Notes and Comments

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 24, 26 December 1930, Page 12

Notes and Comments

B

SWITCH

HE Wellington Pioneer -Club’s singing circle, which gave a concert from 2YA recently, merits a speciai word of praise. The solos, trios and quartets sounded delightful over the air, * tt YA has been coming in with plenty of vigour lately, and has shown little inclination to fading or distortion. 1YA has also been at its peak of late. 3YA has always given Welling ton as much volume as could be desir ed night or day. In the daytime 3YA. as usual, comes in at Wellington with out the slightest symptom of fading. "'T{'RAMPER" (Lower Hutt) writes: "Mention was made in your column recently of the advantage of using homing pigeons when search parties go looking for lost trampers. A radio transmitter’ is far too heavy to be packed over rough tracks, but the wonder is that the search parties have not used pigeons more than has been the case. In the Wellington district there are many homing pigeon fanciers who would gladly lend their birds." * * * A BEGINNER asked "Switch" recently why he did not hear any static when he tuned in to the local broadcast station. The explanation given was that the greater the sensitivity of a receiving set the more static it brought. To tune in the local station the sensitivity of the set is reduced to a minimum, thus rendering static inaudible. If the sensitivity of the set were increased to the maximum for the local station, reception from that station would be so loud as to overwhelm the static excepting when static is particularly bad. , ¥ * * RECENTLY a short-wave broadcast from London and _ rebroadcast throughout America by the Columbia network of stations included a talk

directly to the American people by George Bernard Shaw. Hitherto Shaw had curtly refused all invitations either to visit America or. address Americans by radio, declaring he had nothing sufficiently important to say on a swhject which not only would interest Americans but would interest Shaw! Professor Hinstein, author of the relativity theory, was also heard speaking at a dinner at the Savoy Hotel, London, given by the joint British committee for the promotion of physical and economic welfare of Hasterm Jews. a * o AN Island Bay correspondent, "Spi- "" der," says: "The other night when there was a steady rain I found reception had dropped considerably in audibility, and I could not account for it. Next morning I made an examination of my aerial and found that spiders had woven a heavy festoon around my lead-in wire and insulated tube where it enters the window. It occurred to me that the rain running down the lead-in wire poured over the cobweb and then ran down the side of the house. offering an easy path to earth for the radio-frequency current. I removed the cobweb and when rain fell again reception was excellent. I pass the hint along to your readers." Verb. Sap!

"A S.M." (City) wants to know whether something cannot be done to move the frequencies of three or four Japanese stations which are close to 2BL, 3LO, and 4QG. ‘"A.S.M." is evidently of recent vintage as.a listener, as the trouble caused by the Japanese stations. has persisted for five or six years, ‘Switch’ wrote to the Japanese Broadcasting Company three or four years ago, reporting the position, but on ee en kk ee ee ee Oe

"a Ow the reply stated that the Japanese Government would not agree to any alteration in wavelengths, This sort of trouble was minimised in Europe by an international broadcasting conference at Geneva. & ® "QWITCH" has ben asked to assess the decrease in volume of the Australian stations as heard in Wellington at the present period (midsummer) -as compared with midwinter, at 11.30 pm, New Zealand daylight-saving time. Two influences are at work at the present time which make for a greatly decreased volume in reception of these stations. They are the added half-hour difference in time and the extended daylight effect due to the lengthened days of midsummer, "Switch" estimates the decrease in volume at about 40 to 50 per cent. 50L, Adelaide, and 7ZL, |

— Hobart, have decreased 50 per cent., but the Japanese stations have been coming in with greatly increased volume lately. * ee * ROM the Chicago "HeraldExaminer" radio page comes the following :- "Question; Is it true that colder weather brings clearer radio reception? "Answer: Yes; there is practically no atmospheric static in the winter,: Also, the ether seems to transmit signals much more efficiently, enabling fans to tune for distance with more certainty." Fortunate Yankees! Here in New Zealand we get a considerable amount of static in-the winter, although longdistance reception of Australian stations is much louder than in summer, but the earlier abatement of daylight effect, due to the shorter days, and th elimination of the daylight-saving : hour are the main factors in securin better reception from Australia in the winter. tk * % OR the first time in the history of broadcasting in this part of the world, individual subscriptions to a national loan were notified to the various A class stations when the recent Commonwealth loan was being raised. The Australian A class stations had special telephones set apart for those subscribers who desired to record their purchases of bonds and to have their names and the amounts subscribed put on the air. The record was broken when 2C, Sydney, announced that a £10 bond had been purchased for an infant only 2 hours old! % * * HOSE ° listeners who tune-in the Australian stations late at nignt must have been surprised at the clarity of the relays by 4QG, Brisbane, of the talks given at 5CL, Adelaide, on the Australia v. West Indies Test ericket match. The link-up of 4QG, Brisbane and 5CL, Adelaide, involved the use of something like 1500 miles of land line, There was, of course, a little hum on the line, and other parasitic noises, but the voice level was well above that of line noises. Stations in Melbourne and Sydney were also linked up, but 4QG was quite as clear as the intermediate stations. s bd tJ T seems certain now that an Empire short-wave broadcast station is to be established in. England. A Press cable has gone so far as to announce that the news service will be purchased and broadcast three times daily. This should overcome the difficulty with: regard to the differences in time ofthis "far-flung Empire." Doubtless the station will be of a much greater power than the existing 5SW, Chelmsford, and the YA stations will have a better chance of rebroadcasting, * x % Loorine back through his "log" of five years ago "Switch" noticed that on May 2, 1925, 2F'C, Sydney, broadcast a lecturé by the New Zealand Government Agency in Sydney entitled "A Travelogue on New Zealand." It was put on the air by 2FO just before 8 o'clock, The use of broadcasting for enticing Australians to spend their holidays in New Zealand should not be lost sight of by the present regime,