THE DEMON STATIC

Shannon News, 22 November 1927, Page 4

THE DEMON STATIC

HOW IT ORIGINATES. The chief reason that it is so difficult to eliminate static is < that it comes-from so many different sources of disturbances.- It' is as though Nature wera sending from thousands of radio stations of her own, tuned to all possible wave-lengths and frequently of great power. The result is> since static comes in on all wavelengths, that no matter where we tune our receiving-set it is impossible to avoid it. Th only difference between the static waves and the waves from radio stations is that static is very broadly tuned. This enables sharplytuned • receivers to discriminate to a certain extent in favour of the radio signals; but even at best this affords very little help. Static, we believe, is generally causd by, electrical discharges in the atmosphere. Much „of it undoubt; , edly comes from lightning and nonluminous discharges in thunder clouds. In. regard to non-luminous discharges from thunder clouda. it has br'en suggested in England that the cloud may discharge quite as readily to the upper conducting atmospheric layers as to the earth. Mr. Watson Watt, who.for some years has been conducting in England an investigation into the origin of static, has concluded that in only about 35 per cent, of the cases given could thunderstorms" be identified as the sources of these disturbances, but that in 75 per cent, the sources were rain a ions of some kind.