A VOICE CALLS AT MIDNIGHT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 144, 27 March 1942, Page 10

A VOICE CALLS AT MIDNIGHT

-And Is Heard In America

quarters of the National Broadcasting Service, is lonely and & deserted except for a few people who see the night through on special jobs. Announcers and technicians have said their last good nights to the world in general; programme departments are merely deserted shelves of records; there will be little doing between now and the first " good morning" of the new day. B: midnight the 2YA building, head-

But at midnight one day last week there was a considerable to-do and some tension in a small studio at 2YA. The occasion was the first shortwave broadcast to the United States by Mervin K. Slosberg, the NBC correspondent who recently arrived in New Zealand. Not only was it a big step forward in the desirable direction of informing the people of the United States about the Dominion of New Zealand, but the broadcast was the climax of an elaborate trial of relays. Mr. Slosberg had been asked by the NBC of U.S.A. to prepare a bulletin of exactly three minutes and ten seconds length for incorporation in an early morning news broadcast over a nationwide network. It should be no longer and no shorter than three minutes and ten seconds, or it might throw contiguous programmes out of joint. So Mr. Slosberg prepared a careful script and was now waiting for the red light and his cue. Route of a Voice It is interesting to trace the channels through which his voice travelled on its way to the breakfast tables of Amercia. When he spoke into the microphone, the impulse went first of all to the 2YA control room, where a watchful technician was standing by to help it on its way. From 2YA it went to the central telephone exchange, just as though Mr. Slosberg had been having a telephone conversation with a friend in a Wellington suburb, and from the exchange, by another landline, to the Government shortwave transmitter. Then to Sydney, the New Zealand transmitter being not quite powerful

enough to guarantee a strong signal direct to America. From the receiver in Sydney it went through another city exchange system to the transmitter, which sent it, in one powerful jump, to @ receiver somewhere near San Francisco. From there it went by land line to the NBC studios in New York. Distance: nearly ten thousand miles. This, it should be stated, is by no means the longest relay which the New Zealand Post and Telegraph Department has been asked to arrange. In pre-war days, a radio-telephone service for commercial purposes operated between New Zealand, England, and most Continental countries. The relay was between Wellington, Sydney, and England, and by telephone cable and land line. Waiting for the Red Light And so Mr. Slosberg had merely to sit at his desk waiting for a red light and a cue from New York. It was in the 2YA control room and at the shortwave transmitter that one observed the tenseness attendant on such a split second, round-the-world relay. Take, for instance, the scene at 2YA during a test link-up between Wellington, Sydney, and San Francisco. The technician in charge is a very busy man and manipulates a maze of switches, knobs, headphones, and telephones with fascinating dexterity. The layman can comprehend little of the conversation. It goes something like this: "Hello, Swdney. Yes, quite readable." _ "Yes, y~s. Just a minute. You'll have to take that one down to a parallel. Another one from that blank in B amp. (This to the assistant technician in the control room.) "Hello, Sydney. Yes. I'll give you a test. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Hello. This is 2YA calling Sydney. One, two, three, aE ad Repeat this at length. More Technical Language Half an hour before Mr. Slosberg comes on the air, the Wellington shortwave transmitter has a final check-up with Sydney and San Francisco, the operator conducting another practically unintelligible conversation into space: "Would you say a few words for me, San Francisco, please? . . . That’s O.K. (Continued on next page)

BROADCAST TO. U.SA. (Continued from previous page)

Just stand by for a few minutes, will you? ... Hello. Hello. One, two, three, four, five. I am speaking for the benefit of the technical operator in San Francisco. You are getting me all right, are you? ... Very pleased to hear that. We'll probably get on all right... . Sorry, I missed some of that. . . . There’s a high noise level here. . . . It would be a help if you would keep talking and let our receiver get a line on you.... Yes, I'll get the studio for you now. ... Yes, I'll arrange a four-wire circuit for you right away. . .. Hello, San Francisco, I’m going to put you through to the broadcasting studio. . . . Hello, Sydney. We're all ready for a test. Mr. Slosberg is waiting here now. .. ." Enter Mr. Slosberg: " This is Slosberg speaking. I cannot hear you very clearly. I will give you a test. ‘An additional step in this country’s already great war effort was announced over the week-end by the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, when Sear ag And so on until 12.01 a.m., when Mr. Slosberg receives his signal to go ahead, and he grips the table a little more firmly and takes a deep breath and starts to read. Three minutes and ten seconds later he relaxes, waits for advice as to how it was received in America, and then goes home to his hotel to bed.