ENTERPRISE

Evening Star, Issue 23681, 14 September 1940, Page 4

ENTERPRISE

PROBLEM IS SOLVED RESOURCE OF WLW ENGINEERS Our American cousins are experts at “ ballyhoOy” probably, because they pioneered the road. But they are not conscious deceivers; it is just a habit. That it strikes strangely on the uninitiated ear is because it is uninitiated. Americans understand it. Maybe, too, they expect it! Radio publicity is a prolific field—it offers a wide selection. But do not let ns be discouraged; there is yet plenty of time for New Zealand radio to blossom forth with an epic as typically Dominion as the following is American ; •

“ At Mason, Ohio, site of the WLW and WLWO transmitters, you will find some of the best engineering brains in the radio business. These engineers maintain the intricate apparatus which keeps WLW’s 50,000 watts on the air 20 hours a day. They know how to jump the power to 500,000 watts every night at midnight, when WLW becomes WLWO. They know how to shift the international short wave station W T LWO to any one of six frequencies so that South America will get optimum reception. But they can handle other engineering problems, too.

“ Just across the road from the WLW transmitter grounds is a farm. This week the well ran dry. The farmer had no water for his hogs. Could the radio folks across the way help him out ? Could they run a water hose over to his farm? Joseph Whitehouse, chief transmitter engineer, and James Baysore, tower maintenance engineer, started to think about it. If they ran a hose across the road passing automobiles would chew it up. They wandered over to the edge of the road and discovered a culvert. It ran under the road. They could put the hose through this culvert and traffic would be no problem. But how could they get the hose through the comparatively narrow pipe? They couldn’t crawl through with it. “ A little more thinking and the problem was solved. There are several pet dogs on the transmitter grounds. They took one of the dogs over to one entrance to the culvert, attached a rope to the dog’s neck, and -attached the hose to the other end of the rope. Whitehouse held the dog. At the other entrance to the culvert Baysore stood with a piece of meat. He whistled. Result—dog entered culvert to get meat, pulling rope attached to hose. When dog emerged Baysore pulled hose through, and hose thus got to farm. Hogs have water. Farmer is happy.” Well, well, well! v

The United States of America Federal Communications Commission recently granted to five additional international short wave stations licenses to use 50,000 watts power, current “ ceiling ” for such transmitters. This brings the United States total of full-power international stations to nine.