OVER the AERIAL

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 223, 20 September 1929, Page 17

OVER the AERIAL

WIRELESS NEWS FROM FAR AND NEAR.

L (By "PHONOS.") J

2BL will relay a concert from Lithgow, New South Wales, on Sunday evening. IYA is billed for a rebroadcast of 2YA on Saturday week, when the Wellington Btation will describe the North-South Rugby match. Mr. Reg. Morgan's Tudor Orchestra, and the New Zealand Four, will provide the chief portion of Wednesday's programme. For lovers of■ good music there should be a treat in the Conservatorium concert from -2BL this evening. Mr. Spencer Thomas, English tenor, is the chief vocalist. Miss Phyllis Hazell and Mr. Dan Flood will contribute to to-morrow evening's programme. The final Rugby relay of the season will be given in the afternoon. Novelty evenings are usually attractive. On Thursday IYA presents another of thorn; It has been titled "Not Quite on the Western Front." Seeing that- it is "not quite," there is little likelihood of any item being banned. Little Theatre Society patrons who may be anxious to compare the productions of Similar societies with those of their own will have the opportunity on Saturday week, when 2FC will broadcast the presentation of the three-act comedy, " Give and Take " from the Sydney Little Theatre.

Monday, the supposedly silent night of IYA, has been used so frequently of late that one wonders whether the old contention of the necessity for a silent night at each New Zealand station still holds good. The wrestling and boxing relays of a Monday evening have been keenly appreciated, and now, for a change, on the first working day of the week, we are to have an inter-'Varsity debate over the air. **************************

************************** In Australia arrangements are now in vogue whereby a telephone subscriber may ring up a commercial radio station and dictate a message for transmission to a ship at sea. Similarly, the return message may be telephoned to the subscriber's home or office.

Excursion boats on the Thames are now fitted with receiving Bets and amplifiers so that passengers in most parts of the vessels may enjoy programme® from 2LO. Out of consideration ior the feelings of some excursionists there are certain parts of the boats where one can sit without being eung at, played at, or talked at.

A new instrument in every home that will combine gramophone, wireless receiver and talking film—this is the forecast of the managing director of a big British manufacturing concern whose main occupation is the turning out of gramophone records. The prospect seems alluring, yet terrible. At present most of us will be well enough satisfied with a modern electric receiving set, without awaiting the prophesied home-entertainment of this optimist.

There will he no Saturday afternoon or Monday afternoon racing broadcasts from IYA for the Avondale meeting, which commences to-morrow. The bail upon describing races from the course still exi6ts, and the Broadcasting Company's officials have found it impossible to secure a satiefactory relay position outeide the course, so that they have been compelled, reluctantly, to abandon a procedure which they followed under exceeding difficulty on a previous occasion.

Some listeners who follow regularly the Wellington programmes ha,ve complained that these are not always published. On Friday la3t, for instance, instead of the advertised items a concert by the crew of the Diomede was substituted. IYA is always alive in notifying programme alterations, but it would not be too much to hope that New Zealand's main station, specially erected to cover the whole Dominion, should advise papers who publish its schedule gratis, whenever any changes are contemplated. There are times when listenrers, quite unfairly, blame the newspapers.

As a result of the success of the Empire-wide broadcast of the thanksgiving service from Westminster Abbey, Canadian radio interests have commenced an agitation for frequent Empire broadcasts. Already there is announcement that "Journey's End" will be transmitted for world reception from Chelmsford on November 11—Armistice Day. The play itself is now being produced in Australia, and should it not arrive here before Armistice Day, one is inclined to speculate upon the vexed question of copyright, wid how it wiil affect any local rebroadcast of the London transmission.

Sir Douglas Mawson's ship, the Discovery, now en route from England preparatory to conveying a further body of Polar explorers southward, is well equipped with radio apparatus, though, unlike the vessels of the Byrd expedition, she carries no special appliances for telephony communication. For ship to shore work a 1§ kw. Marconi transmitter of the latest type is installed, while a short-wave telegraphy sending and receiving set has been provided for continuous communication with Australia and Britain. The Moty aeroplane which forms part of the expedition's equipment is also fitted with the latest in radio devices.

