Radio "Pirates"

Radio Record, Volume V, Issue 30, 5 February 1932, Page 8

Radio "Pirates"

Relatively Few in Dominion APPROXIMATE figures that have been compiled show that some thing like one New Zealand family in every six owns a radio set. The number of licenses issued for the financial year up to December 80 was 73,147, against 62,467 licenses in existence at the end of March last. Owing to licenses not being renewed the number dropped to below 46,000 by the end of April, and from then on io the end of December there were nearly 28,000 registrations. There are prosecutions occasionally of those who have installed wireless sets and have neglected to take out a license, but it is officially considered that there is comparatively little radio piracy in New Zealand. The Post and Telegraph Department relies upon information and observation to. detect unlicensed listeners-in. The facts that radio dealers are required to take the name and address of customers. purchasing radio equipment and that inspectors of the department regularly inspect these registers make the risk of detection too great to be neglected. It is considered that most of the offenders are those who make up their own crystal sets-a fairly simple mat-ter-and those who purchase secondhand sets privately, of which the department receives no record. Officers of the department are always on the look-out for those who are evading payment of the license fees, the penalty under the Act being £50, although the fines vary from £1 to £5. The department possesses a van which is engaged in detecting interference of any kind, and when the source is discovered little difficulty is encountered in getting the matter put right. There are so few unlicensed sets in use in New Zealand that it has not been found necessary to adopt the course taken in London of sending round detecting vans. This method was adopted about October last, when the Post Office organised a hunt to trap radio pirates. A newspaper man went in one of the five detecting vans to a quiet road in North London, The engineer stopped the van opposite some houses which appeared aerial-less, and for some minutes HMstened on a pair of telephones attached to a receiver, while a companion rotated a circular hoop aerial on the roof of the van. Finally he sa*" he was certain that there were wireless sets in each house. At the first house the owner had a portable set-and a newly-acquired license. At the second a wife admitted that her husband had made a set four and a half years ago, He used an indoor aerial. ; The vans work ‘up to 4 a.m. each day, assisted by a secret car, known throughout the Post Office as "the ghost car." which bears no signs of its purpose and uncanny equipment.