUSON. You find that frequently when you are driving. When you hit a high power line your radio will go bad. But that is a leak, that is not the normal process of the line? Mr. PLUMMER. Usually it is a leak, because most of the cases we have had of interference on this, if the power company really went to work on this they generally could get the noise level down so it would not bother you much. The CHAIRMAN. I have never driven close to a line yet that it did not leak. Senator MAGNUSON. I want to get this clear on the record because this is very important to me. Those huge generators, say the generators in a dam the size of Grand Coulee, generating 60,000 kilowatts apiece, they are not radiators? Mr. PLUMMER. Our experience has shown that there has been very little trouble with that. Senator MAGNUSON. Is that because of the huge concrete that they are encased in? Mr. PLUMMER. I think it is just a case of well-designed generators, so that the radiation is down. As I say, the trouble usually comes out on the line. Senator MAGNUSON. After it gets out on the high power line? The CHAIRMAN. If there are no shorts or no leaks in a generator, they do not radiate? Is that the point? Mr. PLUMMER. That is about it. If they are in good electrical mechanical condition. Spectroscopes: There are some now that have a small radio oscillator or transmitter in them. They are a scientific instrument. Usually very low power. We just have that on the list. We happened to have had an interference case or two on them. Welders: There are quite a few welders used in industry today that use a radio frequency generator to either start the arc or to sustain it. We have recently had a petition from the welders' industry to change our rules to make it clearer how they fit under our rules. There is very definitely a small radio transmitter there. The problem is that the welder has to go around in a plant, go inside of an aircraft or tank or an automobile or a piece of industrial equipment, and there is a chance for radiation there. General ANKENBRANDT. Mr. Chairman, I think I would like to clear up one point. As I read this bill, ten-thousandths of a megacycle is 10,000 cycles. Ten thousand cycles, motors and generators do not radiate. None of these 60 power devices are covered by the terms of this bill. They fall outside of the frequency spectrum we are talking about. Mr. PLUMMER. Fundamental frequency. General ANKENBRANDT. The harmonics of those, which became smaller and smaller, would possibly fall in. We are talking about 10,000 cycles on the bottom-side radiation, up to 100,000 megacycles. That is another factor, you have to determine how many harmonics there are, how much it is radiating and so on. Senator MAGNUSON. You have also to gage that by the possibilities at the receiving end as to how sensitive they are. General ANKENBRANDT. They might become sensitive enough to get down into the lower level, and that we do not know. You are talking about harmonic radiation of some of these 60-cycle divisions, perhaps. Mr. PLUMMER. In the case of the leak in the power line it is not harmonic, it is like any high spark generator and gives out a radio frequency energy. Spark gap diathermy and therapeutic devices: That is another variation of the diathermy machine. In this case instead of using a narrow band radio frequency generator or transmitter they use a broad band. At one time, many years ago, the spark gap machines were actually used for radio transmitters. They are practically gone now, but they happened to work very nicely in this diathermy. X-ray equipment: Again it is mostly a case of leaks. Right at the moment I cannot think of any cases of X-ray machines using radio frequency generators. It is a case of the condition of the apparatus. I would like to make one remark about this list. This is only a partial list that we made up based mostly on our interference cases we have had over the past several years. These particular items happen to crop up oftener. There are lot of others. Senator MAGNUSON. Here is a letter from the Secretary of Commerce on the bill, from which I will quote one paragraph: Although the terms of the bill are broad enough to include not only radio transmission devices but also much other equipment as electrodiathermy machines, radio receiving sets of the superheterodyne or super-regenerative type, television receiving sets of the superheterodyne type, automobiles, and electric shavers although they say it does cover that legislation of this type would appear necessary. Mr. PLUMMER. Yes, sir. The ignition systems of automobiles are another broad band radiator. They are a radiating system of sorts. We did considerable work 2 or 3 years ago with the Automobile Manufacturers Association and the Radio Manufacturers Association to see if they could get the general level of interference from the automobile ignition systems down. Unfortunately I am unable to tell you the progress in that at the moment, because I have not had close contact with it lately. I know there was some progress. I believe the Radio Manufacturers Association at the time was worrying about the potential interference from automobile ignition systems to television sets. Senator MAGNUSON. But radio receiving sets in automobiles do not radiate, do they? Mr. PLUMMER. I do not ever remember any particular cases of that. This item of superheterodyne receivers has been a problem. Many radio receivers have a little oscillator in them that puts out a watt or so that is used to change the frequency in the receiver. There has been some trouble lately that these oscillators radiate onto the air and cause interference to other receivers. That came up especially in the case of television sets. We have had a case where FM receivers were radiating, causing a certain amount of trouble to CAA. Senator MAGNUSON. This may not be pertinent, but how do those new sets work, where there is no manual on them. They run along until they hit a station and they stop, no matter where you are. is a homing device in reverse, is it? That Mr. PLUMMER. That is an electromechanical method of tuning your receiver. Senator MAGNUSON. There is no manual control on them. No matter where you are, whether here or in San Francisco, you just press a button and it runs along until it hits a station and stops. Mr. PLUMMER. It is some method of remote tuning of the receiver? Senator MAGNUSON. Yes. Mr. PLUMMER. Some years ago Philco had a receiver of that type on the market, where you dialed a little dial and it tuned your receiver across the room. We actually put out rules at that time to cover that particular short-distance communication. That was part 15 of the rules. Senator MAGNUSON. What about the television sets? We want to be sure that we do not stop America's entertainment. Mr. PLUMMER. We have been working for a number of months with the Radio Manufacturers Association and other radio manufacturers, to see if we cannot get them to get the value of radiation from their television sets down to a much lower value than the sets they were putting out, we will say, a year ago. There has been considerable progress in that field. Senator MAGNUSON. But they would be included under the bill? |