FLIMSY AERIALS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 59, 1 June 1927, Page 11

FLIMSY AERIALS

FORESTS OF DISFIGUREMENT SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS ON DESIGN. RADfO. one of the most remarkable industrial developments of modem tunes, certainly has come to stay, but since Its advent our cities a d towns have become a veritable forest of unsightly aerials. To the average listener an outdoor aerial is essential, but there is no reason at all Wfiy it shoulu not be made an embellishment to the building on which it is erected, instead of a disfigurement to its surroundings. A visitor to Christchurch cannot help being impressed by the hideousness of quite a large proportion ot the aerials in and around the city, some of which are hardly worthy of the name of aerial.

The most unsightly type is tfiat which ghres the impression of flimsiness, jne sees everywhere thin poles that have given gradually under the strain imposed upon them, until they are warped and twisted into all manner of qu?er and distorted shapes. The cost of a sensibly stout pole is so little greater than that of a thin, flabby one that there seems little

stack by means of iron bands, which the local blacksmith will be able to make.

Failing a chimney-stack, the attachment at the house end should be made to the highest possible point of the building. This may be done very well by fixing a plate with a ring attached to it to the brickwork by means oi RawPlugs. Resides their unpleasant appearance and their liability to collapse in a heavy wind, flimsy masts have one very great drawback from a technical standpoint. There is no doubt that everyone should aim at a minimum height of 30 feet for his aerial. In most places every foot less than this an appreciable difference to the strength of reception. INCREASED RANGE. In the course of experiments it was found that as the aerial was raised foot by foot from 15 feet upwards there was a rapid increase in both range and signal strength until a height of 30 feet was reached. Above thgt height there was still an increase in both, though it was not so marked. And now for the wires themselves. There is no need, unless you specialise in long-wave reception, as hardly anybody does nowadays, to rig up such a monstrosity as the sausage aerial. This kind of thing forces itself upon the eye, and even the most enthusiastic wireless man would hardly maintain that it was beautiful. Actually you will lose nothing in the way of signal strength, while you will greatly increase your selectivity, if you employ a single well-insulated wire for your aerial. And do not make it too long. If the suspended wire is 30 feet or so above the receiving set, then a span of 30 or 40 feet is ample. It is essential that the spreaders should be long—the wires should he at least seven or eight feet apart—and

point in choosing the latter, especially when one considers that the strong pole will last for years, while the fish-ing-rod affair that some people put up is in danger of coming to an inglorious end whenever the wind becomes a little boisterous ADD TO APPEARANCE.

If you want to make your aerial look really well, remove all the bark and trim up the surface exposed with a spokeshave. Having smoothed down the pole, give it two coats, or, better still, three, of white paint, and provide it with a neat truck. This, besides adding immensely to tljc appearance of the mast, is a really useful fitting, since it prevents moisture from getting into the grain of the wood at the top. Give your mast o chance by staying it efficiently. Up to a height of 30 feet or a little more one set of stays should be sufficient, and if you have not room for a complete set of four, a good hackstay will often do quite well. Where there is not space for an ordinary back-stay, which should meet its ground anchorage at a point not less than half the height of the mast from its base, the trussing system, as shown in Fig. 1, will answer very well. When the height r>f the mast is much •ver 30ft, two sets of stays are preferable, one set being taken from near the top of the mast, and the other from its mid-point.

In all cases, wire should be used for staying purposes, since rope expands in wet weather and contracts in dry. Insulators should be inserted in the stays, to prevent them from absorbing energy that should go to the aerial. And now for the house end of the aerial. Here, again, anything in the way of flimsiness must be avoided. A short mast attached to a chimney-stack —be sure before you do this that the stack is a sound one—looks well and is quite effective. A very good attachment Is that shown in Fig. 2, where the pole is flrmlv anchored to the chimney

they should be painted white in the same way as the mast. They, again, must avoid any kind of flimsiness; nothing looks worse than spreaders which bend under the strain of the wires. The best material to use is bamboo, which, though light, is enormously strong. Lastly, make your mast fittings neat and trim. The pulley may be quite a small affair, and the thin wire halyards should be secured to a cleat fixed four feet or so above the foot of the mast. EXPERIMENTER.

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