Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 28, 25 January 1929, Page 5

Radio Round the World

N reviewing its year’s operations the New South Wales Broadcasting Company, which will shortly go out of existence under the nationalisation scheme, claims, as evidence of its popularity, an increase of 20,000 listeners in the State during the past twelve months. There are now 92,000 registered in New South Wales. oy HEN the new trunk lines between WZ; Auckland and Hamilton are comin about eight weeks’ time there will be a possibility of putting a Waikato concert on the air in Auckland. So great was the success of the Wa-nganui-Wellin: fon relay that the Broadcasting Comnany may be expected to leave no stone unturned to _ give Auckland a similar treat. UITE a novelty in broadcasting was introduced by the B.B.C. on November 30 last, when it relayed a rehearsal of the new musical play "Virginia." Listeners were enabled to hear all that goes into the final moulding of a stage production-repetition of choruses, directions by the producer, in fact, all of the realities behind the scenes. It is needless to say that the whole broadcast was conducted with the usual B.B.C. _ thorougbness. "@PHE Polish Government announces the erection in the near future of a short-wave station in the neighbourhood of Gdingen (near Zoppot). This transmitter will also be used on the telephony service between Gdingen and Warsaw, as this line is at present overworked. "THe International Broadcasting Union at its recent meeting at Lausanne, Switzerland, recommended that all radio stations broadcast communications in Esperanto, the "international language," as oftel as possible. Results of a survey showed that 168 stations in various countries were sending out -messages in Esperanto. A SCHEME for radio programmes without the necessity of owning a receiving set, with its troublesome accumulators, is put forward by a Gon in the North of England. a super-receiving station rekys would be made to houses at 1s. 6d. a week. one station serving up to 5000 houses. A house wired for this would ‘have radio in every room and all that would then be necessary would be a loudspeaker, which could be plugged into the radio sockets on the walls of the rooms. HE "Blectrical Review" stated in a 2 recent issue that broadcast radio. telephone stations in service in ltus- } sia, and in the course of construction at the beginning of 1928, numbered 64. The . wavelength used ranged from 60.12 to 1700, ten stations using 0 metres or over, while the power sed ranges from 0.02 to 40 kw. , A factory in Leningrad has.just completed a 25-kilowatt broadcasting station which can also work as a telegraph station with a power of 35 kilowatts. Progress in Russia radio has shown remarkable stimulation during 1928.

EXPERIMENTS in the wireless transmission of power are reported to be in progress at Birmingham University, the particular object of the tests being the provision of power for tramears. It is not intended to transmit power over a great distance but simply to eliminate the present mechanical trolley link between car and conductor rail by the substitution of high-frequency waves. A 20,000cycle Poulsen arc is being used, the receiver power being converted by a mercury are rectifier. 7 >)

JAPANESE radio-engineer has invented an instrument the ultramicrometer, which is designed to measure infinitesimally small movements or displacements. The essential feature of the instrumneut is a valve-generator with carefully tuned circuits. The movement to be medasured is made to produce either a change in the capacity-value of the eddy-current loss set up in a conductor placed in the field of an inductance coil. This naturally causes a change in the plate-current output from the valve generator which is first magnified by the amplifying action of the valve, and is then applied to a sensitive recording galvanometer or oscillograph tube. THE broadcasting of denominational echureh services in Australia is still in a condition of flux, and important changes are under consideration. The proposal is to discontinue the broadeast of sectarian services from the "A" class stations, and substitute a "National Religious Service." ‘The ordinary church services will be transmitted through the "B" class stations. The National Services will avoid anything that even remotely savours of sectarianism, and will be organised by leading orators on religious and social topics. Already a broadcasting station has been leased by the Roman Catholic Church in Sydney for Sundays and a portion of the evening sessions during week-ends. The same procedure to a large extent is being followed "by the Theosophical station, 2GB. . With a Roman Catholie and 2

Theosophical station already on the air in Syduey, leaders of the different Protestant churches are giving serious consideration to the attitude they are to adopt in future regarding the broadcasting of their services. HE Cenotaph service which the British Broadcasting Corporation relayed, Sunday, November 11, was looked forward to with keen interest in France, where the British programmes are as much favoured by the natives as by the great British colonies. Every Armistice Day hundreds of people have been unable to find places at the morning service at the British Embassy Church, and this Sunday, at an overflow service, the ceremony at the Cenotaph was broadcast in the spacious courtyard of the Embassy itself, There a great gathering of Britons abroad observed the traditional silence and followed an English service on what is really British soil. At Maisons-Laffitte, a suburb of Paris known as the "Newmarket of

France," the Cenotaph ceremony was broadcast in the Anglo-American church, Holy Trinity, as a part of the morning service, which was suspended during the period of the broadcast. These re-broadcasts, it may be added, were undertaken by two British listeners, and proved a great success. HE ceremony of the Keys, which for centuries has been enacted every night at the Tower of Londonit is really the "locking up" of the ancient building-has twice been broadcast during the last two years. There is something in it which thrills, the tramp of the feet as they resound through the dimly-lit passages, the stern challenge of the sentries "Who goes there?" and the reply "The Keys -King George’s Keys." The microphone, or rather the six microphones which are required for this broadcast, take us back through the ages as nothing else can do, for which reason doubtless there have been many requests that it shall be repeated again.