G.E.C. STATIONS

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 42, 4 May 1928, Page 16

G.E.C. STATIONS

INTERESTING DETAILS VISIT BY MR. W. A, WATERS.

Mr. W. A. Waters, A.M... (Palmerston North), writes as follows :-I notice in this week’s ‘‘Record’’ that Mr. J. A. Wiustable, of Mount Hden, Auckland, desires some information on the General Ilectric Company’s station and their methods, and as the writer spent ten days in Schenectady two years ago, as a privileged guest of the General Iilectric Company, I am sending the information along that he desires. Their broadcast station, WGY, as well as YNAT, QXAD, ete., are controlled from the main studio on the ground floor of the International General Electric Building, at the entrance to the main works. The huge factory buildings, numbering oyer 100, are arranged on two sides of a ‘Street’? about a mile long. On the top floor of one of the big buildings in the works (ahout a quar-ter-mile from the studio) is the original WGY transmitter, the Milliken Towers being erected on the roof of the building, similar to LYA. ‘his station (as well as their other transiitters) is crystal controlled, and the crystal is kept in a case at constant temperature to ensure its accuracy. The day I visited WGY transmitter it was radiating 9900 watts on test. About three miles away from the studio (air line), out in the open country, is located their South Schenectady transmitter and research department for radio development, Here is located the superpower station of WGY, which had an aerial power of 50,000 watts, and was used on Saturday nights when I was there. ‘hey have since radiated 100 k.w. from this station. In the same building were other transmitters, and tests were in progress broadcasting on various wave lengths simultaneously on the one programme. Sometimes as many ag Seven wave lengths were broadcast at one time in connection with their research work. As we all know now, this has been consolidated down to WGY, 380 metres (ordinary WGY, 6000 watts and supetpower WGY), and 2XAT* on 81 metres and 2XAD on 22 metres,

One interesting point IL might mention re 2AXAV was that on the day that I visited this (2XAl was situated in a separate building) and saw this transmitter in action, the engineer, who was acting as my guide (Mr. Russel Hoff, who also sometimes almownces over WGY), remarked that the vaives were running very hot, and the research engineer replied that he was not worrying as it was the first time they had pushed 10 kilowatts into the air on short-wavel What did a valve matter when they had succeeded in radiating such an amount of energy on short-wave telephony |!

We all went outside the building (snow was 2 feet deep), and with a theodolite had a peep at the radiation meter halfway up the aerial! It was there and then that I contracted the short-wave infection, Now, it is a development of U.S.A. for a number of broade asting stations to "tie in by wire’? and broadcast the same programines. ‘his is called chain broadcasting, aud often as many as 50 stations broadcast the one programme of an important event (such as a fight), and half a dozen, up to two dozen, sta‘tions on the one programine are quite common. ‘This cn‘s thcir running costs and enables the best talent to be used, as listeners pay nothing for listening to U.S.A stations. Hence you are quite likely to hear WGY, WHAP, WMAK, WIAF, 2XAD, ete. from the announcer when you are actually listening to 2XAF in New Zealand, as they are on "chain hook-«ap," as our American cons. ins call it. Often one announcer takes charge and wives all the station calls on the "chain’’ until the stations individually sign off themselyes at the termination of the broadcast. Recently I heard them anNounce yarious stations from Buffalo to New York (a distance about equal to Auckland from Wellington), with Rochester, Syracuse, Albany, Schenectady, ete, at the intermediate points. All these stations tap the one line, and as WGY, Schenectady, for instance, does the announcing, two-thirds of the distance along the line, and the orchestral music is fed into the same line, probably 800 miles away, it is obvious that the orchestra is unaware that the anjoe such a distance away is on the fe) I trust this information is what Mr. Huxtable was after.