Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 29, 1 February 1929, Page 5

Radio Round the World

THE Government of Icleand is plan- , ning the construction of a 5000watt radio station at Reykjavik. There are at present five Governmentoperated wireless stations in Iceland. The telegraph and telephone system is but twenty-years old, having been constructed since the laying of the cable connecting Iceland with the Faroe Islands and Denmark in 1906, M GASTON DOUMERGUE, Presi- * dent of the French Republic, is a wireless enthusiast. In the presidential palace of the Elysee he has one receiving set in his dining-room, another in the billiard-room, and a third in his study. When the President occasionally removes to his country seat at Rambouillet he is not without his wireless, for there also are a number of receiving sets for his use. SE BERL LEE SP ELLE BEE PEEBESERBESLEPEPEER

h UCH remains to be done to edueate the public in France in matters relating to wireless. At a recent trial in Paris a share-pusher was condemned to a term of imprisonment for selling shares of a bogus company which the prospectus intimated was formed "to plant steel posts all over ae for the conveyance of wireess waves which shall bring the world’s concerts to the humblest crystal set." LOUDSPEAKERS are being used at the live hare coursing ground at Mascot, Sydney, to speed up the hares. Though among the fleetest of creatures afoot the hare is never really in a hurry until the dogs are fairly close up. The result is that the long starts which are now being given in order to make sure that the hare will escape is not much good to the animal and he has got into a habit of sauntering long as if. time was no object. When doe, realises the need for haste it may De too late. However, the directors have tried all manner of things to make him, including a man on horseback, whose job was to ride after the hares and keep them going. Now it has been decided to try loudspeakers.

These have been connected with the kennels of the dogs in reserve and the sound of their barking is thrown en the course behind the hares, who imagine that they are about to be seized. The trick is expected to make the hares go at record speed. MEMBERS of the Radio Trade Committee on broadcasting declare that that means of liaison with the B.B.C. is about to be dissolved. Following a period of amicable relations, there have been several acute disagreements lately, and the chances of the continuance of the committee are regarded as slight. . There has _ been acute difficulty about the atitude of the B.B.C. towards "wireless exchanges," and also towards reception in general. Savoy Hill is disposed to encourage "re-diffusion" through wireless exchanges such as exist at Southsea and Hythe. ‘The result of the trouble on the Trade Committee may well be a new war on the B.B.C. with the radio trade ranging itself alongside of other malcontents and-the theatre industry. "QUMMER-TIME reception," which stands for poor reception over long distances, is still with us, and is worrying the radio trade considerably. Beginners continue to object to pay long prices for high-class sets which will not bring in the Australian stations with a punch. The Australian radio Press has frequent mention of the poorness of reception from distant stations. Some nights 2BL, Sydney, has been coming in sufficiently loud to yield loudspeaker reception, but this occurred after 10.30 p.m., and took fully an hour from that time to show any appreciable increase in volume. EGULAR broadcasts of agricultural programmes on a nation-wide scale and dealing with all the variest aspects of farm and, home life were started recently through stations associated with the National Broadcasting Co. These "Farm and Home Hour" programmes will be broadcast at noon every day except Saturdays and Sundays, and will be available to listeners from the Alleghenies to the Rocky Mountains and from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. Starting at 12 o’clock C.S.T. the "Farm and Home Hour" will be interrupted at 12.15 by an official programme by the United States Department of Agriculture from the studios in Washington, D.C, Afterwards the "Farm and Home Hour" will be resumed, continuing until 12.45. The "hour" will conrast of instructive and entertaining music interspersed with talks by famous authorities, discussing subjects of vital interest to farm and home. HE potentialities of .adio for the furtherance of religious teaching were amply demonstrated by a series of services broadcast during the summer months over the National Broadcasting Company’s (U.S.A.) network of forty stations. The services, arranged under the auspices of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in Ameriea, and conducted by

the Greater New York Federation of Churches, covered the four hours from 2pm. to 6 pm. on Sundays. The period between two and three o’clock was occupied by a formal church service, including addresses by distinguished clergymen, #d the singing of anthems and hymns by soloists and a mixed quartet. Then followed a programme, known as "Sixty Musical Minutes," which was furnished by a sma symphony orchestra and a male quartet. This was succeeded by a "Question Hour,’ with musical interludes of the ballad and folk song type. The remaining hour was filled with "Twilight Reveries," consisting of an address by a prominent speaker and religious music by the "National Choristers." [CLUDED in the sentences passed on Sehwarzhorer (Radio Pirates) -of whom 5656 were convicted in Germany in the last two and a-half years -. is the confiscation of their unlicensed wireless receiving sets. These confiscated sets, which were formerty in the possession of the Reichspost, now

pass into the possession of the State authorities within whose jurisdiction the prosecutions. were made. In Prussia-by far the largest of the Federal States-the sets, it is announced, are to be placed at the disposal, firstly of the judicial authorities, for use especially in the prisons, and, secondly, of official charitable organisations, for gratuitous delivery to war cripples and people blinded in the war. "THE feat of sending two electric currents simultaneously over the same wire, thereby performing two operations with but one power highway, is accomplished by a new system of street-lighting recently put into service in Boston, Mass., U.S.A. ‘This latest triumph of electrical engineering, known to the profession as "resonant control,’ eliminates the necessity for a special network of wires to feed current to street lights, and makes it practical for the first timme for street lights to receive their euvrent supply from the same circuit that carries electricity to residences and office buildings.

INDIA’S TROUBLES. HE resignation of the European staff of the Indian Broadcasting Company has created something of a_ sensation. The original capital of the Indian Broadcasting Company was £45,000, and this money has now been expended, and the company has been carrying on with a loan, which has also nearly gone. The staff has resigned, because they say it is in their own interests, and that of the public. They maintain that the success of broadcasting must depend on the excellence and utility of the programmes, and without adequate finance, this is impossible.