NOTES AND COMMENTS

Radio Record, Volume I, Issue 51, 6 July 1928, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

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HEAR that the Wellington radio inspectors are pursuing owners of a certain type of imported set which has got into circulation, This set does not conform with the Government radio regulations, and is a natural howler. ‘To overcome this disability owners are being required to have the cirenit &lightly altered. 'A& ERIEND of mine purchased one of the aboye sets in its raw state, and as he lives about a quarter of a ‘mile from me I soon became aware of his presence on the air. His syren-like sereams would have ewakened the dead. , , "A NEIGHBOURING listener inform- * me that when this illegal set was on the air he suffered it for half an ‘hour, and then his endurance gave out. To relieve his feelings he threw open his window, and shaking his fist, hurled imprecations inte the night. He elosed down the window and his set and retired to dream of the wailing of lost souls in Tophet. [= is enigmatical to me how it is possible for imported illegal-circuited sets to get into cireulation. Time was when the P, and T. Department officials examined the stock sets of dealers. A Cog must have slipped somewhere, © OUPLING a healthy young dry B battery to decrepit old dry B batteries is a favourite stunt with beginners.. Examined a set the other day |: which was emitting ‘static’ like the rattle of a Maxim machine gun. I quizzed the owner about his B batteries. Two of the three must have arriyed about the time of the conclusion of the war, On my advice he consigned them to the dust-bin, and now he’s free from static. DEALERS can do a good lot of yaluable missionary work yet. ealler, recently, complained that the "sigs" on his shortwave set were deeidedly anaemic. I quizzed him about his batteries, and he confessed he was relying on first-rate audio amplification with only 45 volts "B" battery potential! Personally I prefer something like 125 yolts, but nothing less than 90 volts should be used to get good results from Yankee-land or. the Old Country, . TPALKING about eutting out * 2YA, Wellington, with only & .movement. of half an inch on the dials, I think the gentleman at the meeting of the Wellington Radio Society had something to boast about, not to complain about. Anyone who can "drop" a thunderer like 2YA at a distance of a mile and a half with only half an inch movement of his dials has got a "corker" set, ‘A FRIEND who has paid over £60 for, his outfit resides a little over a mils from 2YA, Wellington, and gets the big fellow all round his dials. I examined his aerial and found it to be a young Beverige. Anyhow he is going to prune it down to half . its length on my advice, and I belieye he will have a better chance of getting 1¥. and 8YA without interference from 2¥A, JPHEY have their troubles across che . Tasman sometimes.. One night last week good old 2BL, Sydney, was missing for three-quarters of an hour. When 2BL resumed it, was explained that the Sydney corporation electric supply had gone "phut" for 45 minutes, and that’s all there was to it. Didn’t our local "howlers" set up a din when they were scraping the ether for the missing station. Howl jostled howl like a pack of wolves around a corpse, Wwuyr is it that some folks find night fading more marked in the ease of 3YA, Christchurch, as compared with 1¥A, Auckland, while others report the reyerse?’ asks "Grid-leak’’ (Lyall Bay). Immediate locality has something to do with fading. A friend who lives right against a screening hill in Wellington tells me that as the hill is between his aerial and Christchurch. he attributes the greater fading of 8YA to the effects of the hill, All things being equal, I think one will find that 1YA fades much more than SYA does in Wellington reception. CAN see the erystal set owners around Wellington sitting back waiting for the re-broadeast by 2YA. Wellington, of oversea short-wave stuff .. The 2¥A new short-wave re«eiving station is in an ideal position on Mount Victoria, It is perched about 600 feet above sea-level, overlooking the city of Wellington, and little riere than a stone-throw from the transmitting station buildings of ZYA. "Mv Y kiddies tell me that 2YA, Wellington, put deross a tip-top crumophone item some weeks ago milled "The Laughing Policeman," writes "TYfalf-Time" ‘Thorndon). "Some of us grown -ups who missed this record would like to hear it."

