Radio Round the World

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 24, 24 December 1931, Unnumbered Page

Radio Round the World

eee HE B.B.C. should be the~E.B.C.;" writes Mr. J. H. Thomas, Secre‘tary of State for Dominion Affairs, in the Christmas number of the "Radio Times." He hopes that next year the i Eimpire will share in the pleasure of to programmes relayed imperially under the coming Empire nshort-wave scheme, , Bd % * HONE exhibit which attracted much at- ‘ tention at the Faraday Exhibition, theld recently at the Albert Hall in London, was a transmitting valve 10 feet thigh. It was constructed by one of Britain’s leading radio and electrical manufacturing companies at a cost of over £1000, and is reported to be the largest walve ever made. It uses a filament current of about 5000 times that taken by an ordinary broadcast receiving walve, and when installed at Rugby, as is intended in the near future, will replace a bank of 50 high-power transmitting valves. 4: ait % HE B.B.C.’s music library at Savoy Hill contains 40,000 vocal scores nd more than 10,000 complete orchestral scores. The military band section of the library holds about 2000 complete works, while Jack Payne, whose dance band is famous the world over, has his own little library containing about 3500 / complete orchestrations of dance tunes. % * | an exhaustive series of tests in Italian cities, the engneers @iscovered that the main cause of interference with the broadcast reception was due to the electric signals given by tram conductors to their drivers. \

GTATIC, the problem of radio engineers for years, appears to have been vanquished in code and radio printing machine work at least, through the system evolved by a young Canadian engineer. Its possibilities from the broadeast standpoint have not as yet been fully developed, but give great promise, Essentially, the system consists in the transmission of a carrier waye, on which are superimposed two other frequencies, such, for instance. as one of 3000 cycles and one of 5200. These result in a common note, or heterodyne, made when the telegraph key is depressed. When the signal is received at the other end, the detector output is divided and sent through two filters, one passing 8000 cycles and the other 5200 only. At the filter output is a valve arrangement that will pass on only those impulses that are perfectly matched in both sides of the filter, If static tries to come through, it will be stronger on one side or the other anc so cannot pass, and reception will he free from static disturbances,

[Tz is expected that a radio-telephone Service will be in operation between Paris and Algeria by the end of the year. At both Paris and Algiers there will be two transmitting sets capable of allowing four conversations and two telegraph messages to be transmitted simultaneously during 16 hours of the day. During seven hours the line will be available for two telephone and ene telegraph message, the remaining hour of the 24 being devoted to testing and the adjustment of the apparatus. * * ¥ FoR the purpose of broadcasting SOS signals in the Alps, should an emergeney arise, the Austrian authorities are equipping all refuge huts with auto. matic Wireless apparatus of a portable type. By this means, in the event of a mishap to tourists in these mountainous districts, a call for help can be trans. mitted by any member of the party eapable of reaching one of the huts. Ne expert knowledge is needed to handle the special type of transmitter.

A RADIO-EQUIPPHD motor-cycle, intended for use as an auxiliary to | the similarly but more powerfully equip- / ped police automobile, has-recently beer developed in America. The motor-cycle is. faster and more economical to operate than a ear, and when provided with means of establishing instantaneous contact with a central sending station, its usefulness in thwarting crime is further increased. The receiving set is carried in a side-car, along with batteries, A short mast, mounted on the car, carries the aerial, and an. air-column speaker is fastened to the frame of the machine, the horn opening being in front of the driver. Even at high speeds the-radio has been found to -Iunction satisfactorily. * * * AT a meeting in the United Stat: of the Newspaper Radio HditorajAssociation, it was declared that the American broadcasting system was preferable to the British in that "a greater variety of more high-grade programmes was being offered to American listeners at no expense to themselves, whereas the British listener had to pay a tax of two and a half dollars per annum on his receiver.’ The meeting did not fayour any suggestion of legislating against broadcast advertising, believing that "the industry is capable of keeping its own house in order and that the public’s reaciton to the methods pursued would tend steadily to improve the tone of that form of publicity."