A RADIO RAMBLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 810, 2 November 1929, Page 1

A RADIO RAMBLE

SIDELIGHTS ON A UNIQUE EXHIBITION CLOSING SESSIONS TODAY A place of melody, novelty and variety is the Auckland Radio Exhibition, now on the final lap of its popular 1929 session. This afternoon and evening will present the last opportunities of visiting a little colourful wonderland of wireless, where all the very latest reception instruments are grouped for demonstration and comparison. * * * Even the most casual tour of the exhibition is an eye-opener for one whose acquaintance with radio is not of the closest. It is evident at once that vast strides have been made in recent months. The innovations of yesterday are the commonplaces of today, and still newer ideas are presented . . .

Take that important feature —design. It is not long ago since radio as a home entertainment was the biggest kind of novelty. To produce sound and speech from the outer world was such an achievement that the owner did not bother whether his apparatus was housed in a cabinet or a kerosene case. Today the home radio set must be as attractively built as any gramophone or piece of period furniture. Those in practically every stall of the exhibtion are a revelation. There are floor cabinets, and wall cabinets, table stands, and stands combining radio with the gramophone. There is even a radio set that looks like an antique charcoal brazier.

A radio exhibition, like a poultry show, has a noise all its own. Auckland’s 1929 effort has noise aplenty—cheerful, melodious noise that intrigues mightily and attracts one to every stall. Songs, orchestral numbers, and announcements boom out of loud-speakers of every possible size and shape from a mammoth outdoor affair to a tiny trifle, cunningly carved and draped with silk. Nothing is offered in so much variety as loudspeakers. They are square and round, tall and short, oval and oblong, flat and bulgy. Withal they are highly efficient, and attractive in performance —calculated to win over the most hardened opponent of aerial entertainment.

It is the i.duty of one busy official to see that the enthusiastic vendors of rival sets do not “drown each other out” with a roaring spate of sound. He flits from stall to stall, toning this giant instrument down and allowing that smaller neighbour to tune up and show its paces. "What's making that knocking noise?” asked one visitor, probing at a magnificent cabinet over which presided a proud demonstrator. The expert explained that the man in the next stall was tuning, thus causing the mischief, but the visitor was dubious. So the official was called and he marched to the next stall. Magically the noise ceased, and the visitor was satisfied.

A number of rotary converters are to be found in one stall. In the next are cabinet sets demonstrated both inside and out. In the next are samples of inter-office telephones built on the radio principle. Again, there are electric pick-ups for gramophones, and home motion picture sets whose close commercial association with radio entitles them to a place in the show. Yet another interesting stall supplies radio literature of all descriptions, offers special service to amateurs, and repairs faults. One booth is devoted to samples of amateur set-building. So it goes. Each attractively-decor-ated stall holds some special attraction. Every exhibit is different in some interesting way. Finally there are the novelties of the show, in themselves worth a visit to the Town Hall. First, and perhaps foremost, is the free radio “telegraph” service covering the whole of New Zealand. At this obliging stall one may send the greeting of the radio exhibition to friends anywhere. Nearly 200 of these were forwarded on the first day and the booth is busier than ever. In another corner of the hall is a curious set from which comes a noise like a trap-hammer in rapid action. Investigation discloses a small watch ticking away against a microphone. The “ticks” are amplified to giant proportions. • All this is* only the surface of the Radio Exhibition of 1929, and covers just a fraction of the displays in each stall. No one who desires to keep abreast of the latest developments in this fascinating science should miss the final day. Similarly no one who | proposes to join the ranks of radio enthusiasts can afford to miss a unique opportunity for concentrated examination and direct comparison.