RELAY BROADCASTING

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 51, 23 May 1927, Page 12

RELAY BROADCASTING

SUCCESS OF EXPERIMENTS LONG-DISTANCE TELEPHONY • ' Cable. —Press Association.—Copyright ilscd. 10.20 a.m. LONDON, Sunday Broadcasting by wireless telephony to distant parts of the Empire continues to be the subject of interesting experiments, and last night’s London programme was received with complete success in Australia, India and South Africa.

Reports from Calcutta state that the news bulletin could be clearly heard, and telegrams from Australia state that the Sydney broadcasting station was able to relay London transmission for three hours.

Stations in Capetown, Johannesburg and Durban also carried out relays. The connecting link for these interesting experiments was the Eindoven short-wave station in Holland.

The possibility of Empire broadcasting was privately discussed at the Colonial Conference in consultation with Post Office technical experts: No decision has been announced, but it is understood emphasis was laid on three major difficulties, viz., the varying times, finance and technical considerations.

It was admitted that as soon as beam telephony to Australia was achieved, perhaps at the end of this year, broadcasting from Britain to Australia and New Zealand would theoretically be possible, but the British Broadcasting Company asks whether the Dominions will pay for expensive programmes broadcast from England at hours corresponding to the Dominions’ listening-in periods. Experts agree that once the phase of curiosity has passed the only demand will be for outstanding events such as speeches by the King and members of the British Cabinet, international cricket and tennis, and the Derby, for which people in the Dominion would stay up late and rise earlv. —A. and N.Z.