Auckland Notes

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 24, 28 December 1928, Page 4

Auckland Notes

By

Listener

}UVERY listener in Auckland is awaiting the radio Christmas, which 1928 will assuredly be. Dealers are finding trade more brisk than was anticipated, and registrations of sets are mounting apace. Permits for transfer of receivers to beach cottages and country camps have been issued in quite a considerable number, though it is feared that many break the regulations by removing their sets without first receiving the sanction of the Postal Department. Radio equipment is rapidly becoming a recognised part of the gear required for a summer season at the seaside, and that favourite holiday spot, Waiheke Island, bears testimony to this in many impr ovised aerials which are to be seen by- the cottages on its many beaches. Most set-owners would be thotoughly ashamed of such aerials in town, but for holiday purposes they are effective, and that is the chief consideration. The portable set, too, can be found at many a picnic spot, and it is kept going for the full time that 1YA is on the air. The racing news which it picks up seems to be the principal attraction for a large number of campers. Radio on the launch is now the recognised thing among the big fleet of pleasure craft that will be away from their moorings for the Christmas cruise. To the yachtsman and launch owner the wireless news supplants the newspaper, and the radio set aboard is more useful and more entertaining than the gramophone, At Russell and Tauranga, during the regatta periods in these towns, there ate hundreds who will enjoy a restful evening aboard their craft, listening to the special programmes, and discussing eagerly the news of other sports which only radio could. bring so freshly to them. AST week I prophesied that the broadcast account of a poorly patronised wrestling contest would give this sport the finest advertisement that it had had in the Dominion, and that the. next contest would demonstrate this. How true the prophecy was could be seen by the huge crowd which gathered at the Town Hall on Monday last for the return contest between Kilonis and McCarthy. Again, through the courtesy of the Wrestling Association, the microphone was there, and in front of it was Mr. Gordon Hutter,. who made such a suecess in his first description of the struggle on the mat, This suecess he repeated on Monday, and again wrestling was given a wonderful advertisement as a result. It is hard to say how many thousands listened in on the night when 1YA is usually silent, but the fact that the station came on the air with this special service was fully appreciated. — [XING in port at present i. the Danish vessel "Dana," which is engazed in scientific work in the Pacific. To wireless enthusiasts she possesses special attractions, her long and _ shovt‘wave transmitters and receivers being ‘remarkably compact and efficient, Al of the radio equipient was manufactured in Denmark, and so good is it that the officers and scientists of the little expedition are never out of touch with their own little country, now in

ss ~~ the grip of a northern European winter. The Danes hear nightly in their own langauge, the news from their. homeland read out from Danish paper in Copenhagen. Regularly they hol communication with their relatives in the homeland. For them wireless has completely annihilated the distance which separates them from their native country. One can well imagine how much use will be made of the "Dana’s" transmitter during Christmastide, " LREADY we have heard the first of our Christmas music. From 1YA on Tuesday was broadcast, under Madame Ainsley’s direction, a most creditable rendering of the "Messiah." It will be followed by other music and story suitable to the season. | 1x4 is right up to the minute with its " gporting announcements, and its nightly particulars of Australian cricket are eagerly awaited. "THE local dealers are endeavouring to make the Auckland City Council see the error of its ways in its decision to charge so exorbitantly for Municipal Band relays. It is to be hoped that the effott meets with success. Listeners too, might well lend their weight to the ripresentations which have already been placéd befote the Council. We could well do with the excellent catol programme which the Municipal Band renders each year, and that we are not to have it is due merely to the shortsightedness which the City Council has displayed.