Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 20, 28 November 1930, Unnumbered Page

Radio Round the World

..> Wavelets — an Tt is estimated that 1500 of the total Dumber of shortwave transmitting stations in, Germany are unlicensed. The new Calcutta station works on 25.6 m. Relays have been given by English stations. ‘ The shortwave station. UOR2, Vienna, has provisionally suspended e@perations. The first Italian train to be equipped with wireless was run on September 8 over the Milan-Turin line. leadphones were rented out for a small sum according to the distance travelled. Transmitters are used by petrol prospectors in America, 5 metres being reserved for them. It is said in Italy that an ingenious person is-on the point of completing an efliicacious remedy te deal with parasitic noises. Fd & * AN increase of 120 per cent. in the number of licensed listeners in Italy in eighteen months is attributed .to the special measures adopted by the Government to suppress piracy. * ® * ANS are maturing for the construction at Budapest of a powerful new broadcasting station to be modelled on the lines of the British Regional stations. Two programmes will ‘be transmitted simultancously. * ba * THE chimney-sweeps of Warsaw are ‘ reported to be up in arms against the nuisance caused by the "forests" of aerials on city roofs. In a petition to the municipulity they declare that aerials not only obstruct them in their work, but also imperil their lives. pyar has been declared on all forms ‘ of electrical interference with brvadcast reception by the Dlectrotechnical Union of Ozecho-Slovakia. The principal causes of such interference were Jemonstraied during a recent Radio Fair at Pragne, and many sales of trouble-climinuting devices Were mide. * * s CARRIER pigeons are undoubtedly aware of the wireless wayes, and it is known that they Jose their seuse of direction when they pass uear 2 transmitting station, An Wnglish doce: tor has now raised the point that possibly sume of the patients in our mental institutions have that same faculty. Xe says that he had o¢easion to visit

such an institution when the doctor in charge litroduced him to a patient who heard music in’ the air-and who could reproduce the music and words he heard; often the latter being in a language totally unknown to the patient, * * a . YHE recent America Cup yacht races held a special interest for the radio historian, for it was during the races of September, 1899, that America had its first practical demonstration of wireless. For this contest, thirty-one years ago, between Sir Thomas Lipton’s "Shamrock 1" and the "Columbia," the young inventor, Guglielmo Marconi, was engaged by the editor of the "New York Times" to report the

races by means of his newly-invented apparatus for telegraphy without wires. A receiving aerial was erected at Navesink, New York, while Marconi’s spark transmitter was installed on the steamer ‘‘Ponce." ‘Thousands of words, at a rate of about fifteen a minute, were sent from the "Ponce" during the race by Marconi and his operators. = * a AN unlicensed transmitter working on the same wavelength as Scotland Yard intercepts police messages,’ thus enabling a gang of thieves to operate with little fear of capture. Only recently a jeweller was robbed and the thieves. vanished before the police could even reach their cars in pursuit. ba % * BRIuISH receiving license figures are steadily progressing toward four million. "Saturation point wili not be reached," states the B.B.C., "until there is a wireless set in every home, and that is our aim." It is estiwated that a set is to be found in two out of every three homes. * & * FACED with the possibility that the Colombo broadcasting station would close down through lack of

funds, the residents of Ceylon recently opened a "Programme Fund." Within a few weeks enough money was col+ ‘~ lected to enable the station directors to maintain the usual standard of programmes for ‘some months, . * % * ‘ . JFOUR. hundred schools *in Germany are shortly to be equipped with broadcast receiving apparatus, according to the plans of the German Union of School Radio, More than 8000 teachers are members of the union, which has already introduced wireless lessons to many schools in ‘Silesia and Westphalia. | n * A SPECIAL shortwave transmitti which will be finished before the’ spring of 1931 has been authorised fey the League of ‘Nations. It is to be erected at Prangins, in Switzerland, and the broadcast station now working in that town will also. be placed at the disposal of the league. * aR ® ~HORTWAVE listeners should soon hear another Italian station, Which will relay the programmes from Milan and Turin. The wavelength will be in the neighbourhood of 80 metres and arrangements are being made for the transmission of pictures,