The Listeners’ Comer

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

The Listeners’ Comer

(Contributed under tho auspices of the Manawatu branch N.ZiD.X. Club G.C.W.S.).

The monthly meeting of the Manawatu branch N.Z.D.X. Club was held on the 14th at Mr J. P. Cowlishaw’s residence in Campbell street. There was a fair attendance of members. Some goo'd verifications were received considering conditions for DX have been very bad. A letter was received from headquarters referring to the question,

“Should short-wave be incorporated in the DX magazine and hold competitions, etc." After discussing the matter the local branch were in favour and the secretary was intrusted to write to headquarters to that effect. After the business was dealt w r ith the cup competions were decide i as under:— Seniors (Collinsou and Son Cup): G. Dalefield, KGKB, 1; R. Morgan, KGIR, 2; Flogdell, WSB, 3. Intermediate (Berryman Cup): G. Clemoes, WABY, I; R. Morgan, WIBA, 2; H. Newth, KOH, 3. Juniors (Tiny Cup): Flogdell only entry, WTIC, 1. V.K.S. (Henry Cole Cup): G. Dalefield only entry, VK2ACI, 1. It is understood that a new Aussie is operating on a frequency of 1090 ke. (3LK) but definite information has not yet come to hand. The following is an up-to-date list of monitoring stations in the U.S.A. These stations operate for 20 minutes on the days specified during the second week of each month. Commencing times only are given these being P.M. and in N.Z.D.S.T. There are no monitoring tests on Sundays. Monday.—7.o, WLNfi 1310 kilocycles (100 watts); 7.0, WJBO 1420 (100); 1.10, WBRB 1210 (100); 7.20, WMAS 1420 (100); 7.30, WWRL 1500 (100); 7.40, WMBR 1370 (100); 7.50, WOPI 1500 (100); 8.0, WMSO 1420 (100) ; 9.U KLS 1440 (250); 9.30, KALB 1420 (100); 10.0, WGCM 1120 (100); 10.30, KWG 1200 (100); 10.40, KG MB 1320 (1000). Tuesday. —7.0, YVBAX 1210 kilocycles (100 watts); 7.10, WDAS 1370 (100); 7.30, WFGB 1310 (100); 7.50, VVEBR 1310 (100); 8.0, KDAL 1500 (100); 8.20, WHEC 1430 (500); 8.30, WNAD 1010 (100); 8.40, KFVS 1210 (100); 0.0, KOOS 1390 (250); 9.0: WBRB 1310 (100); 9.30, WJAY 610 (500); 10.0: WSPD 1340 (1000); 10.0, WSAY 1210 (100); 10.20, WXYZ 1240 (100); 10.30, WGAR 1459 (500); 10.40, KQV 1380 (500). Wednesday.—7.o, YVMFJ 1420 kilocycles (100 watts); 7.10, WAIM 1200 (100); 7.20, KYOL 1310 (100); 7.30, WHBQ 1370 (100); 7.40, WKAQ 1240 (1000); 7.50, WSJS 1310 (100); 8.0, KABR 1420 (100); 8.10, KLON 1290 (100); 8.20, KFPL 1310 (100); 8.30, KGBX (1230 (500); 8.40, KFJJ 1200 (100); 8.50, KARK S9O (250); 9.0, WHBU 1210 (100); 9.10, WCOC 880 (500); 10.0, KFJB 1200 (100); 10.30, KLDB 1210 (100). Thursday.—7.o, VVSVS 1370 kilocycles (50 watts); 8.0, WQAN SBO (250); 9.0, KXO 1500 (100); 9.30, KSON 1200 (100); 10.0, WTRC 1310 (100); 10.0, KHBU 1420 (100); 10.0, WWAE 1200 (100); 10.10, KTRB 740 (250); 10.20, WIBM 1370 (100); 10.30, WALR 1210 (100). Friday.—7.o, WGNY 1210 kilocycles (100 watts); 7.30, WABY 1370 (100); 7.40, WNRI 1200 (100); 7.50, WSYB 1500 (100); 8.0, KICA 1370 (100); 9.0, KIUL 1210 (100); 9.30, WPAD 1420 (100); 9.40, WEMP 1310 (100); 10.0, KIUN 1420 (100); 10.10, KGEK 1200 (100); 10.20, KMAC 1370 (100); 10.30, WIL 1200 (100); 10.40, KGFG 1370 (100). Saturday.—7.o, WMFR 1200 kilocycles (100 watts); 8.0, KOTN 1500 (100); 9.10, KONO 1370 (100); 10.0, KIT 1310 (100); 10.10, KBTM 1200 (50); 10.10, KRKO 1370 (100); 10.20,: KGEZ 1310 (100); 10.30, KFXD 1200 (100); 10.40, IvXRO 1310 (100); 10.50, KGY 1210 (100); 11.0, KINY 1310 (100); 11.10, KMED 1410 (100). Some interesting information lias come to hand from the N.B.C. Radio City, New York. It has been said often —and bears repeating—that radio lias gone a long way since the days of the amateurs with their crude transmitting and receiving equipment. When wo think back to the early days of KDKA to its birthplace in a garage at Pittsburgh in 1920 and then encompass the panorama of Radio City—verily radio has travelled. In 1921 Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company opened WJ* as an experimental station at Newark, New Jersey. A small building was erected on the roof of a large factory for the purpose of housing a 500

