TANGLED WAVES

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 81, 29 December 1934, Page 6

TANGLED WAVES

A Radio- Mystery

A special committee has been set up as the result of the recent meeting of the International Scientific Radio Union in London to tackle one Of the most extraordinary problems ever encountered in radio science. The committee has set itself the task of finding out why, when a radio listener tunes into a talks programme, say, from a station like Droitwich, which radiates on a wavelength of 1500 metres, he hears instead a programme of dance music coming from Athlonc —the wavelength for which is only 531 metres. Interference is not unusual when the stations are approximately the same wavelengths, but when their wavelengths are as far apart as in the case of Droitwich and Athlone such reception constitutes something new to radio experimenters. It has been found to happen with many other pairs of stations. Professor E. V. Appleton, one of the foremost authorities bn these subjects, and a number of other leading scientists are following a remarkable line of. investigation. It suggests that when the pro-

gramme transmitted from Droitwich travels in the form of wireless waves to the upper atmosphere millions of miles above the earth it cuts across the programme being broadcast by a station such as Athlone. Somehow the waves of the talk’s programme from Droitwich get mixed up witli the music waves coming from Athlone—scientists do not really know how —and the result is that the music goes to the Droitwich listeners and at certain times the talks go to Athlone listeners. So impressed are radio scientists with this new phenomenon that they are to call on the World Radio Research League—the organisation of amateur experimenters formed by the 8.8.0.—t0 help them. Mr. Ralph Stranger, secretary of the league, told a reporter, “The .subject has infinite possibilities. “It is fascinating to think that if such interference between stations can be controlled it may become a vital force in warfare.

“Wireless war propaganda, for instance, could be changed by an enemy country.”