RADIO TRAINING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 251, 31 July 1940, Page 4

RADIO TRAINING.

RECRUITS FOR AIR FORCE. TWENTY-FIVE IN ASHBURTON. Enthusiasm of the highest, cyder is being shown by Ashburton young men who are undergoing a special training course, before, entering the Royal New Zealand Air Force. They are devoting four or five nights a- week to study and they are showing particular interest in the radio school where they are learning to become wireless operators. There are 2-5 recruits in this class, 20' of them living in Ashburton and attending regular sessions of the school, and five who live in. the country and who can attend only on occasions. The average attendance of the class -has been 19, and the instructor (Mr J. •Brown, supervisor of the telephone and telegraph branches of the Ash-burton Post Office) speaks highly of the manner in which his pupils are entering into the work.

The class is conducted in the telegraph operating room at the Post Office as there is no other room available. In othdr centres, special rooms have been made available- - for such classes. Two ordinary Morse keys specially wiped for working buzzers, and other telegraph keys are being used for sending training. Work in Morse operating is being concentrated on and some of the recruits have shown very good progress. Up to now the class has met on Thursday evenings for two hours, but the men are so keen to get in as much work as possible and the facilities are so limited that in future there will be two sessions a week, on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and the first sectiqn will start work to-night under this arrangement. This well permit of more individual tuition being given and no fewer than nine officers of the Ashburton Post Office staff have offered to assist with the instruction. Some of the trainees have stated that they will attend both sessions despite the fact that they have two nights of study at the Technical High School and special home courses to do. The instruction aims at the recruits achieving from eight to 12 words a minute and it appears from the work already done that the Ashburton class will bo well up with any other centre class.

As the desire is for rapid training all non-essential details are eliminated. When the trainee first presents himself for training he is placed at a Morse key, instructed in the correct method of holding that instrument with his right hand, as left hand operators are not wanted in the Air Force, given a card on which is printed the Morse code and immediately instructed to go through the whole alphabet, the instructor correcting any tendency to depart from the standard method of operating. After a quarter of an hour at sending, the trainee is then given a similar period in Morse reception. * Short lectures on Morse operating are given at the end of each hour, during which which the instructor answers any questions the trainees desire to ask. When a man becomes sufficiently proficient to send clearly, but slowly, he is placed at the mastea* key to- send to his fellowtrainees.

More advanced work will be taken up shortly and it is hoped that some resident- will lend the class a high-fre-quency buzzer for this training.