Abstracts of Articles from Bell System Sources 



North Atlantic Ship-Shore Radio Telephone Transmission During 

 1932-1933} Clifford N. Anderson. This paper extends the anal- 

 ysis of ship-shore radio transmission data for an additional two-year 

 period beyond that reported on in a previous paper. Contour dia- 

 grams show the variation of signal field with time of day and distance 

 for the winter, summer, spring, and fall seasons and for the approximate 

 frequencies 4, 8, and 13 megacycles. 



A comparison is made with the data obtained during 1930 and 1931. 

 In general, transmission during 1932-1933 tends to be somewhat better 

 on frequencies below about 9 megacycles and somewhat poorer on fre- 

 quencies above 9 megacycles. At 4 megacycles the increase is of the 

 order of 10 decibels, and for 13 and 17 megacycles, the decreases are 

 about 6 and 10 decibels, respectively. 



Loudness, Pitch and the Timbre of Musical Tones and Their Relation 

 to the Intensity, the Frequency and the Overtone Structure} Harvey 

 Fletcher. It is generally supposed that the three psychological 

 characteristics of a musical tone, namely, loudness, pitch and timbre, 

 are each directly dependent upon the corresponding physical charac- 

 teristics of the sound wave producing the tone, namely, intensity, fre- 

 quency of vibration and overtone structure. In this paper it is shown 

 that each of the psychological characteristics is not dependent upon a 

 single one but upon all three of the above mentioned physical charac- 

 teristics. Quantitative measurements of these relationships have been 

 made using a large number of observers. For example, it was found 

 that one tone may have the same pitch and loudness as another and 

 yet have an intensity 100 times as great, the difference being due to the 

 difference in the overtone structure; or two tones may have the same 

 pitch and overtone structure and yet have frequencies of vibration 

 that differ as much as 5 per cent, the difference being due to the differ- 

 ent intensity of the two tones. An empirical formula showing the 

 dependence of loudness upon the three physical characteristics men- 

 tioned has been formulated although no such formula has been found 

 for showing a similar relationship for pitch. Such a relationship is 

 shown graphically for pure tones. Also some very marked effects upon 



1 Proc. I. R. E., October, 1934. 



2 Jour. Acous. Soc. Am., October, 1934. 



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