HOW TO TUNE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 943, 9 April 1930, Page 7

HOW TO TUNE

HINTS FOR BEGINNERS These tuning tips are for the beginner only. They are intended for the newcomer to radio, taking over a set for the first time. Tuning a radio set, although almost automatic after a while, seems to offer all sorts of minor difficulties to those who have never done it before. The actual tuning is done by means of a rotating knob that moves a graduated scale, fixed to a variable condenser. Some sets have one knob to tune and some have several. The tendency these days is to "gang” all tuning condensers so that the one knob moves them all. There is a right and a wrong way ot tuning. A station has not been properly tuned in unless it has got louder and louder, reached a maximum, and started to get fainter again. The tuning point, of course, is the loudest spot, but it is impossible to discover this spot until the tuning control has been moved past it. When signals start to get faint the other side of the loud spot moves back the other way until they get loud again. By sweeping backward and forward a few times the really loudest spot can be selected easily. The makers of a radio set never intended you to use the tuning control as a "volume control. It does reduce volume admittedly, but at the expense of quality. If results are too loud tone them down with the volume control. In the case of a sensitive multivalve set within a few miles of the local station, try tuning in with the aerial earthed. Probably results will be quite loud enough. In the case of multi-valve sets, more distortion comes from local station indigestion thaD from any other reason.