Research in Australia

Radio Record, Volume II, Issue 47, 7 June 1929, Page 31

Research in Australia

Radio University Scholarship .

JN the hope of improving radio transmission and reception. a radio research scholarship was established at the Sydney University for the period of three years, carrying a grant from. the broadcasting companies of £500 per annum. A vast amount of technical work has been the outcome of this action and it ultimately became the nucleus of a very important extension

of radio research in Australia. Professor Madsen, of the P. N. Russell School of Engineering at the University of Sydney, recently conveyed to the directors of the New South Wales Broadeasting Company, Limited, a report on the work of Mr. Baker, the expert who has been carrying on research for several years past. This showed that very consider ble progress has been made. It is, however, with the future of the Radio Research Board that Professor Madsen’s communication mainly dealt. He reports: "Mr. Baker is at present completing an investigation into the design and operation of suitable apparatus for the determination of field intensities of the order which would be met with at distances, greater than, say, 50 miles from a generating station of normal power. ‘This apparatus is now almost complete, and as soon as it is assembled with suitable transport, Mr. Baker will undertake an investigation into the field strengths in districts lying between 50 and 150 miles from Sydney. When this work is eomplete, Mr. Baker will commence upon an investigation of fading, paying particular attention, in the first instance, to the conditions which arise in the neighbourhood of Newcastle. The work will consist of two parts. First, a very general investigation to

see exactly what the effects of fading are in such districts upon the reception obtained here. The second portion will consist in a repetition and extension of the experimental work which has been initiated and carried out in England by Professor Appleton. We have most of the apparatus available for the investigations and there are certain matters in connection with the work which is of considerable interest from the scientific point of view as well as from the more practical. It is not anticipated that we will be able to complete the work of fading within the year, but we will certainly have been able to break a considerable amount of ground." ,

Continuing, Professor Madsen writes: "I am also very pleased to say that in addition to the ¢o-operation which the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research extended through the Radio Research Board in this work, the council has now taken a very serious step. Acting upon the advice of the Redio Research Board, it has decided, in co-operation with the PostmasterGeneral’s Department, to carry out a systematic scheme of investigation into radio problems, primarily in Victoria and New South Wales, extending in the first instance, over a period of three years. It has agreed to expend a sum amounting to £2700 per annum in each State, and this will mean employing the services of two additional investigators in addition to Mr. Baker. The action of your Broadcasting Company in inaugurating the Radio Research Exhibition in New {‘outh Wales has been a very important factor in leading to this last development."