Early Radio in New Zealand

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 7, 31 August 1928, Page 4

Early Radio in New Zealand

Interesting and Entertaining — Reminiscences

Radio broadcasting has had a very interesting history, brief though it has been. The pioneers in ratio telephony were great enthusiasts, and one of the first was Mr. Clive Drummond, announcer at 2VY4. His enthusiasm for broadcasting has increased as his association with it has extended. It was by special request that he has been induced to record his reminiscences, and the appended interesting and entertaining story is from his facile pen.

Y FIRST introduction to wireless was at the Wellington Commercial Station "VLW," in 1912. The plant consisted of a 24K.W. Telefunken transmitter, with a quench

spark gap, which produces a high pitch note that is easily read through atmospherie disturbances. The receiver was a loose coupled Telefunken, using perikon detectors (Zincite and Bornite). This type of detector, although stable, was not nearly so sensitive as other crystals such as galena, silicon, and severat of the pirites species. Some really remarkable distances were work: ed from the various New Zealand sta tions using galena as a detector, the best achievement being the picking ur of Perth (VIP) and Broome (VIB} testing on 1100 metres. The Moana, which was subsequently wrecked, was worked when 1100 miles out from New Zealand, bound for San Francisco; although her transmitting apparatus consisted of a 14 K.W. slam spark Marconi set. AFTER spending some three years at VLW, my next experience of wireless was with the ist New Zealand Wireless Troop in Mesopotamia. ‘The troop, together with the Australian Wireless Squadron, took over the lines of communication from the Royal Engineers. 'These two units were subsequently united, and called the Anzac Wireless Squadron, and maintained the lines of communication throughout the Mesopotamian camgaign. We saw many places of interest, and had some rather unique experiences, but I must confine my article to wireless. Two types of sets were used-waggon and pack horse (Marconi portable). These sets were very efficient, and withal very solidly built. Signor Marconi must have had Western Australian halfdraught horses in mind when he de-

signed these types of sets, as it was from these horses that the solidness of the sets was most frequently tested. For the pack sets, the motor was arranged on a saddle which fitted on the horse’s back, the armature of

course, being first removed. The danger of damage to the set and to the soldier was in the placing of this motor saddle on to the horse’s back; one false touch on the rump or flank during this operation, and look out.

These horses could kick the eye of the proverbial needle, or-for that matter of anything else that happened to be within range. AFTER such an equestrian demon‘stration it was usually necessary to hunt for the various parts of the set, which had been scattered over the desert during his mad peregrinations. PHAKING of horses reminds me of my old friend "‘Buckshee." He Wwas a wanderer and they took him in; after that, he did the taking in. I wondered at first why such a goodlooking horse should be hanging round loose; I soon found out. Buckshee was "Puggle." He was a quiet horse -except when the moon was nearing the full. But. he was a sport, every inch of him; he fought fair. It was the Marquis of Queensberry with his front legs, La Savate with his hindquarters, catch-as-catch-can with his teeth, and jiu-jitsu all. over. The trouble was that he used all styles together in the: opening round. It took seven men to put a ring on Buckshee -firstly the fool who.tried to do it single-handed, then two_ stretcherbearers to carry the said fool to "dock"; then a reinforcement with a motor driver to bring him up from the base-after that two more men were required actually to do the job. Buck-

{ la shee had another pet aversion, ‘and that was having the strap of a nosebag placed over his ears. Once his nose got into the bag you had about a fiftieth of a second left to complete the operation. Buckshee — should have been a linguist; he taught me to swear in several languages, though I left it to the Aussies to cast refiections on his parentage. I was very glad to see the last of Buckshee. — Still, with all their objections to being tickled, they were the horses to get you there, when the order was long treks and little water. ey 1921 I became associated with the Peteral Telephone Company. Mr. A. J. A. MeClay was the operator of: their 15-watt set, situated at Gordon Place, Newtown. ‘This was also an experimental station, and the first telephone heard in New Zealand was picked up here on a receiver, built by Messrs. McClay, Haggett, Apperly and Simpson, the pioneers of radio in Wellington. Some very interesting experiments were carried out from this 15-watter, and demonstrations with varying degrees of success. One of the most interesting and successful was the pro- viding of some of the dance music by wireless telephony for the Post and Telegraph Engineers’ Social and Sports Club dance which was held in the New Century Hall, Kent Terrace, on August 11, 1922. All the instruments used, including the transmitter, were constructed by the gentlemen pre, viously mentioned, and as a sample fine workmanship the transmitter pai ticularly was notable. ‘* s. At the New Century Hall was a three-stage amplifier: The received waves amplified by this set were passed to a three-stage bower magnavo amplifier, and from that to a magnavo, from which they were emitted into the dance hall with great power. As the hall is right on a tramline, and. as a tramear is amazingly efficient as a generator of etheric disturbances at short distances, there was.a good deal of disturbance, and the wireless programme was found less satisfactory than was hoped. ‘The large gathering was none thé less pleased and impressed, and it thoroughly. enjoyed the terrific uproar which was caused at 9 p.m. when VLW burst in with its nightly weather report. With so much amplification the. noise was almost deafening. IRELESS in those days. had its "humorous side, particularly for the broadcaster, due possibly to poor modulation, or was it enunciation? The following is a case in point :- A gramophone selection had been announced (a fox-trot entitled "Georgia" ) played. by Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. Some little time after the record was finished a lady telephoned to say how much she had enjoyed the dance number "Georgia," and adda, "Would you please give us some mole items by four white men up in Augkland." "oN During the broadcasting of the tion results in 1922, opportunity was, taken during the early evening when rettirns were slow in coming to hand, to give a brief description of the provisions made by the Government to enable people to record their votes.

