NOTES AND COMMENTS

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 26, 13 January 1928, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

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Christchurch listeners report good reception of 4YA, Dunedin, They state that the volume and tone is splendid, and there is little or no fading. A. popular station in Dunedin, according to ‘Plug,’ is 2VA, Wellington, which comes through with excellent volume and relatively little finding. Yhanks for your note, "Plug." ’ South Island listeners agree that the Australian stations are very "in and out" lately. Generally speaking, good reception of the traris-l'asman stations is not obtainable before 11 p.m., New Zealand time. Our old favourite JOG, Brisbane, has slipped a cog, and is suffering from Severe spasms of mushiness, Some ‘Nights lie gives us a few items quite flearly, and with terrific punch, but scon lapses into a profound blurring. The summer has pushed 38AR, Melbourne, 7ZI,, Hobart, and 5CL, Adelaide, almost off the map so far as North, Island listeners are concerned. By the way, -lias anyone heard the strong shortwave transmission by 5CL, Adelaide? He comes in on somewhere ‘about 90-metres. Is it a harmonic or a short-waye transmitter in action? Another station heard just about 95 ‘metres is 3UZ, Bourke Street, Mel‘bourne. He is as clear as a bell, and "fall of vim on the short-wave mark, His musical items are tip-top. ' Anyone who has a good ‘four or five_Yalve set and a respectable aerial-earth ‘system should hear 2UK, Maroubra, Sydney, 293 metres, 250 watts. On "Tuesdays, Thursdarvs, and Sundays whe "is heard on the loudspeaker after 10.30 p-m. George Saunders, late announcer: at ,2BL, Sydney, can be heard with his customary cheeriness announcing at .2GB, Sydney. This reminds me that Jack Cannot 1s doing well as announcer "at 2BL, Sydney. * L-am now going to nominate three competitors for the gold medal for the shest kiddy entertainers in+this quarter of the globe-"‘Aunt Dot," "Uncle Sandy," and ‘Uncle Jasper,’ " all of -2YA, Wellington. I’ve heard all the leading New Zealand and Aussie bedtime session entertainers, and I think the above trio ave the wood on the lot of them. When you sum up the attributes of a perfect kiddy entertainer by radio, it seems that among the requisites are a mellow, well-attuned voice, clear dietion, a trick in carryng one’s personality across the «ther, a ready wit, a. breezy cheerfulness, an apt use of words and phrases calealated to be understandable to even the youngest juveniles, and, again, personality. ‘The number of talented juveniles who appear at 2YA, Wellington, at the bedtine sessions is positively astonishing, Some of them display remarkable gifts, and one often feels prompted to ’phone the station to ascertain the individual age of each little performer. What about announcing each child's age! Only occasionally are the children’s ages announced. Across land the Auckiand «tation, IVA, is heard very poorly in Wellington during the day-time, but S8YA, Christchurch, which is only half the distance from the capital city, and is received over water, is loudly heard in Wellington. Static is, as a rule, not troublesome ou the ultra-shortwave bands, but during the past weck or two, short-wave fans state, it has been more noisy down there than on the normal broadcast wave-band. A hit of a surprise for those who are neay at the short-wave guine, Tiven as far out of the way as the Panama Canal fans may find a radio repair and service station. It has been set up especially for ships passing through the canal. Crystal receivers are fast going out of style in Great Britain as in America. The Britis Broadcasting Company now reports that half the fans there are using valve receivers, _ if yery near a broadcasting station, it is advisable to shield batteries, con. vections, unshielded portions of the set, and all external wiring, so that all energy pickup will be confined to the aerial, Should the near station still cause interference, a vertical acrjal may help. A ‘wireless sect which automatically switches "on" when the stations are broadcasting, and "off? when they ave closed down, is being marketed in London, England, at a price about 10 per cent. in excess of the set alone. An entirely new method of deriving filament. heating current is presented in a device which obtains power from the ordinary gas. This device 1s said to be most efficient, and as three hours’ running cost less than 1d., it is also more economical than the usual types of "A" battery, An African wireless paper estimates that out of thirty thousand wireless sets in operation, fifteen thousand are unlicensed, A British periodical reports that 400 licenses only have been issued in Calentta, India, whereas one firm only in that city has sold over 1200 sets,

‘he Radio Corporation of America is charged with infringing patent rights of the Hazeltine Corporation im an action filed on December 1 in the United States Southern District Courts The p'eintiff seeks a permanent ins junctiot restraining the further manne facture and sale of Radiolas 16 and 17, and an accounting of profits and assessment of damages resulting front ‘the alleged infringement. The two radio receivers involved in the litigas tion were introduced by the Radio Cors poration of .America last yeat. If you hear mysterious crackling sounds and your batteries, valves, con densers and all joints in your set aré .K., make sure that your insulators are not cracked or dirty, that your aerial itself is not touching other aerials

or trailing on the suriace Of thle Tools that the lead-in wire is electrically cons nected to. it-and by an electrical com nection is. meant an electrical connecs ‘tion, that neither the aeria] nor leads . . . * ’ in wire is being scraped by trees, neither wire is anchored to telephone or electric light poles One radio set, four valves, wis on€ of the most prominent items in the list of demands presented by Caid Ali ben Noceur, Moorish chieftain, for the ransom of Yves Steeg, nephew of the Trench Resident General. and his thre¢ companions, kiduapped recently hy thé Moors and held prisoners in the middlé Atlas range The radio set proved to be the hitch in the negotiations be« tween Colonel Duclos, of the lrench Intelligence Service, and Ali hen Nos ceur. There were plenty of radio sets in Rabat and Casablanca. But there was wobody willing to go into the mountains and install the set fox the Moorish brigands.

