Radio in the Antarcticd

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 22, 13 December 1929, Page 2

Radio in the Antarcticd

Broadcasts for the Byrd Expedition reg the lonely wanted of the Antaretie, a small company of sixty men, comprising the well-known Byrd ‘Expedition, are solely dependent while in their voluntary two-year exile upon radio as a@ means of securing news and enter‘tainment from’ the world they have temporarily forsaken. In order to ensute passable recep tion at least for the expedition, the, engineers of station WGY, Schenectady, spent many months in designing and perfecting .a special transm} aerial: known as the "Byrd ant a This has been used in every special broadeast to Commander Byrd and his party, and, so far,.every programme has been clearly received, The first transmission took place on March 23, and within fifteen minutes ‘after the conclusion of the. programme word came in code from. WFA (Byrd’s station) that the "entire programme had been received through loudspeakers. The aerial is. of the horizontal "checker-board" type; and is one dmong a dozen that sway above-a 54-acre field occupied by the transmitter laboratory at South Schenectady, New York. They hang from steel masts 150ft. to 300ft. high, from ‘plain ‘‘wodden ‘masts, ‘and from. masts .with crogspars. "This new aerial is really: twelve in-one, :corsisting of ‘two sections of a checkerboard; each section.made-up.of three squares. One section is used.as:a reflector. ‘Only the.. horizontal wires function as an aerial, the vertical wires affording. support or power tr. ansmission to the radi-_ ating wires. This is said to increase by ten times ‘the diréctional power of W2XAF, the short-wave radio’ station ‘of WGY, on which the "Byrd antenna" is used. In other. words, inerease in the directional power would make a. 20, kw. station the equivalent of one’ of 200 kw. in effectiveness in. one’ direction: ‘A number of ‘special’ ‘programmes have been prepared and transmitted for the particular benefit of Commander Byrd’s party. One such was recently arranged; and-.inecluded artists and speakers: who had. gathered together from ‘plaéées so ‘far apart as Chij cago; and Atlantic’ City>. by ‘motor, | . plane, and train. In acknowledgement ‘of’ the programme, OConjmander Byrd dispatched a message: of thanks. for the programme; and stated that every word came through elearly. Greatest of all; have these intrepid explorers cause tobe thankful for the invention of radio, which is solely responsible for materially reducing their sense of isolation and loneliness.