RADIO LOG BOOK

Evening Star, Issue 23699, 5 October 1940, Page 4

RADIO LOG BOOK

Short wave programmes from London on 31.35, 25.53, 19.82, and 19.66 metres will be heard in Dunedin from Sunday between 6.15 and 10.5 p.m., instead of at 4.57 to 8 p.m. as previously. News will continue to be transmitted at 6.15.

Air lines in America are inaugurating a service which will enable travellers to enjoy radio entertainment. Connected to a receiver operated by the hostess, individual speakers are placed at all seats. By adjusting one padlike speaker against one ear, a passenger may listen to the programme without causing disturbance to others.

It is common knowledge that radio signals have a wider audible range over sea than over land, and it seems that this is equally true of television. Passengers on an American liner running to Bermuda have “ looked in ” on New York when 100 miles away, and it is expected by engineers that a 200-mile range will be practicable.

The National Broadcasting Company and Columbia Broadcasting System have announced they will get along without music controlled by the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers known familiarly as A.S.C.A.P. Networks claim A.S.C.A.P. wants too much money for the right to broadcast its music. The radio people have set up a competing organisation, Broadcast Music (Inc.), to supply their needs. The A.S.C.A.P. decision would go into effect on January 1.

When the 8.8. C. announcer says • “ You have just heard Big Ben . . .” most listeners no doubt believe that the station has switched across to the boll tower. That used to be done, but now the chimes wc hoar arc from recordings. This is called to mind by an inquirer who puts this old one (which has been answered more than once before) : “ is it true that we hear Big Ben in New Zealand before people in London do? ’’ If Big Ben was-broad-cast direct it would be true. It is accepted as a scientific fact that radio waves have the same speed as light, 186,000 miles a second. That means that the signal takes only one-fifteenth of a second to travel halfway round the world. The speed of sound is measured not by hundreds of thousand miles n second, but by mere thousands of feet. Hence the listener within a few feet of a radio receiver at the end of the earth would hoar the chime sooner than a person who was in a street only 100yds from the big bell. A special line from the speakers' stand in Calloway Park, Klwood, Indiana, replayed tho acceptance speech of Wendell Willkie to WLW listeners when he was formally notified of his nomination. Tho population of Elwood (normally 11,000) was expected to zoom

to 250.000 for tho event, and several hundred acres of growing corn around Calloway Park were cut down to make room foi tho visitors. All major networks picked up the Willkio acceptance speech.