LAND LINES UNDER TEST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 724, 29 May 1953, Page 21

LAND LINES UNDER TEST

AND lines linking NZBS stations in the four main centres and Invercargill are at present being tested and are. expected to come into use before long. The lines will permit programmes originating in one centre to be broadcast from another without the fading and interference sometimes encountered with the old rebroadcasting method. An orchestral concert at Auckland, for instance, may now be "piped" to Invercargill and broadcast from there as satisfactorily as if the orchestra were performing in that city. Our picture shows Broadcasting and Post and Telegraph Department officials in the control room of 2YA, Wellington, during a recent test demonstration. They are listening to a recording of Strauss’s "Vienna Blood,’ sung by Erna Sack, being played over 2000 miles of line. Impulses from the pickup to the left of the technician were transmitted to Auckland, from Auckland to Invercargill, and @

from Invercargill back again to Wellington. This is a longer circuit than would ever be used in practice, but reception was as clear as if the recording had been played direct to the audience. Though the programme lines are part of existing P. and T. high-frequency toll circuits, there have been technical difficulties arising from the fact that musical programmes require a frequency range greater than that needed to transmit the human voice. These have been overcome by the installation of special equipment to combine two or more normal] toll circuits. Land programme .lines are used by broadcasting networks in most countries. | Their introduction in New Zealand has been delayed because of war and the consequent shortage of telegraph facili_ties. Later in the year Greymouth will be brought into the landline network, and later still Rotorua and Napier will be connected.