A. factory organisation the employment department of which devoted to giving first preference to Chicago’s exsoldiers who are seeking steady jabs. A mechanical workshop affording to every ex-service employee expert training, on fall pay, in a new and lucrative eugineerimg field. A practical economic haven when constant emcouragement towards rehabilitation soon banishes all thought of self-pity and puts even a disabled returned soldier on an equal mental, moral and financial footing with his more fortunate fellow men. ‘This proud employment programme is in force at the Chicago plant of a big radio manufacturing mampany, builders of high-power radio receivers. Credit for this sincere service to Chicago’s ex-soldiers is given to the shop superintendent and personnel direetor of tle plant. An instrument that indicates a change in current as small as a tenth of a thousandth of a miHioneth part of an ampere has heen ¢teveloped in America. ‘The usual electric household lamp uses 200,060,000,000 times as much current as the amount represented by one subdivision on the scale of this instrament, which is so seusifive that it has to be mounted. on jewel bearings.

One lead from your speaker should connect to B-plus and the other to plate of the last vaive. If these leads are connected vice versa the magnets of your loudspeaker will be weakened, In order to find which is the B-plus lead, disconnect the leads from the speaking unity, plug- them in a potato which has been cut in half to show the white, then turn on the rheostats. The plate lead will make no difference to the potato, whereas the B-plus lead _ will turn it blue. Sockets occasionally cause noise trouble through corroded loose or bent prongs. Corrosion iyay be removed with fine sandpaper. In holders of the UX type the prongs may be brought back to contact with a pair of pliers inserted from the bottom, but this is a job that will necessitate the removal of the socket, and should not be undertaken unless there is evidence of bad contact. It seems needless to say that ‘repair of a set should not be wndertaken without experience or without the removal of valves and batteries. Dr. Alfred N. Goldsmith, the eminent American radio scientist, says: ‘It is clear that the cost of a transmitting station will become excessive of trans‘mitter power beyond a certain limit is used. The first cost of the station, and its maintenance (including the cost of electrical power) all force the broadcaster to consider seriously the use of no greater power than is necessary to justify the expense of the station.’ It is not often that anything not intended for the microphone creeps into the trarismission from fhe studio of 40G, Brishane. Quite recently, however, during the course of a choral concert, a hurried "You'll have to get further back," in a yoice unmistakably like that of the announcer, gave evidence of the fact that, for a moment, that official had forgotten that the studio was still "on the air,"

It cannot be over emphasised that the ] bearings of a variable condenser should be carefully designed, ‘They should be large, capable of adjustment for wear, and so made that the movement of the rotating vanes is perfectly smooth, A fibre or ball thrust aids in accomplishing this, but there is no need for the bull bearings of the usital type, for, the simple reason that a properly-ad-justed ball bearing is quite free, and a certain amount of friction must be introduced by tightening up the ballraces, or otherwise, in order that the vanes may stay in any given position. A good conical bearing in a variable condenser fills the bill absolutely, since with it both side and end play can be eliminated. The operating end of the spindle should be plain jin, in dia--meter. If all aianufacturers would | standardise this, knobs and dials conld be made perfectly interchangeable. Finally, we wish to emphasise the fact that the days of the condenser employing a screwed spindle running in plain bearings are definitely over, says an English authority. The Dutch short-wave station PCJJ ‘at Hindhoven, which hai been closed down for six weeks pending removal to Hilversum, has reopened for a few weeks at the request of listevers from all over the world. A resident in Cobdogia, on the banks of the River Murray, has a cockatoo which screeches out "8L0, Melbeurne,"’ efter hearing that station for some months. A "dry" joint is a soldered connection which is not clectrically joined owing to the presence of a thin film of resin, for instance, between the two mctal surfaces. Such joints often appear perfect as far as can be seen, but generally a pull with a pair of pliers or a jar will expose the weakness. If in trouble look for "dry" joints,

The scratching and seraping noiscs heard in the lJowdspeaker are not alWays due to static or alinosphcries. Disconnect the aerial and earth from the set, and if you hear the nnpleasant sounds with the same yolume, it is probable that the noises emanate from the recviver. Took first at the battery connections; they may he dirty. Marconi’s Wireless T'clegraphy Coy. have chtained a British patent covering au invention relative to londspeakers. ‘The device consists of a plurality of nested sections resembling buckets of various sizes, which are fitted into one another, thereby — effecting faithful and uniform amplification of all the audible frequencies without distortion.

It is sometinies hard to locate the serew holes for condensers and other instruments to be mounted on a panel without the aid of a drilling template. Here is a simple way to locate the position for these holes:-Locate and drill the hole for the centre shaft of the condenser. ‘Then place the instrument on the panel with the shaft protruding through the hole and rest it in exactly the position you wish it to occupy. | Sprinkle a little white powder or flour around the screw bushings and then carefully ypgtk up the condenser without disturbing the panel, The powder will form little circles, the centres of which inay be matked with a sharp centre punch. Corrosion is a noise producer in two ways. J-It makcs for a defective connection; 2-It is quite likely to eat through the insulation of battery cables and eventually produce a break in the wire, Such matters should be looked into carefully. So in the testing of battery equipment make certain of voltage and chargr:; see that tops are clean and dry; see that connections are tight and not corroded; remove corrosion if any by wiping With liquid ammonia; inspect wires for corrosion and open circuits; replace. jleads and clips that prove effective.