Notes and Comments

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 17, 7 November 1930, Page 11

Notes and Comments

By

SWITCH

"SWITCH" has just received advice of yet another case in Wellington where the certain sale of an £85 radio receiving set and gramophone com- ° bined was lost through local electrical noises. The prospective buyer had the set on trial for. over a week, and neither he nor the radio trader was able to bring in outside stations so that they could be listened to with ‘any degree of pleasure. All day and throughout the night the roar of electrical noises persisted. * Bd * "THE trader who mentioned the above fact to the writer stated that he had missed many sales in Wellingtn through electrical leakages. Switch" was invited to visit the prospective buyer’s home, and the trader’s report was confirmed. There was a constant roar which would drown any station excepting 2YA. The locality is within a stone-throw of the intersection of Courtenay Place and Kent Terrace, . fa * * "THE above raises the question whether the P. and T. Department is carrying out its duty to listeners. A percentage of every license fee is retained by the P. and T. Department, ‘and one wonders what return the ‘listeners receive from the department. There are a certain number of radio inspectors, but are their services wholdy devoted to assistance to broadcasting or are these men engaged in other duties? & 2 "QTRANGLER" (Kilbirnie) writes: "JT quite agree wihh your cticicism of the commentators at wrestling matches. There has been far too much of the ‘I’ about some of these gentlemen. Another thing, too, is that during the one-minute spells between the wrestling rounds instead of giving us the score up to the moment they have talked a lot of uninteresting twaddle. Listeners, and there must be many like myself, sometimes accidentally miss the first round or two and are anxious to know how the bout has gone up till the moment they tune in." = bed s "FINTP-TOP" (Thorndon) writes: "I notice that first-rate vaudeville items, not to mention the excellent items by the Ashfield Band, are included in the fare of the community Reine programmes at the Ashfield fewn Hall, Sydney, which are broadeast regularly. Con you tell me whether the public has to pay admission to these shows?" No charge for admission is made, but collection boxes are placed in a convenient position at the entrance to the main hall. The proceeds go to a fund to provide and maintain hospitals with broadcast receiving equipment, * e bal THE musical critic of the Melbourne "Listener-In" has some trenchant remarks on the A.B.C. Novelty Or- _ chestra playing at 3L0, Melbourne. He ‘says: "Where’s Lo musical tonality or the rhythm. Sounds ‘dead’-like a Jeaden drum played with a carrot." The critic writes of 3AR, Melbourne: "Over 38AR 8,15-10.20, two hours of records. This is not fair to listeners. ' Living artists are due to us anyway after 8 p.m. and you get your share of

the license fees to see this is done. We can get plenty of records-almost more than we want from 83DB and 8UZ! Two hours for highbrows without relief." = = ° LJ "QPILL" (Hataitai) writes: "Have you noticed that some broadcast station is heterodyning with 2BL, Sydney, in the early evening? I thought at first it was a howling valve, but it

is there continuously, although it ‘swings’ a little.’ "Switch" has heard something heterodyning with 2BL on several occasions lately, and has observed the variation in pitch of the heterodyne note. It is not a howling valve. * ¥ = OVICES occasionally question "Switch" as to the relation between the silvering inside a valve and its efficiency. There is no connection between the silvering and the efficiency of the valve. The silvery deposit is a film of condensed magnesium. In the progress of evacuation, which is in itself not an easy task, a small piece of metallic magnesium is affixed to the plate of the valve. The plate is then heated, using high frequency induction currents, Volatilisation of the magnesium takes place, the metallic vapour absorbing the remaining gasses, and, upon cooling, condensing on the surface of the valve. The condensation does not obey any fixed law as it is where most of the — will occur, hence its irregularye

A LENGTHY letter is to hand from "Audio" (Palmerston North) in which he commends the use of the 250 valve in the last audio stage of a.c. sets, and advises those who own sets which cannot take that valve to have them adapted to accommodate it. He says: "Not sufficient value is attached by many listeners to tone quality, and only after they have heard really good reproduction do they come to the conclusion that their sets are lacking in that respect. To me tone quality is an essential, and I may add that all those who have complained to me of the qual. ity of reception have antiquated loudspeakers and valves." =m Ba 2 A LYALL Bay listener informs "Switch" that on a recent night he obtained good loudspeaker reception of WGY, Schenectady, on 380 metres (790 kilocycles). This is on a slightly longer wave-length than that of 3L0O, Melbourne, 375 metres (800 kilocycles). WGY employs a power of 50,000 watts, but is 8200 miles, in a direct line, from Wellington. * = s THOSE interested in the establishment of an DWmpire short-wave broadcast station will note with plea-

sure that Mr. Forbes, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, expressed himself as being strongly in favour of the scheme, according to the cabled reports. It will, be recalled that prior to Mr. Forbes’s departure from the Dominion the Wel-: lington Radio Society forwarded a letter to him urging the desirability of an *mpire short-wave broadcast station. . , * " At the conclusion of the Sydney to Melbourne cycle race, "Switch" listened to the speeches in connection with the presentation of trophies in Melbourne to the three placed riders. Councillor Frank Beaurepaire, the exchampion swimmer, made the presentations. The Frenchman Mauclair, who won the race, spoke in his native tongue, which was subsequently translated into English by another speaker. Bidot, the other Frenchman, spoke first in French and then in Bnglish. He finished third. Hubert Opperman, the Australian, who ‘finished second, gave a neat little speech. A a * FADING has been most intense of late, and even 2FC Sydney has been a conspicuous victim to this complaint, The Japanese stations have not been up to their average lately, and they have been affected by protracted and severe cycles of fading. A station which has been coming in with unprecedented volume ts 2GB Sydney, and the tone has been second to none of the Australian stations. x BS * "QWITCH" has received a number of: letters appreciative of his instrumentality in having the map of New Zealand, with distances from the various broadcast stations, published in last week’s "Record." The scale published with the map renders it easy to measure off the exact distance between any two points in New Zealand. One correspondent states that previous to the publication of the map he had no idea that Dunedin was so far as 875 miles from Wellington.