Radio Corporation of America - Cones of Silence
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When most people of my era (born 1958) see or hear something about a Cone of Silence, they immediately think of the old Get Smart sitcom that ran in the middle through late 1960s (we have the DVD set). Don Adams, aka Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, and Barbara Feldon, aka Agent 99 (no name actually used), were the top operatives within the good-guy international crime fighting organizations known as CONTROL*. Their arch enemy was KAOS*. One of the gags used in the show was the Cone of Silence, meant to ensure a conversation between two CONTROL agents would not he heard by anyone else. The problem was that it never worked properly and the people ended up yelling to each other and/or holding up handwritten notes - both of which negated the need for a Cone of Silence. The users were most often Max and The Chief. The Get Smart series was a spoof of James Bond and The Pink Panther. Anyway, this 1949 Popular Science magazine infomercial by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) touted their anechoic foam product for use in test chambers where measurements in the audio frequency range were being made. * CONTROL and KAOS are not acronyms or abbreviations for anything, just a play on U.N.C.L.E. (as in The Man from...) Radio Corporation of America Ad - Cones of SilenceRCA scientists find way to combat noises in rooms where normal sound control methods are impractical. You think of RCA Laboratories - in part - as a place where scientists work with sound, for radio, television, phonographs. This is true, but they are also concerned with silence. One example is a recent RCA development, a way of killing clatter in places where conventional sound-conditioning - with walls or ceilings of absorbent materials - would get in your way. Overhead pipes, ducts or other fixtures might prevent the installation of a sound absorbent ceiling - and you wouldn't want to blanket a skylight. RCA's invention solves the problem in this way: Cones of sound-absorbent substances are clamped together base-to-base ... then hung in rows where not in the way. Light, inexpensive, easy to install, these "Cones of Silence" convert sound waves into heat energy, absorb from 60% to 75% of the clatter in a noisy room. How you benefit: The development of this new functional sound absorber indicates the type of progressive research conducted at RCA Laboratories. Such leadership in science and engineering adds value beyond price to any product or service of RCA and RCA Victor. The newest developments in radio, television and electronics can be seen in action at RCA Exhibition Hall, 36 West 49th St., N. Y. Admission is free. Radio Corporation of America, Radio City, New York 20. Radio Corporation of America World Leader in Radio - First in Television
Posted April 24, 2024 |
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