watt transmitter. An erstwhile cloakroom draped with a few odds and ends including old rugs and furnished with nondescript chairs, tables and a rented piano and a phonograph became the studio. Later the Radio Corporation of America acquired WJZ and transferred the studio and transmitter to Aelian Hall, New York City. In August, 1922, a year later, The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, anxious to study the possibilities of radio broadcasting, inaugurated WEAF in New Y'ork City and presented the first of a never-ending flow of programmes. In October, 1927, the newly-formed National Broadcasting Company, combining the facilities of WJZ and WEAF, moved “uptown" to the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and FiftyFifth Stret. Again in the short span of six years NBC's quarters became cramped and in the fall of 1933 the company moved to their present quarters in Radio City.

Here are a few fleeting impressions of the tremendous activity behind the broadcasting in Radio City. Thirty thousand programmes are broadcast yearly —days of writing, planning and rehearsing are necessary to produce one radio performance—half a thousand engineers planning, developing, constructing and operating this tremendous centre of radio entertainment—a score of production directors, stop watches in hand, direct, edit, and time a hundred broadcasts a day—sound effects, engineers, the property men of radio operate the ingenious devices for setting radio’s

sound ‘‘sceneryI’—hours 1 ’ —hours of rehearsal in order to give you minutes of perfecr, entertainment—tho traffic department clears and orders 35,000 miles of loops to the 88 network stations —the world’s most elaborate air conditioning plant supplying pure “mountain top" climate

to the 10,000 people who work and visit in the NBC Studios daily—at the master control board tho nerve centre of the major coast to coast networks, amid a glittering array of lights, switches, buttons and dials, engineers dispatch programmes thousands of miles to the uation wide networks. Nerves of the Networks.

Networks of the National Broadcasting Company form a gargantuan nervous system sending its impulses into the homes of 61),000,000 listeners. Its tentacles are 18,000 miles of specially engineered telephone wires. its nerve endings are broadcasting stations —BB of them —scattered from coast to coast and tied together by wires.

The successful transmission of a nation-wide programme involves exact co-ordination o the efforts of hundreds of men. It involves split-second timing, perfect team-work, infinite precision in planning. For a programme originating in New Y’ork the networks trace their activating impulse to a broadcasting studio in Radio City. A red second-hand of an electrically synchronised clock ticks away the seconds to tho “zero hour," tho instant when the programme must start out over the systen. to be heard simulancously from coast Tts coast.

Tho announcer runs up tho theoretical curtain on the show. As the time for the cue approaches he faces a black desk studded with tiny buttons and lights. When the lights flash the cue has come, the channels are open. Tho announcer presses the proper combination of buttons and that simple gesture ties the studio to the intricate maze of telephone wires which convey the programme to NBC’s associato stations trom New York to San Francisco.

But the stage for that simple operation already as been laid by scores of men, engineers of the NBC and the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, stationed all long the path which the programme will take over the radio nervous system. As the sounds of the programme enter the microphones they flash first through a little

glass-insulated room -where an engineer watches volume, balance and modulation, then on the main control room

from which they are sent to the A.T. and T. central office. From there the programme races at the speed of light over the pre-set wires which take it to the stations of the desired network,

which in turn put ;t on the air for listeners in all parts of tho country.

The networks, incidentally, are. made up of various station groups, which are tied together in different combinations for different programmes, and this is where the famous NBC chimes come in. The three notes serve as a cue to the engineers at switching points that the time for a new, pre-arranged, alignment of stations is at hand.