THE FADING QUESTION

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 6, 26 August 1927, Page 13

THE FADING QUESTION

(To The Editor.) Sir,-It is a pity that your correspondent ‘‘Ex-Maorilander," who contributed an article in your issue of August 5, touched upon only one side of the question of reception from Sydney stations. . The letters which were published in his article were of course published in the first instance, in ‘Wireless Weekly," but anyone who has a complete record of the issues of the last few months will see that while a proportion of people complain about poor reception, many others have nothing but praise, It is ridiculous to condemn 2FC and ‘QBI,, simply because certain people in certain localities find that fading and distortion interfere with their reception. The question of fading and distortion, as you know, is one that is not peculiar to Australia, as the same conditions prevail in every other country under the sun where broadcasting is conducted. They are properties not of the transmitting station itself, but of a series of natural phenomena which of course are not controlled by the broadcasting stations. Experience seems to show that no matter what wave-length is adopted, some listeners in sonie territories will get poor reception at some period during the day or night ; In the main, general satisfaction is expressed locally, concerning the ser‘vice put out by 2FC and 2BL, and no doubt reference to the correspondence files of these two stations ‘will disclose thousands of letters supporting this point of view. . These points of coutse. while obvious to anyone versed in radio, are not obvious to the listener who cannot under‘stand why reception from a station a hundred miles away is poor, while reception from a station situated hun-

dreds of miles beyond is consistently good... It is, of course, purely a technical matter, involving at present the little known properties of skip-distancei, ground waves, sky waves and the heave iside- layer, i I think, in justification, "Hx-Maorix lander," in his somewhat sweeping are ticle, might have touched upon these points, instead of conveying the ime pression that 2FC and 2BL, are unsatisfactory stations. An examination of the increase of license fees will show that the reverse ig the case Tn any-case the publication .of am atticle outlining the points above in ah early issue of your paper would, I am sure, serve not only to remove the mt pleasant effect of your correspondent’s article, but would also prove a source of enlightenment to miany of your read-ers.~-I am, cte., A. W. WATT, Editor "Wireless Weekly,’ We ate glad to publish this letter and to acknowledge all the claims made, The purpose of our contributor and of ourselves in publishing the article was to point out that the fading problem was not peenliar to the reception itt New Zealand-that the admittedly good stations of Australia were encountering the same difficulty in certain areas. We endeavoured to make this point plain in ‘our introduction to the article whérein wé said that the faults were such as to be apart from station faults. Our purpose was to enlighten our readers as to overseas facts end in no way to reflect upon Australian transmission -eF teception.-Ed ,