With Dealer and Customer

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 29, 3 February 1928, Page 3

With Dealer and Customer

Getting Together To Solve Radio Problems |

4) LIES majority of loudspeakfj} ers on sale in New Zealand are marked with plus and minus signs, to denote correct polarity, and such loudspeakers are subject to damage if wfongly connected to the receiving set, Every dealer should stress this point when selling a loudspeaker of that type, and the buyer should be warned to ascertain how the ’phone jack in his set is wired up, as there are some di ergencies from the standard method. LONG LOUDSPEAKER ‘CORDS. New ZBRALAND dealers should not experience any difficulty in selling long loudspeaker cords, ~ Beginmers are frequently unaware that these extra-long cords are obtainable, and they only require to have their attention drawn to them for a sale to be effected. FIRST-AID TO DAMAGED VALVES. TYE glass bulb of a valve of even the best of makes will sometimes worl loose from the valve base, through rough handling. Some valve sockets grip the valve prongs too tightly, and this is one of the causes of damage to a valve. When valves are being inserted or being removed from the socket the valve should be held by the base, and not by the glass bulb. ~ Dealers sometimes have valves brought back to them with loose bulbs. The dealer can efficiently repair the valve by drilling a quarter-inch hole in the base, in the middle, between the four prongs. Sealing-wax can then be melted ix an old spoon and poured through the hole into the base of the yalve. When the wax cools a strong permanent repair is accomplished.

CONNECTING UP BATTERIES. YYURNING ont radio valves is a costly accident. In a moment of abstraction a beginner can send two or three pounds’ worth of valves up in smoke. The radio trader should not leave his customer until the latter is quite sure, and, furthermore, is able to demonstrate that he knows how to connect up his batteries properly. Only the other day a beginner in the city connected the wrong coids to his batteries, and’ five healthy valves were thereupon cut off in the prime of life. The dealer should emphasise the risk attendant upon putting the B battery current through a filament of the valves, "Stop and think" should be the slogan for beginners. CORRECT TY7VE OF VALVE. 1 New Zealand the market is well supplied with variety in valves. Beginners are slow to leain the fact that valves are now obtainable in the Dominion for every purpose practicable so that the greatest efliciency may be_ obtained by using the correct type of valve for the work that is required from it. Dealers who desire to increase their popularity should instruct their salesmen to render cvery assistance to purchasers when they desire to buy a valve. It is quite a frequent oveurrence for a beginner to buy the wrong type of yalve for the work required, and he expresses disappointment with the results he obtains. If the salesman had asked the buyer for what purpose he needed the valve the correct type would have been sold to him. ‘ihe buyer would have obtained better results, and he would remember the assistance he had received in purchasing the valve. Many "power" yalyes have been sold through one city radio dealer ascerteining from his customers to what purpose the valve

was toxbe applied. In many instances the buyers needed a new valve for audio-ireyuency amplification, This was a good opportunity to sell a. ‘power’ valve, and thus to increase the enjoyment of the purchaser, An extra ‘'b" battery or two, aud a ‘‘C" battery were sold with the ‘power’? valves, He states: ‘Purchasers on revisiting my shop have expressed appreciation of the improyement in tone and volume through my selling them the ‘power’ valyes. They then look to me for other useful tips. This meaus extra business, and everyoue is pleased.’"’ NEW AMERICAN MOVE. t prANs for co-operative research, *' by the independent manufacturers in the radiv industry were made. at the first meeting of the new committee on Pateuts and Iingineering of theRadio Protective Association, held at the Palmer House in Chicago during the past month, ‘his move is to enable independent iwmanufacturers to build sets withont onflicting with certain patent rights, which necessitate the payment of substantial royalties. The committee decided to. invite the assistance of the independent engineers and inventors of the industry, whether they are connected with manufacturers who are members of the association or not. A number of offers of new circuits and new radio devices had already been received at the Chicago headquarters of the association, and were referred to members of the committee for firther investigation. he work of the committee promises to be one of the most important factors in the campaign of the Radio Profective Association, according to Oswald F. Schuette, executive secretary of the tlew association. "The purpose of our new committee |

on Patents and Engineering is to make_ the inventions of the independent laboratories available to all of our members." The headquarters of the Radio Protective Association are at 184 South LaSalle Street, Chicago. TEACH THE RETAILER TO SELL. THe big job ahead of the radiv . manufacturer is to teach the retailer to sell, accordiny to Lloyd Maxwell. president ef Williams and Cun-

nyngham, Chicago. "Tie public,’ savs Mr. Maxwell, ‘4-nows more and demands more than it did a year ago, It will demand still more a vear from now. "Among the things the public is demanding and has a right to demand, is service. If vou will also take the {rouble to go into enough homes, you'll find thousands of sets out of commission, fhe owner too discouraged or disgusted to go through the bickerings so often necessary. to secure setyice. "With the new standardisation pole icy in force, the dealer situation should be improved. Wlimination of the fear -f getting caught with obsolete stocks will give the dealer greater confidence ip his merehandise and its maker. Tt will give the mannfacturer an oppor: tunity to instill into the dealer's mind the fact that service is as important as selling. wThe standardization movement marks the opening of a new atid saner era in the radio business." TO SELL MORE S&TS. AN American radio trader make> the following statement showing how to inerease business :--‘*The time when our customers are most interested in giving us the names of = prospective buyers is right after they have bonght sets from us. So we always make it

a.poitit to call up new cistomers. at least two or three times the first month for tlie- ostensible purpose of seeing how their sets are working,, ‘Then, when. calling them up, we ask them for the nameées and addresses of prospects and in this way get a lot of names and ate often able to make sales to many of them,"’