WERE is a persistent electrical noise in the Mount Victoria residential area which breaks out some nights and continues till one ex two o'clock in the morning. All listeners in this area get this noise when it is in operation if they reach out for 3¥A, Christchurch, or 1¥A, Auckland. I wonder whether the P, and T. Department trouble-finding motor-van will pursue it. The noise is not merely intense, but very intense, with emphasis on the "yery.? One can rely on hearing it two or three nights a week, with ‘an oeeasional Sunday included. 'FfHE recent stormy weather in Aus- | tralia has put a damper on the ‘Sydney stations some nights. It was raining torrents in Sydney one night recently. when the announcer said : "We will now pnt on a record, appropriately named, 'Rain.’" HE "co-ordination" of the Aus- | tralian programmes has evidently not reached completion yet. The other ‘nigh’ I again got recitations from two ‘stations in the same city, commencing ‘and finishing almost simultaneously. ‘Quite a fair proportion of listeners ¢can‘not stomach recitations by radio, and when two stations are operating in the same city, it is preferable to cnt and shuffle the programmes a little to prevent recitations clashing. "T GAVE a gramophone and a fiveyalve neutrodyne with a really ‘good loudspeaker," writes, "The Herthe Sunday afternoon gramophone mit" (Petone). "My friends agree that items from 2YA put my gramophone in the shade for richness, and general quality of tone. And my gramophone cost more than my radio set, batteries, and masts. I ean’t stand the gramophone now, although it is every bit as good as anything I have heard in the shops. Three cheers for the 2YA Sunday afternoon concerts."

"TF I were in Melbourne I think If would prefer that 3L0, Melbourne, would drop all those announcements about bazaars, parish concerts, ete.," writes "Te Aroa" (Palmerston North). "Thanks to the commendable policy of the New Zealand ‘Broadcasting Company we are not inflicted with this sort of stuff. If the New. Zealand listeners heard only half the prattle put across by the Aussies _they would appreciate our own service even more than they do." : A LOWER HUTT correspondent, "Jack," asks "What is the ratio in strength of reception on long-dis-. fanece work between a well-designed indoor loop aerial and a really good outdoor aerial?" As a generality, under the conditions stated above the outdoor aerial wins by a ratio of, roughly, 3 to 1. "TP RIED IT" (Masterton) drops me a lengthy description of some experiments with his earth system. He finds that a bucketful of crushed rock-salt buried around a Tft. waterpipe driven into. the ground, which was then saturated with water, has given him infinitely better reception than without the rock-salt. Wvidentiy the rock-salt retains the moitsure better than the soil. Chemical earths, of a secret recipe, are reported to have riven splendid results in the Tnited States. "DHONES" (Seatoun) wants to know whether a one-yalve audio amplifier would give him full loudspeaker yolume from his crystal set. Providing "Phones" uses a good aerial, earth, audio transformer, C battery, and not less than 90 yolts B battery, with a first-class valve, he should obtain auite good volume from his loudspeaker. Locality would have some influence, however, and "Phones" would have to employ two stages of audio if his aeriai suffers from any screening effect. RE same folks tone-deaf? I rather think a large proportion are. An acquaintance operates a cheap and nasty loudspeaker which disguises 2YA Wellington beyond recognition. Iie tried out a costly loudspeaker of a type which has made a world-wide "hit." and he declared it was not a patch on his own. He says he prefers the lighter timbre of his own speaker, wich, by the way, declines to yield the bass notes much below an octave below the treble cleft. OWLING valves are not confined to night-time. Tune in 8¥A Christchurch any afternoon, and you will; hear the howlers hard at it in between : items. The Christchurch station comes through as steady as a rock in the day time, as heard in Wellington. AW an enthusiast recently explaining: a system he had. conceived for eliminating static. Entertaining his friends with an explanation of his schematic diagram, he waxed eloquently. Someone broke the spell by asking the inventor whether he had tested the thing. . A WELLINGTONIAN who owns 4 * costly receiving set informed. me the other day that he never tunes in any but the New Zealand stations. He never loses any sleep over the Australian stations. I wonder how many there are like him. The majority of dealers tind most of their customers who purchase costly sets demand firstclass reception of the Australians, A MUSICAL friend informs me he is endeavouring to write down music he hears from the Japanese broadcast stations. So far he has not managed to get hold of anything like a melody. The lone singer we hear from JOHK who accompanies himself on some sort of a guitar has got my friend tangled up. It appears the Japs’ music contains quarter-tones, which simply are not written in Western notation.

