Topical News

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 23, 20 December 1929, Page 9

Topical News

\ R. KEITH stated in his lecture to the Wellington Radio Society that Sir William Crookes, inventor of the Crookes tube used in X-ray work, successfully accomplished the sending and. receiving of electrical waves through the air in his garden in 1892four years before Marconi eame into world-wide prominence. Sir ‘Willian announced that he had proved that telegraphy without the use of connecting wires was possible over a range of a few hundred yards. Professor Muirhead and Sir Oliver Lodge, in 1894, sent wireless signals to one another over short distances. It was Professor Branley (a Frenchman), however, who first discovered the "coherer," the first wireless detector... Marconi next invented the magnetic detector. which was followed by? the '-erystal detector, and in October, 1922, by Professor Fleming’s detector valve, UNIVERSALLY popular broadcast item from the New Zealand and ’ Australian stations at present is "The Toymaker’s Dream." It is a catchy melody that ensures continued popularity. R. KEITH, at the conclusion of his recent lecture before the Wellington Radio Society, displayed a remarkable collection of old-time and modern radio parts and valves, British and Continental, He also handed around a new screen-grid a.c. valve, with the. amazing rated amplification factor of 1200. The valve, which is new in New Zealand, is about double the size of the ordinary battery type 5-volt detector valve. It could not be used in the ord-' inary American factory-built set, but could be employed in a circuit specially made for it.