EXPLAIN SERVICE WORK, YYHEN a customer pays his good money for repairs or alterations to his set. it is wp to the service dealer to let his client have a full detailed statement of what the work comprised. A Californian dealer states:-‘When- | ever we seryice a set for a customer we always explain in detail just what we have done. ‘This helps to gain the confidence of the customer and makes him more friefidly to us and is, therefore, of real aid in selling more sets."’ USE COLOURED CIRCULARS. NEW ZEALAND traders who are * planning the issue of circulars should take a hint from the following statement by an American expert, He says:-‘While single colour circulars (printed in black) will suffice and cost less money, it pays in the end to use thighly coloured circulars (lithographed}, because of uniyersal eye-attraction aud buying appeal, and because they compel a reading more quickly than the drab monotone single colour black. At the same time they have an itistantaneous appeal through picturisation ‘and colour, ‘The child’s zest for gaily coloured pictures persists all through life, and the radio dealer might as well cash in on this frailty in liuman nature, by paying a trifle more for two or three tone colour combinations in his adyertising circulars." .

ELECTRIFIED RECORDS. IPH inevitable has occurred. A ‘Chicago company is now marketing a compact unit comprising a phonograph motor and turn-table and an electric pick-up unit, all in one. It amplifies gramophone records through a ‘radio set. and the radio loudspeaker. ‘Many radio listeners in New Zealand "do not possess gramopliones, and those who would wish to reproduce radio records through their sets would prefer to buy a neat unit, as described above, to buying a complete gramophone. 4 LOUDSPEAKER SELLING, Op BENEVER possible, radio dealers should give prospective purchasers. of loudspeakers a demonistration of the tonal qualities and sensitivity of their loudspeakers. Many an intending purchaser would buy a high-er-priced loudspeaker if lie was shown thé relative differences between one line and another. ° Beginners are prone to buy any types of loudspeaker without regard to their efficiency. They soon discover that the quality of a loudspeaker means all the difference between musical enjoyment and otherwise. ‘his, as previously stated, is all in favour of letting customers hear the differences between various loudspeakers. EUROPE AND U.S.A, (> his return to New York from a seyen weeks’ tour of Europe, I.. R. Beardslee, treasurer of a big New York radio corporation, reports that in the desf¥n of radio receivers, designs for the broadcasting fan, there is little in the foreign market which can compare with the receiving devices being offered for general sale in the United States. Mr. Beardsiee declared that the home construction of radio receivers on the other side of the Atlantic seems to be of an entirely different nature than home construction in the United States. Most of the work of this character, he stated, is being done by folk who are not as much interested in receiving broadcast programimes as they are in making a study of the electrical cliaracteristics of the receivers they make. Some of the more adyanced home constructors, he says, are doing

a very fine job, but in most instances" they are materially handicapped by reason of the fact that the quality of material it is possible for them to get does not in any way match up with the quality of the parts being sold in America. "Even in the matter of completed receivers we find that the mechanical design is of somewhat different a mature from our’own. ‘Theré are, as a tule, a great many more dials and switches, and the tubes, which are. called valves, usnatly protrude from the top of a flat case, instead of being completely concealed in the cabinet, as is the case with most of the receivers here. ‘here are, of course, some exceptions to this rule. The workmanship on some of the foreign receivers is nothing short of magnificent. "Then, too, broadcasting on the other side of the Atlantic is meeting with a few obstacles. An effort is being made to confine the broadcasting to a tage somewhat sitnilar to the range of waye-lengths obtaining in this coutitry. Wavye-lengths, or frequencies, which are the same, have been assigned to qttite a group: of stations well within a thousand miles of each other. The wave-length of Liverpool, for .instance, is duplicated by four or five more stations on the Continent, and interference with reception from Liverpool is quite noticeable at any great distance from the station itself." ° "J do not want,’ Mr. Beardslee stated, "to be in a position of criticisiug our European neighbours, and | it means that some of the work being done in some of their important laboratories is at least on a par with the most advanced work being done in this country. There is, however, a marked difference between the- generat run of radio material offered to the European public and the material offered to the public in this country." iat mat ---}

Deaiers can help their clients im: prove their knowledge of Radio by recommending The Radio Record with its full service of educa: tional and informative articles, Prov grammes, etc, . ote PRICE; 3d. WEEKLY. ~ Book For Regular Supply.