Unusual Experience

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 17, 7 November 1930, Page 4

Unusual Experience

Crystal Set Transmits { THE Editor of the Melbourne "Listener-In" received a report from a most unusual radio experience from a Tasmanian listener: "I happened across a peculiar transmission yesterday: I was warming up: my set, preparatory to tuning: to our local station’s afternoon service. I had given-the set more than the usual amount of reaction, and as I tuned toward 7ZL’s wave-length I ran into'a patch of strange voices. The spot was very near where I pick up 7ZL. -I could pick up four voices and the conversation was just, the everyday talk, and was quite e any broadcast I had ever heard. e voices were a bit hollow, as if talking at the end of the room away from the "mike." This went on for about five minutes, and then 7ZL started broadcasting and put a stop to it. I thought at the time that probably 7ZL had some visitors in -the studio and the ‘mike’ had been inadvertently left open, but I thought it strange, as I couldn’t get the generator hum, for I am in their shock area. After 7ZL’s transmission finished, I tried again, and this time the strange ‘transmission’ was much better, the voices being much nearer to the ‘mike’ By adjusting my set controls I was able to fill my speaker, and could hear every word and noise from this ‘new’ station. At last out of the peculiar style' of entertainment I got the names of the ‘artists,’ and on logging them I found that they were _, those of a family of neighbours, three" doors away. "I made inquiries, and found they were using a crystal set, and they had been trying a small cone loudspeaker on it. When I got them to speak near to this ‘speaker, or ‘mike,’ which -it had. turned itself into, their voices roared in at my end."