OVER THE AERIAL

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 122, 25 May 1928, Page 17

OVER THE AERIAL

There is money in the radio business. l!he gross profits last year of tie Sadio Corporation of America were over 13 millions sterling.

Those who care to sit up until the early hours arc likely, under favourable conditions, to pick Up 7BY Bombay, and 7CA, Calcutta, both of Which stations have been heard in New Zealand. Much of the transmission is in the vernacular.

One factor that will yet have to contribute to broadcasting in New Zealand is a land line front Auckland to Wellington, available specially for relay work. Such land lines are in regular use -in CJinada, where programmes sent along them are broadcast on both the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards

Recent experiments by ballooaists have demonstrated that reception at considerable elevations, clear of all neighbouring land masses, is flawless, both static and fading being completely absent. Nobody at present contemplates aerials which will reach these ideal atmospheric conditions.

The amateur comes into the limelight again. Stewart Da vis..aged 18, was the youth to give the first authentic information to the press of the success of the recent east to west tran*~Atlantic flight. He picked up the faint message from the Canadian Government station at Point Amour, Labrador, and through him it was sent out to the world.

Southern papers are responsible for tlie statement that peculiarities in New Zealand radio reception are likely to be referred to the Department of Scientific Research. What's wrong with the experts of the P. and T. Department f Or baa the Broadcasting Company an engineer qualified to undertake the research?

Monday evening last was an ideal one for recaption, and the Australian stations Were heard with remarkable strength and clarity. _ Many listeners rebelled in the description of wrestling gent out from 2BL, and 2FCs programme was WwH worth a delayed bedtime. On the same evening Wellington's transmission Was marked by more than the usual jamount of fading.

Short-wave enthusiasts report that the reception of PCJJ on Saturday afternoon jlaat was the finest that has yet been picked up in New Zealand from the {Dutch station; It wan #o free from interference that it was hard to realise the transmission was coming half round the world. Both Sydney and Melbourne haVe been doing- some fin* relaying of PCJJ recently.

A-point on distinct announcing:—The 8.8.C. recently received a complaint from an old man, who said he was perfectly shocked by the kind of language used by the announcers! He said an announcer during the children's hour had saidt "Now we are-going to have a hell of a story." . Investigation showed that what the announcer really said _waa: ; Now we are going to have an elephant atory."

|j For some time the North Taranaki -Radio Society has been agitating for an transmission from 2YA 011 ;a lower wave length, it having been 'found that the Wellington station is received very poorly indeed in districts round New Plymouth. At one time this experimental transmission was likely to but now hopes for it are shatftsred by recent communications from the P. and T. Department.

IYA is to be congratulated upon its relay of the boxing contest last Friday night. The announcer described vividly and clearly, thbugh, to judge from his location, he was not in such a position in the hall as would enable him to give the most accurate details of the light. As a result of the very interesting description, there must have been a record interest in the event. The announcer would certainly not merit this letter, sent to a station the nationalitv of Which cannot be- in doubt: "Listen, you gay that broadcast that pri2e fight last night—you're so dumb* that I could brain you with a toy balloon. Why, you couldn't go gix rounds with a revolving l door." 6 THE RADIO SET OF THE NEAR FUTURE. Recent developments in valve production have done much for the improvement of reception, and the simplification of construction. An American expert, who, of course, refers to valves as "tubes," gives out this prophesy:—

"The radio set for the next few years, as I visualise it, will combine one stage of radio frequency amplification with the 222 screen grid tube; a special detector using high plate voltage to prevent overloading, and one of two audio frequency amplifiers. Both of these audio systems will make use of the new UX 250 tube. In the first, a tube of the neater • type, such as the 227, will be employed in the first stage with a 250 in the output. In the second amplifier the high output from the detector tube will be wonderfully handled by a single audio stage, employing two UX-250 tubes in pushpull.

