"ALL THE LATEST"

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 121, 17 October 1941, Unnumbered Page

"ALL THE LATEST"

Many Technical Innovations at New 1ZB Studios

F Station 1ZB ever goes off the air when it isn’t supposed to, it won’t be the fault of the technical equipment. The control rooms at the new studios are calculated to gladden the heart of the most blasé electrician; the latest innovations in radio equipment, the most advanced ideas in design, are all there; to put it colloquially, the technicians have at their fingertips everything that "opens and shuts." Nerve centre of the station is the master control room, which is a futuristic maze of cream-enamelled benches and panels, chromium switches, glass dials and winking lights. Around it are placed the main studio, the commercial studio, the children’s studio, the audition room, and talks studio and the service session studio. "Glass observation panels,give a single operator control of programmes in all of these except the talks studio. The floor of the control room is raised nearly a foot above the surrounding floors, and is completely sealed from outside noise by means of ingenious acoustical devices. ‘Seated at. the programme control desk, one operator has control of all technical equipment in the studios. For better handling of programmes presented there, the radio theatre has a separate control room above it and to the rear which gives full view of the stage and auditorium, Programmes from here can either be fed back to the main control room or amplified and sent direct to the transmitter at Avondale. _At the left of the programme control operator are 36 programme " channels," picked out by little lights, which lead from 36 microphone and pick-up positions. In front of him are six channel controls, six "faders" for mixing, and "master faders" which attend to the

volume of the programme before it finally goes on the air. At his right is equipment which keeps him in touch with all incoming lines conveying programmes from outside the building. Also manipulated from this desk are the many loudspeakers’ distributed throughout the studios, the lighting in the studio and foyer and the lighting behind the photographic panel in the foyer. This panel, which is one of the most novel features of 1ZB’s technical equipment, has mounted in it coloured photographs of the personalities heard from 1ZB. After a check up with the programmes, the operator pre-sets controls which automatically light up a portrait of the personality the moment he or she goes on the air. Visitors in the foyer can also press a button, illuminate their favourite personality and stand in rapt devotion for as long as they please. Behind the main control desk again is a second complete set of controls and turntables, used particularly for auditioning and _ rehearsing . programmes before they go on the air. It is linked with the main desk, but acts as a selfcontained unit, if necessary, for carrying programmes as well as rehearsing them. No Wires Visible There are 22 microphones in 1ZB’s new studios and the radio theatre, and an interesting point about their installation is the fact that no wires are anywhere visible, all leads coming up through the floor. All studios and control points are connected by means of an independent telephone system. The entire equipment was designed and made by 1ZB’s technical staff, and it is obvious that efficiency and modernity have been the keynote. The programme, to adapt an old adage, must go on, and in the words of W. Illing worth, 1ZB’s engineer, the only thin| that can put 1ZB off the air is a major power failure. In that event, 90 per cent. of the station’s listeners will be off the air too.