INTERFERENCE PROBLEM

Evening Star, Issue 22460, 3 October 1936, Page 4

INTERFERENCE PROBLEM

DUTY OF RADIO INSPECTORS In these days of all-wave-radio, when the listener ranges the world for his entertainment, the question of interference with reception of radio signals is of great interest to a wide circle of readers (says an exchange). They 7 will bo reassured to know that this problem is being watched constantly by 21 radio inspectors of the Post Office, and also receives expert attention from the department’s engineering staff. In addition, there are at a number of post offices throughout the Dominion officers of the telegraph branch, etc., who attend to interference complaints as occasion requires. The full-time inspectors are stationed at Auckland, Hamilton East, Hamilton West, Wellington, Masterton, Nelson, Palmerston North, Wanganui, New Plymouth, Napier, Gisborne, Christchurch, Timaru, Dunedin, Invercargill, and there are part-time inspectors at Blenheim and Greymouth. These officers have some extremely interesting experiences, as demonstrated from their regular reports to headquarters. What is the most common source of trouble experienced by radio listeners? Electric power lines are so prominent a feature of the New Zealand landscape that there is a very natural tendency on the part of listeners to x’egard the reticulation system as the source of most of their troubles. The listener is right occasionally, and if there is a fault of this nature it is quickly remedied, for the electric supply authorities of the Dominion co-operate with the Postal Department in a most prompt and effective way to eliminate this cause of radio interference. However, there are many localities in which it is almost impossible to secure perfect reception A house is sometimes found to be electrically shielded, and radio signals extremely weak at that point, although a few yards further along the same strop! reception will he perfect from the nearest broadcasting station. One of the first people to broadcast an entertainment from London, Ronald Goiirley, has been broadcasting regularly since 1922. The result of the first tests of a “ radio-meter,” described some time ago, which records the times a. receiver is turned on and off, and what stations it was tuned to, shows that in about a thousand Boston homes, at 6 o’clock, the £SOO a year and over group wanted news reports, the middle group wanted dance music, and the less than. £250 a year group wanted melodrama.