RECEPTION FROM EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 42, 19 February 1931, Page 21

RECEPTION FROM EUROPE

A Pahiatua enthusiast, using an eight-valve A.C. set and a high and long aerial, Mr. W. L. Peters, has succeeded in hearing, among other outlandish broadcasters, a station, in Bratislav, Czeeho-Slbvakia. The transmitter is of British make, and works on 278.8 metres (1076 kilocycles), and has an aerial output power of 14 kilowatts. There is certainly a great "kick" for the listener who can bag a European - broadcaster, especially in these days when, for some unexplained reason, long distance reception is enormously more difficult than it used to be. It is necessary to uso a very good receiver, and to use it pretty well, to get American stations, in, spite of the high power some of them.'use. Yet a few years ago some of the early Pacific Coasters, using quite low power, were very easily picked up, and were not beyond the power of a single-valve set. "Grid Bias" had a two-valvo receiver with which KGO was quite easily :got on the loud speaker, with an aerial less than 20 feet high. But he can't do it 'now! The easy American station simply vanished as soon as broadcasting became plentiful, and it has been suggested with some show of reason that the many carrier waves have a smothering effect upon one another. .