Topical Notes

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 36, 21 March 1930, Unnumbered Page

Topical Notes

CORRESPONDENT recently wrote Stating that two broadcast stations were clashing on the shorter broadcast wave-band. "Switch" gave it as his opinion that one of the stations referred to was in New Zealand. The other night the writer set about identifying the clashing stations, and identified them as the Invercargill station and 38DB, Melbourne. The latter was coming through with good volume, and the Invercargill’ station was working late, on tests, * % * DVERTISING by radio is, in the opinions of many prominent radio people in America, becoming a menace to the popularity of broadcast listening. Dr. Lee De Forest, the famous intentor of the radio yalve, as we know it today, speaking on his election to the presidency of the U,S.A. Institute of Radio Engineers, suggested that advertising by radio was "killing the broadcasting goose, layer of many golden eggs." This illusion aroused much con troversy in the American newspapers, and met with widespread support for De Forest. x BY x (GERMANY is making most rapid strides in popularising broadcast listening. At the commencement of lust October there were no fewer than 2,843,569 receiving licenses in Germany. % ba % MERICAN radio statisticians have been engaged on the question of how muny people there are in the United States to the number of sets in use. To every receiving set in use, they estimate, there are 124 persons in the United States. The figures computed for Europe are 53 persons to eyery set, and 88 persons in the world for every set in use. The writer ventures to suggest thut the latter estimate rather exaggerates the number of sets in use, considering the teeming millions in China and coloured peoples

--a 2 in Africa who have never seen a set, They would bring the average down considerably. * * 2 PHE New York "Radio World" reports that "the speech by King George went over the Columbia Broadcasting system due to the heroic completion of an open circuit through the body of Harold Vivian, chief control operator. Someone tripped over the generator wire just before His Majesty was to speak. Thousands of listeners were eagerly awaiting the royal voice. Vivian grabbed the several ends, one in each hand. ‘The shocks of the 250-voit charge and the leakage of current through his body to the floor shook his arms with spasms. But he held ou until new wires could be connected. By that time his hands had been: slightly burned and he was feeling the: effects of the ordeal. As soon as the broadcast was finished he was sent home to bed. But officials of the company said that he was not seriously hurt." S tt s HIS will interest New Zealand listeners: Mr. H. P. Brown, Director-General of the Commonwealth Postal Services, stated in .Syduey recently that the plant for the relay station to be erected near Newcastle was on the point of delivery and thé station would be in operation by the middle of May or June. The second station would be at Rockhampton (/,) and would be working about two mouths later. Three more sités had heen’ determined definitely, one on Spencer Gulf, South Australia, another, also in South Australia, near the borders of New South Wales and Victoria, and the third in the Albury district. Mr. Brown stated that it was not desirable to announce the sites of the remuining eight or twelve relay stations as circumstances might arise before their establishment to make it necessary to modify the present proposals.