ECHOES OF THE BYRD BROADCAST

Radio Record, Volume III, Issue 42, 2 May 1930, Page 5

ECHOES OF THE BYRD BROADCAST

American Newspaper Comment

MBRICAN papers just to hand show that the Byrd two-way conversations between Dunedin and New York was extensively featured. Naturally the "New York Times" was the paper which devoted most space to the oceasion, Maps (similar to that published in the "Radio Record") were printed, showing the relay lines from Dunedin to Wellington, the broadcast to Sydney, and thence to New York, with the short-wave broadcast back again. Quite a feature is made of the fact that Rear-Admiral Byrd, speaking in New Zealand on March 12 (the date of Mr. Adolph Ochs’s birthday) was able to congratulate Mr. Ochs in New York

(where the date was March 11), the day before his birthday octually arrived. The "New York Times" has headings such as the following :- "Byrd’s voice leaps over.10,000 miles from New Zealand," "The Admiral carries on a two-way conversation with friends in Schenectady," "His laugh clearly. heard," "Admirers around the world listen to programme rebroadcast by station WGY," "Byrd hears ‘every word,’ " "Antarctic Expedition is promised a royal welcome when it returns to America." The "Schenectady Union-Star" has a heading in big type right across the page: "Byrd’s voice heard by radiv here." The principal heading in the "Albany Evening News" spans the top of a page: "World hears radio welcome to Admiral Byrd." Another Albany paper, "The 'TimesUnion," displays, "Byrd greets America through WGY." "The New York Times" has a eon#iderable amount te say about tho

"echo," and at the time the article was written there was much conjecture as to the cause (which it has since been ascertained was due to 2MB rebroadcasting 2XAT"). A paragraph in the article refers to the echo as follows :--~ "At times thé voices from Dunedin seemed to have an echo or shadow, which came through the loudspeaker a fraction of a second after the main signal. The echo was of less intensity than the preceding part of speech which it seemed to follow closely. For in stance, if the speaker from the other side of the globe said ‘yes,’ the expression which came from the speaker

a -_ was ‘yes, yes." Other syllables were repeated in like manner." The suggestion at first made by Dr. A. N. Goldsmith, chief broadcasting engineer of the Radio Corporation of America, was that the echo could probably be laid at the door of what engineers call "world echoes by radio," this being the description applied te the reception of two short wave signals, one of which had been received direct from Sydney and the other a fraction of a second later after trayelling round the globe. Dr. Goldsmith declared the echo signal could not have been an acoustical echo, as often happens in. a bare room or hall, because Commander Byrd was not speaking in a hall large enough for such a sound echo to take place to the extent which it was heard on the radio. He said Rear-Admiral Byrd would have had to speak in "quite a large auditorium" to create an acoustical echo of such dimensions. Dr. Goldsmith was quite right in his contention that the echo could not be attributed to 4YA