WIRELESS COMPLAINTS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 304, 15 March 1928, Page 11

WIRELESS COMPLAINTS

“ESCAPE OF ELECTRICITY”

TROUBLE AT OTAHUHU POWER BOARD’S ATTITUDE Indignation is being expressed by owners of wireless sets between Otahuhu and Papakura at what they beh'eve to be an “electrical escape.” At present owners of valve sets find it impossible to tune into IYA. Overtures have been made by some of the dealers and owners to the Auckland Electric-Power Board to test their wires. There is a continuous crackling, like static, only more consistent, and it is utterly impossible to understand any of the items being broadcast. The trouble is worse near the railway line and the board’s high tension wires. A large number of licence-holders are not renewing them while the trouble exists, and many intending purchasers of sets have delayed placing th© order on account of the unreliability of the service. BOARD’S WILLINGNESS “The Power Board is only too willing to do anything it can to avoid these troubles,” declared the general manager of the Auckland Board, Mr. R. H. Bartley, to-day. Faults and troubles, he said, would always be occurring and listeners often jumped to the conclusion that the cause must be the board’s wires. On one occasion officials had spent some time in the Grey Lynn area, tracking down a cause of complaint. Finally the fault was discovered on a consumer’s premises, and it had nothing to do with the board’s work. “Such apparatus as violet-ray outfits and small motors in which the commutators are sparking, or bad connections give an electrical discharge which has its effect on sets,” said Mr. Bartley. “It is a very difficult thing to locate these troubles. We ar© & commercial concern and the amount of time which can be spent in investigation is limited. We realise that we should do as much as possible and quite recently we have purchased a portable set for detecting troubles. This will aid us in carrying out our policy.” Several members of the board’s technical staff, he said, were interested in radio, and they were most sympathetic to listeners. Never had the board refused to consider complaints; on the contrary it had always followed a policy of giving assistance in every way practicable. Of course, there had been some “wild-cat” ideas put up by amateurs which had been accepted with courtesy, but which did not bear looking into. In regard to the Papakura complaint the board had not been approached by the Listeners’ League, but by a commercial concern. Th© board’s officials had been actually on the job for some time and this evening another attempt was to be made to discover the cause of the trouble.