DBS Makes Bow

NINE P.M. AND DBS salutes the campus." With these words the Dartmouth Broadcasting System made its official bow on Monday night, October 27, bringing to realization two years of dreaming and planning by a group of radio-minded undergraduates and providing the College with a new educational medium of unlimited possibilities.

The inaugural program in the Little Theatre was filled with music, drama, and entertainment, featuring Coach McLaughry and Nancy Carroll of stage and screen fame; but predominant was the serious feeling that a major responsibility had been undertaken and that an historic moment had been reached in the life of the College.

Dean Lloyd K. Neidlinger '23, speaking on behalf of the administration, hailed the campus network as a unifying force and described it as the most important development since the abolishment of compulsory chapel, which earlier provided a close, day-by-day link between the official College and its students. Prof. Stearns Morse, chairman of the newly organized Radio Council, also pointed out that a special opportunity as well as a fascinating undergraduate activity had now been presented to the students.

DBS is receiving the financial support of the College in its first year and, beyond its eight-man undergraduate directorate which is headed by William J. Mitchel Jr. '42, of Teaneck, N. J., is being controlled by the Dartmouth Radio Council of faculty and administrative members. The College has also provided studios, control rooms, and offices in Robinson Hall. It is expected that income from commercial sponsors will eventually enable DBS to meet its operating costs.

Present plans call for three hours of broadcasting daily, Monday through Friday. One hour in the afternoon will be de voted to campus news, popular music, and classical records. The nightly broadcasts will draw upon the faculty extensively for talks, round-table discussions, and interviews. World figures visiting the campus will occasionally be presented to the students by means of the campus network. The DBS Drama Workshop made its debut in the opening broadcast with a radio adaptation of Archibald MacLeish's America Was Promises, and its presentations will be featured in the future. Undergraduate musical organizations, both serious and popular, are expected to find a new incentive in the student broadcasts, and DBS directors have announced that so far as possible every phase of campus life will be represented in their programs.

Like the campus radio systems at Harvard, Brown and other colleges, DBS uses a method of con trolled-wire broadcasting. Radio signals are sent by telephone wire to buildings where transmitters have been installed. Since the broadcasts do not carry many feet beyond each building, they can be privately operated without federal control. In addition to the College's 21 dormitories, the home of President Hopkins and the Graduate Club are also wired for DBS programs, and it is expected that fraternity houses and other social centers will eventually join the DBS chain, giving the nearly complete and unified audience which Dean Neidlinger would like the official College to reach regularly.