Over the Aerial WIRELESS NEWS FROM FAR AND NEAR.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 133, 7 June 1929, Page 15

Over the Aerial WIRELESS NEWS FROM FAR AND NEAR.

(By "PHONOS.")

Steps are being taken to hold a radio exhibition in Dunedin at the end of next month.

The play broadcast by the University Literary Society on Wednesday evening would have been much more enjoyable had the enunciation of some of the artists been better.

Tuesday remains operatic excerpt night at IYA. Items from the "Belle of New York." "II Trovatore," "Madame Butterfly," and "Maritana" are scheduled for next week.

With this week's number of the Australian ''Wireless Weekly" is issued a useful table of Australian and New Zealand broadcasting stations, and details of the principl amateur transmitters in the Commonwealth.

The "Radio Scamps," who have already given quite a bright, though somewhat disconnected evening, will appear again on Thursday of next week with a programme that promises considerable improvement upon their first effort.

While a Dunedin firm was rebroadcasting the English station SSW recently, at 10 a.m., through its own station, 4ZL, a unique opportunity was given listenersin of hearing the song of the English nightingale. The' London station 2LO had placed a microphone in one of the woods near London, and for half an hour or more the songs of the birds were plainly heard. The volume and clarity were good, and at times three and four birds were singing at once. i,

At the annual meeting of the Welling lon Eadio Society the following resolution was carried:—"That this society recommends the Broadcasting Company to abstain from relaying descriptions of football matches from 2VA> other than international, intercolonial, interprovincial games, and finals of club matches, music to be substituted instead on Saturday afternoons." Judging from the general comment one hears, it is not likely that such a recommendation would receive much support in Auckland.

So stringent were the conditions defined for the supply of programmes for the Commonwealth Government broadcasting scheme,, that it was feared no tenderers would consider the scheme. However, the Melbourne "Argus" states that though the exact number was not disclosed, more than one tender was received at the Postmaster-General's Debarment for the provision of wireless programmes from "A" class stations in Australia. The tenders are being considered by an advisory committee, which will make recommendations to the Federal Cabinet.

Surely the time has arrived when the original custom of announcing the name of performing artists at IYA might be reintroduced. It is understood that one of the main reasons for abandoning the broadcast of the performer's name was the danger of boredom through continual over-frequent use of the same artists. Of late there have been large accessions to the ranks of performers, so that the contention does not now hold force. Many, listener? hear the evening programme before they receive the daily paper containing particulars of contributors to it. If the names of contributing artists are being withheld mainly to encourage the sale of the "Eadio Record," listeners have good grounds for complaint regarding the consideration shown them.

At the end of April, that is, a month after the commencement of the licensing year, the Department had issued" 37,090 licenses to listeners, dealers, and transmitters. In the ranks of listeners Auckland is now less than 1500 behind Wellington, the postal district which seems to have experienced the biggest decrease. In the Auckland district were operating on May 1, 12,515 receiving, 181 dealers', and 127 transmitting licenses. Auckland has a big lead among the amateur transmitters, Wellington having 78, Canterbury 65, and 0tag0.39. Though there are still 8000 fewer licensees than there were on March 31. It would seem that the Broadcasting Company is already assured of a revenue of over £47,000 for the year, j With the natural increase that is inevitable, this revenue should reach £60,000. Now, what about some "definite, scheme of.-programme improvement? A clear pronouncement on the subject is surely due.

ANOTHER RADIO ADVANCE. A new field for broadcasting, using telephone and power wires running' into the home instead of radio space in the ether, was outlined in Washington for the National Academy of Sciences by Major George O. Squier, in describing a device called the monophone. i Without interference to regular telephone service or change of equipment, he said in his treatise, the monophone would permit the selection of one of three programmes available on the wires by "simply pressing a button." "There is no tuning required," he said. "Volume control is provided. Static and fading' are eliminated. There are no heterodyne effects, seasonal changes 01 day and night variations inherent ir space radio. Television and sound moving pictures for the home, still in the laboratory, will find technical advantages in this particular form of wired radio circuit." Broadcasting in this new channel, since all space for ordinary radio service has been assigned to stations, may develop in vast fields never before pos"sible, he suggested. Education was especially emphasised as becoming a beneficiary.' The best minds from the State universities, colleges and Government Departments, he said, might be added to the teaching staffs of high schools through the development and perfection of such chain broadcasting. A national'service, putting the telephone wires now leading into millions of American homes to work sixteen hours a day in giving programmes, he declared, could be financed directly by the people. Discovery that a definite chemical material was responsible for resistance of plants to disease was announced at the same meeting. In a series of experiments with onions the University of Wisconsin scientists found that a substance called protocatechuic acid was formed to ward off attacks of a smudge fungus. The acid was present only ; in the coloured scaler of the onions and white onions easily fall prey to the ravages of the parasite.

A WELLINGTON OPINION. In addressing the annual meeting of the Wellington Radio, Society Mr. Byron Brown, the president, voiced his ideas regarding radio in the Dominion. He stated, that he had no fault to find with the Broadcasting Company in particular, but he considered that any service essentially a monopoly should be controlled by the State. .If this were so it would produce better progress. If broadcasting'attained the popularity in New Zealand that it had reached in Australia, we should have 60,000 listeners here. The wealth per capita in New Zealand was far greater than it was in the Commonwealth. So he urged that when the existing contract between the Broadcasting Company and the Government expired, broadcasting should be undertaken by the latter, as was about to be done in Australia, or by a semiGovernment corpooration. A COPYRIGHT HARVEST. What a blessing broadcasting has been to the holders of musical and dramatic copyright. Any broadcasting station uses annually thousands of items in its programmes, and the amounts that have to be disbursed are at times astounding. In Australia at the present juncture it is calculated that 2/8 in the £ of license fees, or over 12£ per cent of revenue, is paid for performing rights. This, according to an Australian writer, works out at about 4/ per item. Every sane listener recognises that a writer or composer deserves the just reward of his genius and effort, though he may be permitted, in assessing some of the broadcast items, to wonder where the genius lies. There is, however, a growing feeling, that the radio public is being mulcted indirectly of too large an amount of money, that broadcasting, in fact, has turned out to be an astonishingly profitable business for the holders of copyright. The latter may be able to disprove this, and it were avcll in their own interests should they do so, for inevitably there will arise an agitation which will seek legislative redress for existing conditions. In Australia the Government has called for tenders for the supply of Commonwealth radio programmes, the successful tenderer not to require more than 12/ out of each annual license fee. Unless such tenderer can come to some better agreement with the copyright holders, it would appear that he will have little more than 75 per cent of his revenue available for payment of artists, announcers and all other administrative expenses.

In certain cases performing royalties arc so high that performances of particular items are beyond the means of the transmitters. To put on the air "Musetta's Song," from "La Boheme," a station was asked for a royalty of two guineas. The item itself takes less than two minutes to perform. Add this two guineas to the fee paid to the singer and then decide whether any broadcasting concern in the Southern Hemisphere would * consider the expenditure justified. Here is an Australian case which is quoted in commentupon the royalty question.. If ah artist plays a pot pourri of copyright airs, lasting, say, for about eight minutes, and embracing altogether about ,15 separate melodies, 'the broadcaster has.to pay 15 copyright demands. The legality of the position is unquestioned, but are we not getting perilously.near the last straw?