| WW R.C. Archbishop of Milan in a| pastoral letter to priests and religious institutions has. prohibited the youth in his diocese to use radio apparatus. In motivation it was declared that the programmes of Italian broadeast stations are altogether inappropriate. The Italian press in refutation points out that the Vatican itself is provided with radio equipment. OWELL CROSLEY, Junr., a prominent figure in the American radio industry, announces the purchase, by his company, of the broadeast station WSAI, Cincinnati, from the United States Playing Card Company. He states that the power of the station may be raised to 50,000 watts, and in that case, may sever its connection with the National Broadeasting Co.’s chain of stations, Myr. Crosley also proposes to put a 50,000 watts short-ware broadcast station on the air. PuE latest model 2000-watt valve transmitters are being installed in United States navy radio stations at Astoria, Ore.; San Diego, Calif.;. Pearl Harbour, Hawaii; Cavite, P.T; Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and | Wureka, Caliz

N° political speeches on the radio is the rule in France. Every { speech that is to be broadcast has to be submitted to the authorities, and the controlling engineer is enjoined to cut off a spedker as soon as he departs from the text to bring in polities, ARISTOCRACY and the Press recently joined hands in southern France to establish a broadcasting station at Bayonne, the town where bayonets were first made. The Baron de V’Epee and the "Courier de Bayonne"’ will bear the costs of constructing a station which will operate on a wavelength of 300 to 400 metres, to he definitely determined after tests. The antenna of the transmitter will be located in Gusthary, ANOTHER instance of the value of radio in transmitting medical advice for persons in isolated regions, js reported from northern Alaska. Suffering from eardiae asthma, a lighthouse keeper at Scotch Gap was unable to receive medical attention at his post. His condition was serious, and it wis considered advisable to remore him to the hospital at Ketchikan as a patient of the Public Health Service. During the week's joey from the lighthouse ty the hospital, advice for treatment of the patient was broadcast by the United States Public Health Service doctor at the hospital to the attendant with the lighthouse keeper, BARON von Huenfeld, Captain Her- : mann Ioehl, and Major James ©. Fitzmaurice give their first broadcast aecouuts of the Bremen’s flight over the Atlantic, arranged for them during their stay in New York. Special wires were installed in their private suite, and their own stories of the eventful flight were broadcast through the stations of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Baron von Huenfeld told how preparations were made for _the flight. Captain Koehl, technical idirector of the expedition, describe in German the details of the historiv transatlantic passage. Major Fitzmuurice followed, telling how he joined the expedition. "PHOSE who are constantly striving for the best in reproduction shontd show as much care in the placement ef a spersker in a room as in the selection of the specker itself. Due to the" eflection of the sound waves, what are known as "standing waves" are set 1p and certain frequencies are reinforest while others are reduced in amplitude, The speaker should preferably be toested so that it is not backed up on the rear side by the wall, or any large surface. Frequently a certain note will come in disproportionately loud, which seems in indicate the speaker is resonant at this freynency. By moving the speaker a few inches at a thne away from the nearest walk a spot will frequently be fuund where this effect is minimised, or even eliminated. , HE large number of conrplaints on interference being received by the United States Federal Radio Cominission is due to the persistence of erystal and old-trpe regenerative receivers, stys the Radio Mannfacturers’ Assoution. They should be junked, is the verdict. ° AN American writer says:-"UIti- ;"* mately stations will specialise-one in education, one in dance musie, one in concert recitals, one in classic orchestrations, another in band mnisic., and so on. Each will become highly proticient in its limited field, and will thus become nationally famous, just as specialists in the professions are well known. All stations sound alike to-day because all-are doing the same thing-just brovdeasting. It's aggravating to turn the dial from one point to another without hearing anything different." THE Broadcasting Company of Australia Pty., Lid. (8L0), an- nounce that an arrangement has been made between that company and the Associated Radio Co., Ltd. (8AR), for the purpose of effecting an anulgamation of activities in providing a voordinated broadcasting service in Victoria. This co-ordination will enable a central managameut -to direct the service with many advantages to listeners. Duplication of programmes, which was inseparable from the present arrangement of competitive service, will be avoided, and listeners will be able to obtain alternative programmes at all times. ‘The full adyantages of the co-ordination will not be experienced at once, as some time must necessarily elapse in arranging details, Hfome listener writes:-‘From a strictly legal standpoint I suppose chronic radio interference, especially in eases of power electrical disturbances that devastate radio reception tover a large area, becomes a public nuisance. As an American contemporary journal remarks, ‘in one instance a whole district beeame a barren radie waste simply because a shoe repair shop around the corner did not have five dollars’ worth of fixed condensers \shunted around the brushes of its power motor. *