Among other things it was pointed out how "booths" had been arranged in every part of the city for the convenience of the people. Next morning it was pointed out to me how shameful it kvas, on such an important occasion asigthe election, when a referendum on the liquor question was being taken, for the Government to have ‘‘boose" in places so easily accessible to the public. © Evidently the Federal microphones used in those days did not handle the "diphs" too satisfactorily. N 1923 The Dominion Radio Company started operations, broadcasting from a transmitter embodying the Hartley circuit, using Z3 Philips tubes. A motor generator driven off the city supply delivered 2000 volts to the plates. type, using large hoops. All this was The antenna was of the circular cage situated on the roof of the Wellington Publishing Companys ("Dominion") building, Lambton Quay, the studio ‘being on the ground floor. A regular service was maintained by this company, broadcasting concert programmes four nights a week, including Sundays. Many artists and listeners will remember 2YK under the regime of the Dominion Radio Company, for it was from this station that numbers of artists heard on the air to-day made their debut to Radioland, Many demonstrations were given (by way of experiment) from this station, with more or less sucecss. I will briefly mention two. For the first, James Smith’s Drapery Emporium, on the corner of Cuba and Manners Streets, was selected. A receiving set had been

installed on the roof, and a loudspeaker lowered over the parapet until it came to rest on the roof of the varanda. The concert started, and the first item was supposed to be a trombone solo. It might have been, but you could not blame the people from questioning this, jydging from the weird and wonderful yises emitted from that loudspeaker. trombone solo was hardly a happy of an item for demonstration nurposes, for the noise reproduced, together with the almost continuous tram tra" *» passing over the points can better be imagined than described. This was taking place on Wellington's long night (Friday) and the crowds of interested? (curious) people, congregated to

see what the noise was all about, grew to such an extent that all traffic was held up. The police eventually took a hand in the matter, and ordered us to stop, so "Imshi" the wireless for that night. ; From this station 2YA I had _ the pleasure of broadcasting the results of the 1925 elections, when Reform was returned with such an overwhelming majority. The station was on the air from 7 p.m. until midnight. The Prime Minister (the Hon. J. G. Coates) calléd (with a suite of officials) at the Strand at 11.45 and spoke to and thanked the, people from the microphone at 2YK. [HE other occasion of which I spoke and which met with a greater measure of success was when some hundreds of Wellingtonians enjoyed a moonlight excursion round the harbour on the ferry steamer Duchess. Selected gramophone dance numbers were broadcast during the evening and picked up on a specially-fitted-up receiver on the Duchess. Full advantage was taken of the dance music not only by the excursionists, but by the frequenters of the beach at Petone, Day’s and Rona Bays, at which calls were made. Another successful broadcast from 2YK was that of the final Test match, All Blacks v. England, played at Twickenham. Special arrangements had been made to have the results on the cable at London, and likewise in New Zealand. The information was: to be available immediately it reached the Pacific cable office in Auckland. It was announced

that the result would be received about 8am.on Sunday. Mr. H. R. Jacques, then manager of the Dominion Radio Company, was associated with me in this stunt, being my guest for the Saturday night. . We were astir soon after 2 am., and after partaking of a "seagull’s breakfast," set out for tawn, on foot, as of course there were no cars at that hour of the morning. We arrived at the station at 2.40 a.m., and to be on the safe side rang to see if the special trunk line to the cable station was O.K. The reply electrified us both. "Stand by, result just being reeorded." Mr. Jacques is 6 feet. tall with long legs, and he needed them. To see the way he negotiated those sév-

eral flights of stairs, three at a time, was a sight for the gods. He had the station on the air in a trice. I had barely time to get from the studio where I got his O.K. down by ’phone, when the news from Auckland came: "11-17." Nothing more. I did not stop to consider the possibility of which way the fortunes of the game had gone, but flew to the "mike" and shouted, "New Zealand 17, England 11." The time was 2.44 a.m. This, I understand, established a world’s record for quick communication, the result being broadcast in New Zealand just 24 minutes after the sounding of the bell at call of time in England. Many listeners referred to us as radio enthusiasts of the first water, and greatly appreciated getting the news so promptly, but others again ‘placed us in quite a different category. During the next few days the company received over sixty letters from listeners, who wrote me to say they had received the result during the early morning session, so you see we did not have it on our own after all. The result was broadcast intermittently until 4.80 a.m., and again at 10 a.m. By this time we were both tired, but happy in the thought that we had been able to broadcast such wonderful news. Even in these days, in spite of the fact that all the artists performed without fees, the expense of maintaining a broadcast service was con-

siderable. The various traders in Wellington, realising this, and that they were participants with the Dominion Radio Company in benefits derived from the incentive to purchase sets, caused by the broadcast service, contributed monthly payments to the Dominion Radio Company. The broadcasting service was then known as the Wellington Broadcasters. It is interesting to note, and shows the keen practical interest taken in radio by the people of Wellington, that for one or two years they placed their time and talent at the disposal of the company gratuitously, and it was only through sickness or other unavoidable circumstances that engagements were not carried out to the letter. The Radio Company went into voluntary liquidation about the end of October, 1926, and during the time until the N.Z.R.B.Co. commenced operations on December 22, 1926, the service was maintained by the P. and T. Department, Mr. Joe Carr acting as programme organiser. The N.Z.B.Co. had their studios in the Dominion Farmers’ Institute Buildings, although the transmitter was stillat the "Dominion" Newspaper Buildings. Considerable improvement was evidenced in the transmission at this time, due to the fact that Western lJHlectric Microphones and speech in-put equipment was introduced. 2YK carried on until 2YA opened on July 16, 1927.