RADIO RECEPTION IN NEW PLYMOUTH

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 9, 16 September 1927, Page 4

RADIO RECEPTION IN NEW PLYMOUTH

EXPERIMENTS CONDUCTED

As‘ tho? wearing the seven-league boots so renowned in nursery fairy tales, instead of moving in waves which are. measured by metres, the radio energy from 2YA seems to jump over certain localities. Only a proportion of the power that was expected has been received. ‘his has been the case in New Plymouth and it has been a source of great disappointment to listeners in that town who expected that 2YA would nearly ‘‘lift the roof." For the purpose of seeing and hearing for themselves, Mr. A. R, Harris (General Manager of the Radio Broadcasting Co. of New Zealand [td.), and Mr. J. M. Bingham (the company’s chief engineer), accepted au invitation from the: New "Plymouth Radio Society to visit that place. They were mdst cordially welcomed and enter tained and they conducted tests in several parts of the town. The members of the Radio Society could not do enough for the convenience of their guests and at a meeting on Monday night there, was a genetal clearing of the air, The investigations PITTS SHS PIU ee Li mat

att by the company’s experts was productive of much good in many ways. The report from the "Taranaki Daily News" of September 6, states: Messrs. A. R. Hatris (general mana- |) ger of the company) and J. M. Bingham (chief engineer), who conducted a series of tests in New Plymouth during the week-end in an attempt to solve the trouble of fading, were the guests of the society last night, and by their answers to a number of questions satisfied most of their audience that the company was doing its best in the interests of the listeners-in, As an outcome of preliminary — investigations tests had been carried ont over the week-end, said Mr. Warris, and while it had certainly been found that fading was,a distinct disadvantage in Nortly Taranaki, yet Mr Bingham and the speaker -had something definite to work on, and hoped to be able to effect an improvement. There had been hundreds. of conflicting reports abort fading. and it confd not be said whether it was due to atmosplierics or something else. Wellington, during the past week-end’s tests, had been found to be no better than Auckland ander normal conditions, and as an experiment the rower was increased to 10,000 watts, or 20 times: the power of Auckland. Still fhe results were no better. Some absorption seemed to exist somewhere The power undoubtedly wettt into the air quite steadily at Wellington, but where it went to after that he did not know, Progress to Date. Ontlining the progress made to date, and the position as between broadcaster

and receiver, Mr. Harris said that the ccmpeany’s contract was originally to instal four half-kilowatt stations the first two at Auckland and Christchurch, and the second two at Wellington and Dnnedin. It had no obligations to carry on the old stations at Wellingtori and’ Dun- | edin, but did so. And in running: a 24-hour service at Auckland and Christchurch instead of a 12-hour one it had to depend on voluntary talent. Sometimes the artists did not put in an appearance, and some times they did. not give what the company wanted, so the matter of maintaining the standard of concerts was a difficult one. The company had to take over the four old plants, realising at the same time that it would have to scrap thém all. While the company was fully aware that "the programme is the thing of paramount importance," yet it was necessary that good studios and appointments should be provided, and at the same time the new stations had to be erected. It was subsequently de. cided to increase the power of Wellington con#derably while they were on the job, and the constructional work at Auckland, Wellington, and Christ- church was now completed Owing to better plants and bettcr organisation the programmes had recently been much improved. Cost of Operating Station. When making comparisons with the services in Australia and England, it had to be remembered that whereas England had 2,000,000 people to each station,. and Australia a million, New Zealand had only a quarter of a million. In England the land lines were used for the purpose of duplicating the broadcasting of programmes, but this was out of the question in New Zealand as the land lines here wonld not transmit music. The only way to reinedy this was to instal repeater stations, costing between £10,000 and £30,000 each, to provide four channels of different frequencies. It was satisfactory to know that, in spite of expectations to the contrary, it was now confidently anticipated that musical programines from Wellington conld be rebroadcast from Chiistchurch. The. rebroadcasting of speech was not so difficult a matter, It was a question of the availability of the lines. The Problem of Fading. Mr. Bingham, dealing with the technical aspect of ‘‘fading," said that increases in the power at Wellington evi-

dently did not effect an improvemen§ in New Plymouth reception, vt may ¢@ that Mcunt Egmont was the cause, and *- it may not. The theory of broadcast. ing was that one wave left the station and followed the surface of the earth, while a second, or ‘‘reflected" wave, travelled round the edge of the atmosphere, If the two waves synchronised in movement exactly, reception was satisfactory, but when the two waves did not synchronise fading and mushiness occurred. When receiving weal stations such as KGO (¢’Frisco): listens ers-in often experienced fading, but no ‘mushiness, owing to the fact that only one set of waves reached them. The only way to improve the position *in New Plymouth scemed to be to alter the method of sending the power from the aerial in Wellington. Experiments would be’ carried out on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this week, altera= tions being made on each of these days, In reply to Mr J. S Lynch, M1 Hare ris said that in the event of the conte pany being nnable to effect an improves ment with the present plant, by experiment, it cculd do nothing further for the present It had been suggested that Auckland’s power might be sn creased, but the company would not do that, because from 75 to 80 per cent, of the power from Auckland was lost at sea. If the present schemes failed, the most practical alternative for Tara» naki seemed to be the provision of @ relay station in South Auckland, Replies to Questions.

For some time*Mr. Harris was bom= & barded -with questions, in the course of answering which he said that the company could not at preseut consider starting broadcasting before 3 p.m. un less it were shown that the majority of listeners-in wanted this In spite of the contention of his questioner that the farmers wanted ‘to listen-in between 2 and 3 p.m., he said that the peak hour for the farming cor:munity bad been found to be 7.30.p.m., and for the city community 9.80 p.m. The company had offered the Education Depariment the period from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. for the purpose of broadcasting lectures for school children. If the majority of the listeners indicate@ that . they wanted the afternoon session to last _frem 2.30 to 4.80 instead of 3 to &, no doubt the company would do this. _ For several veasons the coripany intended to continue with its ‘silent’? days. For one thing, city listeners _ wanted one day when ther conld receive outside stations without being swamped by their own station. Secondly, the staff were entitled to one day off a week. Asked whether the company wonld experiznent to reduce fading by alteration of the wave lenzth, Mi BHartis said that there was a limit to which the wave-length could be changed without overlapping other stations with the permitted bsizd "Ts the company spposed to broad. casting by "free’’ stations suvh as Drie . leigh College, Auckland? and would the + company welcome another meeting of the advisory board? were two written questions submitted. The first matter, said Mr Harris, had nat been discussed by the company. In regard to the sete ond, he might point cut that in the company’s contract there was no mention of an advisory oata. Be would not say that the advisory boargd did not do good, but it dealt oniv with minor considerations, and not with fundamentals, Tt all boiled down to 2 enestion of qualified men, who demanded high fees, and this in turn develonel into a anestion of staff. At the conclusion of the meeting, on the motion of the Mavor {Mr F. EB. Wilson), who presided, a hearty vote of thanks to the visitors, was carried by acclamation.