RADIOMEN CONFER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 856, 27 December 1929, Page 10

RADIOMEN CONFER

ANNUAL CONVENTION DELEGATES IN AUCKLAND Southern delegates to the first annual convention organised by the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters are viewing Auckland -today. This morning visits were paid to many of the stations worked by amateurs in the suburbs, where messages were sent to friends in other centres. After lunch in the Mount Eden tea kiosk the party set out in buses on a comprehensive sightseeing tour of the City, ending with a visit to station IYA during the afternoon transmission. This evening delegates will attend the Regent Theatre. Business will begin in earnest tomorrow. At 9.30 a.m. delegates will meet at the Leys Institute, Ponsonby, to discuss questions relative to the progress of short-wave transmission in the Dominion. In the evening a dinner will be held in the Akarana Yacht Club rooms. A picnic at Motuihi Island has been an-anged for Sunday. The association has been instrumental in improving the regulations regarding transmissions by amateurs in the Dominion. During the past year, as a result of representations to the Postmaster-General, the licence fee has been reduced from £2 to £1 10s, equal to the receiving fee, and the regulations amended to allow all except commercial messages to be sent from one amateur to another.

It was this last that made possible the transmission of greetings to friends from visitors to the rcc-ut Auckland Radio Exhibition held in the Town Hall. Messages landed in at the N.Z.A.R.T. stall were sent by a land line from the hall to four stations in the suburbs. They were then broadcast on the short waves to amateurs in the various centres, where they were posted, thus saving a full day in the case of Southern messages. Aucklanders sent a total of 627 greetings by this method.