Radio Friendships

Radio Record, Volume VIII, Issue 19, 16 November 1934, Page 44

Radio Friendships

Bringing the Wor.d Closer Together. ectgetwesets

By

N.

JENKINS

[{RIENDSHIPS are. made in various and curious ways, and through radio and dxing, listeners of many countries ate now becoming fast friends. Through radio, I now have a very fine correspondent in. the U.S.A. Barly last year I logged station KGIW, Alamosa, Colorado, a 100-watt station -on 1420 kc, and duly sent in a report on reception. When the re ply came back it, was from the studio manager of KGIW, whose surname was the same as mine, and he, of course, expressed. the wish that we should correspond. Radio had thus brought a Jenkins in Colorado, U.S.A., and a Jenkins in New Zealand, 8000 miles apart, together, yet there was no blood relationship. I recently received another letter from Mr, G. A. Jenkins, the business manager of KGIW, which may be of interest to -dxers. Hxcerpts from it read as follow :- "You cannot realise how very much I appreciate your letter, the maps aud the threepence piece which you enclosed with your letter. It was the most interesting letter which I have received since we have been operating station KGIW, and-with the maps which you have sent I can get some idea of your country, and I'am going to reciprocate by sending you some maps of our country, which will probably give you a better idea of where we are situated. I most certainly hope that some day you will be able to visit the United States, and, of (Continued on next page).

(Continued from previcus page.) course, we want you by all means to visit Alamosa and KGIW. "We were very much disappointed with our New Zealand broadcast, as we received but one reply to our programme, and that was from Mr. A. D. Talbot, Pleasant Point, New Zealand, who reported that he picked up our programme on a home-made. twovalve set.. However, he did not get it very well-there was a lot of fad‘ing and static. , "However, it showed that our signal did get to your island, and I am so sorry it did not some in better, ~ because we did have a very good programme and it was all dedicated to our listeners in New Zepland. We had dance music, piano solos and operatic excerpts; in fact, I think it was. the best programme we have ever broadcast. "We had artists playing from Santa Barbara, California, who were spending their summer vacation in our mountains, and they were real artists. But then the season was unfavourable for long-distance broadcasting. "Here is a tip. Every first Wednesday of each month we have to go on the air from 1 a.m. till 1.30 a.m., Mountain Standard Time, with a Government test programme, and-haye to give our station call every three. minutes, and it is just possible you may be able to pick up some of these programmes, Sometimes we just play records, and on others we have a very good personal programme. "On our New Zealand ‘programme in July we stayed on the air for one hour and thirty minutes, as we just had too.much programme.to cut it off in one hour. Some of.our artists had driven 60 miles, so we had to let them all have some time on the air, Well, here is hoping you have better luck next time. "T noticed you have received ‘Colourful Colorado’ (a booklet describing Colorado), and I. know that you enjoyed it very much. You know, there was quite a bit of rivalry between California and Colorado for the summer tourist trade, and so Colorado, in order to keep pace with California in getting our share of the tourist business, put out ‘Colourful Colorado,’ and also advertised very extensively.