It is obvious that such a receiver has a decided appeal and decided advantages. It will be powerful, selective and simple. It will be free from the trouble and care associated with batteries. But most important is the fact that such a receiver will have true power output, without being bulky or complicated in design. This increased power output can mean only one tiring: one is bound to have better quality and more faithful accentuation from the speaker in his living room. With practically all present sets, one seeking a greater power output and better reproduction must employ accessory power equipment, such as a power speaker or amplifier. With the UX-250 tube used as outlined (and I firmly believe that it will be used in just about this manner) the receiver itself, and with probably no more than four tubes, will deliver greater power and better quality than a great majority of people have yet listened to.

"Such receivers using the UX-250 tube will also be of tremendous help in bringing out the full possibilities of the phonograph pick-up. Where certain types of audio amplifiers to-day may not do full justice to records played through the i radio set, receivers, with the 250 tube will give the added power with tremendous i volume, when desired, and that truly j wonderful depth and detail characteristic of electrically cut records."

WIRELESS NEWS FROM FAR AND NEAR. (Br "PHONOS.*)

Mr. Culford- Bell, who has been on leay«. from IYA, is due back at the microphone to-day (Friday). The Artillery Band «u the main contributor to the brightness of Wednesday evening's programme. The excellent "musical switch" which they rendered is just the type of item that makes a wide and instantaneous appeal to both young and old. The choral relay included with the service from St. Matthew'* on Sunday evening met with tt more getter*! appreciation than did the subsequent organ recital. Wellington's Sunday evening concerts surpass to a great degree those broadcast from IYA. The recent radio fair at Leipftie demonstrated that Gefttatf radio constructors are returning to the metal loud speaker horn. Other forms are declared to require far mere power to give the same results. Big advance* in the manufacture of the metal horn have Wn made, and the metallic quality in reproduction ha# been practically eliminated. In Canada the demand for radio broadeasting licenses greatly exceeds the possibility of granting tbem. There is ne monopoly in the big Dominion, bat under international agreement the number of Wave lengths is limited, and business, hi* terests are keen competitors for them. Dissatisfaction with the operation of Some stations has prompted the following Announcement from the Canadian Mini-'' ster in charge of radio-telegraphy:— In view of the development in recent times of radio broadcasting and having regard to the seemingly unsatisfactory condition now obtaining, the Government " jT'Ving consideration tA the* question of Whether or not it would be generally advantageous to adopt a policy of national broadcasting along the line* adopted in this respect by the British Government."

TELEVISION AT HAND. According to the latest American files, television apparatus was to be placed commercially on the market in New York this month. An American syndicate has secured Mr. BttiwT* patent rights, and will sell television kits, as well a* arrange for television broadcasting. It is stated that the apparatus is so simple thai its assembly will be as much within the scope of the hobbyist as is tne present receiver. Scientists however, are sceptical, and assert that the commercial utilisation of the recent experiments is yet distant* though assured. , LISTENERS* league. The Auckland Listeners' League will hold "its annual meeting on Jons 25. 1 articulars will be advertised next week. Nominations for officers for the ensuing year WflT be received by the Secretary, Box 512, up tai June 22. The league has a membership of 1538. It is by far the largest association of listeners in the Dominion, and probably the most active in looking after the welfare of its members in the way of service supplied. MOP llf THE LICENSES. The latest figures supplied regarding the number of radio licenses in the Dominion are, to say the least of them, far from reassuring. That, with nearly two months of the year gone, there should be a decrease. erf approximately twenty-five per cent in registered sets is a plain indication that there is something wrong. No official explanation is forthcoming, and the individual is left to draw his own conclusions. "Poor programmes" may bo the first suggestion; but, speaking broadly, the programmes are not actually poor. The Wellington ones are of a standard that should justify an increase, not a falling off, though it is in the Wellington district that this falling off is most marked. Auckland labours under the handicap, not of poor quality, but of monotony. If that will-o'-the-wisp, saturation point in licenses, is to be approached, there appears one particular problem to be tackled, and that is efficient stagemanagership, if one may use that term in connection with radio entertainment. Broadcasting here yet lacks that "presentation" that one notes elsewhere in the many little deails of arrangement and delivery that mean so very much to a programme. To secure this directing talent the company may have to go abroad, but they would find it worth securing—and paying for.