NOTES AND COMMENTS

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

NOTES AND COMMENTS

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_Now that the ‘ferry’? steamers Maori and Wahine are being equipped with valve tarnsmitters, broadcast listeners will experience less interference from ship spark interfernce This re minds me of a Wellington medico, whe is an enthusiastic broadacst listener, and the mishap which befel Ins set from ship spark iuterference This ré« was tuned in to a station when a ves sel close to Wellington came in with some crashing morse. The doctor’s dog was lying under the table, and when the morse blasted in the. canine -made a dash for the door. Dog and battery wires became hopelessly ene | tangled. The set crashed to the floor-~ curtain Broadcast station, 4QG, Brisbane, is erected in the heart of the city. The towering masts are located on the top

of a Government building. The sea is about 18 miles away, and set this station is about the loudest Australian station heard in Wellington. "What is the best radio joke illustration you have seen?" asked a friend the other day. It occurred to me that the one which amused me most was the picture of a tiny tot with a large radio set lying on the floor «with broken panel, valves shattered and all the internal organs of the set scattered about. The horrified father on entering the room is informed by his cher ished offspring ‘"I’se looking for the dear kind uncle in the box, who tells the nice bed-time stories " Voltmeters, being always in parallel in the circuit, are made of very higlt resistance to prevent any preat flow of current through them and around the part of the circuit with which they are in parallel. Keep a little table of dial settings for stations which you have heard and enjoyed. That is, have a chart of the various scales of your receiver and mark carefully on it the positions of the various stations so that you cam readily pick them up by setting every thing as indicated on the chart, This avoids the necessity of ‘fishing’ for

the stations, with the set in danger of oscillating and, if it is not neutralised, disturbing others, and also simplifies picking up stations speedily. I notice that a Wellington listener has discovered that it is no prodigious teat to tune in the Calcutta and Bombay stations between 3 a.m.-and 4 a.m. He obtained half gramophone strength from his loudspeaker towards 4 a.m. with just an ordinary Browning-Drake set. It is wonderful the fuss some people make about getting this long-dis-tance stuff with antiwontodwne _ sets, when the honest old Browning-Drake does it on its head, . To-morrow evening, Saturday, September 17, a real live minstrel troupe will give an old-time darkic entertainiment from the studio of 2FC, Sydney. Mr. H. Marshall is directing the company. I wonder if old Charlie Pope (formerly of Pope and Sayles ccon vaudeville comedians) will be in the programme.

A visitor to Mr Claude P. Grey, the Shannon, broadcast listening champion, -writes:-"Although Mr. Grey is an utter novice at radio, he has a particular gift in handling his two dials. He adjusts them with meticulous nicety and manipulates them with that hair-split-ting skill which defies the average man Who is ‘all thumbs.’ His set is a great -and wonderful performer, but the-man who can get 68 stations an it deserves full credit.’’ Most. storage batteries are rated by | their eight-hour discharge rate, or their eight-hour charge tate. ‘Technically a battery will require longer to charge at a given rate than to discharge at the same rate, partly because all the energy delivered to the battery does not into the charge while something more than the energy received from the battery is used in the discharge. ~The eight-hour discharge rating means, if a battery is rated at 60 ampere hours, that it will deliver 60 ampere hours if discharged in eight hours i.e,, at 74 "amperes current. It will deliver somewhat less if discharged at a higher current flow and somewhat more if a less flow is used. The United States is now working under a genttemen’s agreement with Canada by which the Dominion has allocated. to its use six exclusive wavelengths and shares twelve ethers with Oo ie ee 7

the United States. An agreement of similar character may be made with Cuba and Mexico, botl: countries hav--ing given notice of intention to send delegates to the Washington World Conference empowered to discuss questions with the Federal Commission with a view to an equitable arrangement of the radio situation on the North American Continent. | Because a valve glass bulb becomes loose in its base, #t does not mecessar ily follow that the valve is defunct [It should be handled carefully so that the fine wires running from-the prongs to the inside elements do not become broken The use of powerful fish-giue will often cement the glass to the base and make a good permanent job.-

An honest to goodness dilemma is that in which the enthusiastic host endeavours to tune in music .to please half a dozen guests. Each wants something different to the rest How.. on earth can a broadcast programme organiser please 26,000 listeners all, the while? . Portable receiving sets are now coming into their qgwn with the’ approach of summer with its seaside whare life, bush camping and yachting. cruises A well-known Wellington business man has lately purchased a de Inxe portable and he runs it out to his seaside house in his motor-car ‘to keep in touch’ with things during the week-end respite. Ammeters, being always used in ser1es in a circuit, always are of very low resistance, so that little power is wasted in them, and their use does not change the electrical characteristics of the circuit. Sometimes shunts are employed ta accomplish this, the shunt being placed in the circuit and the ammeter arranged in parallel. With an ammeter of resistance A and a shnnt of resistance S, the proportion of the total current going through the ammeter is S divided by ATS. Then the. actual flow in the circuit is A}S divided by S multiplied by the ammeter reading.

Riflemen throughout Australia can look forward to the exclusive broadcast by 2FC, Syduey, of "The Kings" shooting tourney from Liverpool, New South Wales, on Friday afternoon, October 14. A description of the final stages of the match will be given, and the speech by the winner after he is chaired. On the night previons to the King’s match, a camp concert will be broadcast by 21'C, under the capable direction of Ad. Cree.