NEWS AND NOTES

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 20, 2 December 1927, Page 8

NEWS AND NOTES

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Cheap radio parts with poor electrical qualities and sloppy workgnanship which add resistance and cause leaks in the circuit, are responsible for many home. built sets being failures, It is a gross blunder to buy cheap radio parts and expect to .build a set which will be a success. Very sinall currents are handled in radio, and leakages and resistance play havoc with reception. It a receiving set is of the two valve type using a stage of audio frequency amplification, the transformer could have a high ratio such as 6-1. ‘This will give greater amplification than one with a lower ratio, and any extra distortion will be so slight-as not to be noticeable However, if two stages of audio frequency amplification are used transformers having lower ratios must be used, otherwise serious distortion will result. ‘he low ratio transformet should always be used in the second stage. The night range of an ordinary broadcast station is infinitely greater than the daylight range. Do not expect to tune in the Australian stations with good results in broad daylight. Even after darkness has set in in New Zealand it is twilight in Australia, and the strength of the Australian stations will not reach its maximum until late at night in the Dominion. Broadcast station 31.0, Melbourne, is about to conduct a competition which is rather novel, for the prize will go to the woman who is adjudged to have the best unbobbed or unshingled hair. Long hair is now seen so seldom that it is not expected that the judges will have a difficult task. One is prompted to ask whether these freak competitions increase the popularity of broadcast listening, or are they a sheer waste of money? The electromagnetic energy emitted from a broadcast station aerial radiates in every direction, and goes on into space with diminishing strength, but nevertheless continuing for ever at the astonishing speed of 166,000 miles per second. The plate voltages ordinarily used in receiving sets are 164 to 45 volts on the detcctor valve, 90 volts on the amplifier valves, and 185 volts and up on the power valves. It 1s of utmost importance that the existing valve in the radio power unit be replaced by the same type of valve. The substitution of another type may lead to serious trouble. Germany is soon to have a still more powerful station than Langenberg. he new station at Zeesen will have 35 kw. power on a wave-length of 1250 metres, ‘he modulation will be carried out in Berlin ES"uistan does not intend to get left 4enind India in the matter of broadcasting. A French firm has been given the contract for a broadcasting station in Kabul. Mr. Ray Allsop, chief engineer of Station 2BL, Sydney, picked up the Italian broadcaster IMI Milan one night recently. ‘he Italian was playing Neapolitan airs, and 2BL, rebroadcast him for about 15 minutes for the entertaininent of listeners. He came through fairly well. Mr. Allsop met IMI quite accidentally while roaming the ether; he has no idea who his new friend is. The elimination of interference from tramways, electric railways and neighbouring electric motors, is a very difficult problem, and one that cannot always be solved. In many cases we can only minimise such interference by erecting a short aerial at right angles to the source of disturbance, by completely shielding the receiver, using a leose-coupled aerial tuning system and avoiding as far as possible the use of irom core components, such as 1.F. transformers. An interesting feature of broadcasting is the blasting in connection with the City Railway, Sydney. The workers who are carrying out the excavations prepare 15 or 20 charges, and about 6.30 in the evening these are touched off one after another, Sta-_ tion 2FC happens to be conveniently situated, and frequently a microphone is hung out to pick up the sound, which is broadcast for the gencral radio audience. ‘The effect of the succession of explosions over the air to listeners hundreds of iniles away is quite startling. Karlograph wireless transmission of will probably be an es-| tablished service this summer between Berlin and Vienna. Already 100 pictures have been seut by this system to Rio de Janeiro, Rome and other citics" with noteworthy cleartiess. , ‘Most selective must radio receiving | sets be in the city of New York. There are tio fewer than seventeen broadcast stations operating in that city. Of course, they are not all on the air simuitancously, but even with the allotment of time schedules there are quite a bunch of them stirring the ether at the same time,

