"The Alajor," FM and Good Listening                 9

operated by point-to-point FM transmission, thus eliminating the
considerable telephone line costs of network operations and in¬
cidentally keeping financially-pressed \ATMZ on the air by giving
the Allentown station free programs originating at ^^'QXR in
New York. We started the experiment, and as soon as the good
music programs and The New York Times news broadcasts
reached that area we received enthusiastic praise from listeners
who welcomed this unique service.

W'hen it heard about the Allentown experiment, the Rural
Radio Network with headquarters at Ithaca, New York, asked
for a similar arrangement. Owned by the Grange League Federa¬
tion, the Network was operated for the dissemination of agricul¬
tural information via F.M radio to the members of the Grange. It
comprised about a dozen FM stations on mountain tops or other
high locations across New York State from Poughkeepsie to Ni¬
agara Falls.The proposal \\as to relay programs from \^'QXR part
of the day and ex-ening across the state and hopefully to obtain
sponsorship for all the stations. If this concept could develop into
an FM network without telephone lines, it would extend the value
of Major Armstrong's invention.

Service to the Rural Radio Network started July i, 19J0. with
some degree of success, varying according to the technical effi¬
ciency of each station. Other broadcasters throughout the North¬
east asked to join and eventually we had an F.M network with only
one short telephone link. There were fourteen stations in the
WQXR Network covering most of the State from Njw 'S'ork
City to Niagara Falls, and beyond from Boston in the north to
Washington, D.C., in the south—probably the most densely popu¬
lated area of the United States. An FiM network was potentially
valuable to WQXR as a source of network income and to The
New York Times as a means of distributing their nexx'S broad¬
casts more xx'idely.

But alas, the plan never worked reliably or conunercialh".
WQXR built a network sales staff but never had enough volume