News from the Radio World

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 29, 31 January 1930, Unnumbered Page

News from the Radio World

SOMETHING new in gramophone reeords is announced. Some of the leading English novelists and poets are heard in ten-minute readings from their own works. Here is a list of some of these records:-W. W. Jacobs, in a reading from "Short Cruises"; Sheila Kaye-Smith, from "The' George and the Crown’; Rose MacCauley, from "The Alien’; Compton McKenzie, from "Rogues and Vaga; bonds"; A. E. W. Mason,‘ from Other Tiger’; Alfred Noyes reads "TMe Highwayman," from his collected poems; H. De Vere Stacpoole reads from "The Dreams of War"; E. Temple Thurston, from "The Patchwork Papers"; and A, A. Milne, from "Winnie the Pooh." LASt year a Royal Commission was appointed by the Canadian Government to look into the whole question of Canadian broadeasting with a view to bringing it thoroughly up-to-date, The Commission has now made its recommendations, and, roughly, these suggest a cross between the broadcasting methods in vogue in this: country and those in the States, the best features of the two systems being retained, The Canadian Commission also suggests that a central authority should control the broadcasting, somewhat on the lines of the B.B.C., but owing to the special conditions in Canada, where such a very large area hag to be covered, and where, consequently, the different stations and local requirements will differ very considerablymuch more so than here-the Commission thinks that individual stations should be given as much freedom as possible in their choice of programmes, D®:. Ourt Stille, a well-known German engineer, who, for some considerable time, has been at work on apparatus for the electro-magnetic registration of sounds, is reported to have constructed a Press talking machine, When connected to an ordinary telephone the apparatus registers all incoming communications, which in their turn can be amplified and reproduced, as required through a _ loudspeaker The main advantage of the invention, however, lies in the fact that it permits a species of high-speed telephony. If, for instance, a Berlin news agency receives a telephoned bulletin lasting thirty minutes from, say, its Stockholm or Copenhagen correspondent, the entire message-.can be registered on a steel ribbon. lIater, should it be necessary to pass the information on to Paris or London correspondents, the mechanical transmission can be speeded up, with the result that the message ean be sent over the usual long-distance cables, and compressed into some six minutes’ duration, thus effecting a considerable saving in expense. When slowed down the receiving apparatus gives an intelligible message.