"Despite the fact that the radio is far.from a stage of perfection, and ig still in the infancy class, it is a mighty good thing for those wlio like it," Mre Edison, the great inventor, recently said. ‘It is beneficial to the young people because it is constructive, and gives them something to think and read abont. It also tends to kcep the young folks at home at nights-a mighty hard thing to do in these modern times," he chuckled. In publicly welcoming Senator Mare coni to New York last month, while making no mention of Fascismo, Mays or Walker spoke with enthusiasm of ‘the splendid law and order, the high order of administration" of Rome. He concluded by telling the dignified visitor that the Romans had learned to cafi him Jimmy, and that while he did not want to "indulge in any familiarity, what we feel like doing is to take you by the arm and say, ‘Bill, you’re wele come!’" ‘The Senator and his wife smiled broadly. A large immediate market for the new type of plng-in electrically operated regia sets now exists in strictly farme ing territories of the United States, acy cording to Robert W. Porter, vice-presi« dent of the Splitdorf Radio Corporation. Mr. Porter says close to 250,000 farm homes constitute the present market, but that the important aspect of the sitnae tion is that bv 1938, according to esti mates, 8,000,000 United States farms will have been electrified. This future market, Mr. Porter explains, is based on published results of a survey by the Rural Electric Service Committee of the National Electric Light Association.

, When boring holes in wood or bakesplitting on the under side can be ayoided if the piece being drilled is glamped or kept firmly "pressed against the top of the bench or another thick piece of plank. In effect, the bench surface or the plank is one witii the panel being drilled, and there is very little tendency for chips in the under side around the hole to break away. ~ Quebee City, which has been called a "dead spot’? in Radioland, has just been brought to life by the opening of | the new broadcasting station CNRQ. | It is the eleventh in the chain of broad- | casting stations established by the. Canadian National railwavs. It takes_ the 310.7 metre wave. In all its broad- |, easts this station will be connected by : telegraph or telephone wire with the studios of the Montreal or Ottawa stidios, and on special occasion with CNR at Toronto. Not only are the Canadian railway lines taking active part in broadcasting, but de luxe traius carry receivers, The programme of dance music and entertainment broadcast by Station WOR, New York, was interrupted recently and the announcer read a-letter from a little girl who had appcaled to that station to help her find her father, whe has been missing from home almost iwo weeks. ‘The letier was as follows:-‘My daddy is missing. Left here September 17. We don’t know where he is. Mother is sick. I’m home from school siik. My little sisters and brothers want daddy, too. He is 34 years old, 6 feet tall, and has grey eyes. He weighs 169 pounds. Please find him for us, We are so lonesome. We all love him and want him to come home to us," a aa a ee

CS A ee a ST, ee That the League of Nations shonld possess two wireless stations for dissemuinating news of international interest is the considered opinion of (ex: perts consulted at the present session. Tt was agreed that the establishment of a powerful station with a worldwide range was impossible on the ground of expense, but if the additional expense was not very great the transmissions of information and debates by ‘wireless might be contemplated. In ‘that case the wireless station should have a range covering the, whole of :Hutope. It was also agreed that a relatively powerful short-wave transimitter would give the required results, as’ | *egards communication with non-Huro-pean countries. } The New York "Radio Retailing" says :-"The service man is often called upon to do a bit of soldering in a home without electricity. His electric soldering iron is then utterly useless, When. there is such soldering to be done, and no consistent source of heat is available, the use of a few tablets of the drug Utropin, obtainable for a few cents from any druggist, will solve this problem. Onc of the tablets is placed in a teaspoon, started with a match and placed under the wire to be soldered. A very intense flame results asd lasts for two or three minutes. Soldering may thus be done jWwithont the use of an iron of any vind. ‘ A station which is a consistent perormer on the 30 metre wave band is 6AG, owned and operated by Mr. W. K. Coxon, chief engineer of Westralian Farmers’, Perth. Mr. Coxon’s transmitter must be remarkably efficient, for, although it uses a power of only 100 watts, a number of listeners in. New Zealand have little difficulty in tuning him in on the loudspeaker, Recently, though, Mr. Coxon must have got a bit tired of the comnaratively local transmissions he was putting over and decided to try for something real. lv big. His success was instantaneous, . and the English amateur, Mr. Parts. tidge, received GAG at sufficient strength to enable him to retransmit. the broadcast along a telephone fine so that an Australian, temnorarily : exiled in Great Britain, could hear his fellow‘eountrvinan’s voice and musical prograinnie, ,