STRANGE RADIO SETS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 39, 21 March 1940, Page 8

STRANGE RADIO SETS

By

Ronald

McIntosh

"The Listener" does’ not necessarily subscribe to all the theories advanced in this article. We print it, however, as an item of scientific curiosity. ADIO transmission has been in use R much longer than most people believe. The ants employed it long before Marconi began his experiments with coils of wire and kites. If a foraging ant discovers a large store of food it waves its antenna vigorously, and, by some strange electric impulse; the S.O.S. signal is transmitted to every ant within a wide radius and they flock to help the signaller, Even more strange is the fact that human beings are capable at least of receiving radio programmes without the aid of a conventional wireless set. A case occurred in America recently where a man who lived very close to a super-powered transmitting station was unable

to get to sleep at night. Every time he dozed off broadcast music drifted through his head and woke him up again. Investigation. revealed that his was no case of the psychic. He worked by day in a machine shop grinding knives and the fine carborundum dust settled on the gold fillings in his teeth. Each night when he switched off the electric reading lamp clamped above his bed he removed a partial radio short circuit and unwittingly permitted the metal frame of the bed to become an efficient aerial system. His jaw, falling open as he dropped off to sleep acted as a crystal detector, tuning in the radio programme being broadcast by the nearby station. A toothbrush soon removed his trouble. Even more strange is the fact that two Czechoslovakian workmen were able to tune in to any broadcast programme at will and provide their friends with an entertainment emanating solely from their bodies. What strange power enabled this feat to be achieved is beyond the power of science to determine,

". .. Two Czechoslovakian workmen were able to tune in to any broadcast programme at will." but experts who have investigated the phenomenon are convinced that there is no trickery. Before they are able to make their bodies act as radio receivers the two men have to go through a spell of deep breathing exercises lasting about 30 minutes. Apparently the result of their exertions is to generate an excess of bodily electricity. The two then interlock their right hands, while in the left each holds one contact of a loud-speaker. Immediately the room is filled with soft but perfectly distinct music. As they release hands the music ceases. The auditors are permitted to nominate the station they would like to hear, and immediately, apparently by mental action alone, the strange pair can attune themselves to its wave-length. Perhaps this phenomenon is not so strange after all, for famous water diviners incline to the belief that the body of a "dowser" is like a radio set, the hands acting as the two electric poles, the legs as the earth line, and the divining rod as the aerial. Many of us, therefore, if we possess the highly strung nervous system of the successful diviner, may be our own portable radios-provided we practise enough!