Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 16, 1 November 1929, Page 31

Radio Round the World

WIRELESS broadcast programmes as supplied by the Nationalist Government in China are reported to be a trifle dull..° Propaganda was the object of the Government in encouraging radio development, and propaganda is issued in such large doses that the Chinese listener switches over. to Japan or Vladivostok and listens to jforeign music, He even listens to speeches in Russian in preference to those in his‘ native language. Until the Nationalists gained control in China it was illefal to, own.a. receiving set. Now, however, regulations similar to those in Western Hurope are in force, At present not one person in a thous-

and can afford a set, . but hundreds gather round the big shops and _listenin. . BAND music broadcasts by the Silver Band of the Royal Glasgow. Asylum for the Blind are very popular in England at present. The whole repertoire, of course, has to be carried in the memory, and the problem of efficient control by the conductor is solved in a véry novel way. Each performer has attached to either an arm or & Jeg, a long cord which terminates at the conductor’s rostrum. Communication is effected by means of a prearranged system of signals, which are conveyed to each musician by tapping with a baton on the required cord. ANOTHER instance of the importance attached by European countries to direct wireless communication is the order just placed with the Mareconi Company by the Societe Beige Radio-Hlectrique, on behalf of the Belgian Government. This provides for the installation of a short-wave tele-graph-taephone transmitter, which will be used for conimunication betwéén Belgium, the Belgian Congo, and South America. Two short-wave receivers of the latest type, similar to those used by the Marconi beam station, haye also been ordered. ‘

— SERIOUS interference cun be e:used by amateurs who allow their sets to oscillate freely, This is denionstrated by a discovery made recently by a wireless operator. employed on a trans-Atluntic liner. He found that by using excessive reaction, he could transmit a distance of eighty miles on an ordinary single valve set, and well over & hundred miles on a two-vilve set. It is easily seen that if only three or four set-owners allow their sets to oscillate continuously, the evening’s entertainment is spoilt for hundreds, perhips thousands. of listeners. ONB-KILOWATT station was erected in F .1miosa towards the end of.last year, and to popularise broadcasting there,»no fee is charged for listening-in. The British Consul at Tamsin, Formosa states that the number of applications for free listening permits exceeded 8000 in the first four months. Of.the receivers in use 80 per cent. are cheap crystal sets, and are of Japanese manufacture. Iu the spring of 1980 a new 10-kilowatt station is to be opened at Itabashi, near Taihoku; and New Zealand listeners with valve sets will have a new source of interesting entertainment when this high-powered station commences its regular transmissons.