The Westralia, the new inter-State liner which may appear ere long on the New Zealand;-Sydney run, carries the most up-to-date radio equipment of any vessel trading in these seas. She has both l long and short wave Morse sets, and a lifeboat wireless installation. In addition the vessel is equipped with a broadcast receiver that will provide nightly programmes for passengers, while a band-repeater conveys the music of the orchestra to various parts of the ship. THE RADIO EXHIBITION. Matters are moving apace in connection with the forthcoming Auckland Radio Exhibition. Mr. C. Camp, who played a principal part in the organisation of the' Wellington display, has been in this city during the week, acting in an advisory capacity to the committee which is arranging the exhibition. Twenty display stalls have been allotted, and in addition special accommodation is being provided for amateur exhibits—a fine opportunity for home constructors and radio societies throughout the province. A WORTH-WHILE EARTHING. Though somewhat troublesome to fix up—or rather to fix down —an earth composed of half-inch copper ribbon taken from the point of entry of the earth lead into the ground to a point where it is directly underneath the aerial, as near the house end as possible, makes a fine grounding. From the point where it comes under the aerial it is continued in a line with the overhead wire to its limit. The ribbon should be buried as deep as convenient, but a greater depth than six inches, is not essential. The advantage of placing it lower in the ground is that, the subsoil remains moist long after the upper has dried. LOCAL PROGRAMMES. "Listener" writes: —Kindly allow me to express my appreciation of your writer "Phonos" in his weekly review of the wireless activities, when he refers in no uncertain manner to the rapidly depreciating programmes sent out from IYA. The Sunday night programmes are extremely poor, and I trust " Phonos " will continue to use the influence of the " Auckland Star" to see if something cannot be done to avoid the dry rot setting in. " Phonos" is also quite correct in his statement that the Wellington programmes are much better. I recently became quite, enthusiastic over the promise of variety and change of which I read in the " Star" concerning coming programmes, until I woke up to the fact that I was reading a Wellington list. I was so disappointed that I did not bother to look at the Auckland programme. No need to. It never varies, and you get quite used to the monotony of the programme each week, world without end. I wish I could afford a valve set. A TELEVISION RUMOUR. Either the Postmaster-General misused terms in his Christchurch address, or he was misreported with regard to remarks on television being conducted between Auckland and Wellington ill the near future. Television is the generally accepted term for the radio transmission and reception of moving pictures, and it is still very much in the experimental stage. On perfection, its commercial value and possibilities will be staggering, but in its present state television is in that embryonic stage through which broadcasting was passing over a decade ago. Several American stations are carrying on television broadcasts but the main service these render is to the experimenter. The 8.8.C. is also giving daily, 30-minute transmissions, largely for the same purpose. Many authorities competent to prophesy place the commercialisation of radio vision as at least five years off. Both radio and wire transmission of "stills," however, is now a regular achievement in other parts of the -world, and it was probably the "Fultograph," or some similar system of sending single pictures over long distances to which Mr. Donald was referring. Receiving sets which reproduce permanent copies of still pictures are now a commercial proposition.

EXPLODING ATOMS. The sound of a miniature " volcano," which was nothing more than explosions of atoms of uranium caused in the research laboratoriej of the General Electric Company at Schenectady, was broadcast recently over WEAF and the National Broadcasting Company coast-to-coast network. The sound was called the " smallest voice known to scientists," yet it was so highly magnified in its intensity that it sounded like a rapid chatter in the loud speakers.

The experiment was conducted and described by L. A. Hawkins, engineer of the research laboratory. He used a small button of uranium held before a piece of laboratory apparatus called a Geiger counter, which resembles a radio receiver with a small tube projecting from one end.

When a piece of the radio-active uranium, a relatively sluggish element, was held before the tube the effect of the exploding atoms, which discharge electrons, was amplified until it became audible.

"When atoms explode," said Mr. Hawkins, in hi? explanation of the broadcast sounds, " they throw off, among other things, electrons or particles of electricity. This discovery started the new physics which has taught us that electricity and matter are fundamentally the same. Electrons are also thrown off by hot metal, but these electrons are under control, and on learning to control them in a vacuum tube we were able to produce radio broadcasting.' "It is* through experiments such as I have performed that physical science is delving closer and closer to the fundamental basis of our universe, yielding the new knowledge on which are built our latest engineering developments, and from which will come yet greater things in the future.

An atom is said to be about as large compared to a cricket ball as a cricket ball is to the earth. The relatively sluggish uranium gives up its atoms so infrequently that only about half of the piece used in the experiment, the size of a five cent piece, would be used up in 5,000,000,000 years, he said. Yet there is said to be so many atom? in the uranium button that the sound heard over the radio constituted a fairly rapid succession of explosions.

Next a small piece of radium compound was tried before the counter. A more rapid succession of the sounds was audible. Radium is more active than uranium, and more explosions took place. Mr. Hawkins declared the radium compound, as large as a pencil point, would be able to continue the experiment -for about 1500 years.

NEW YORK BROADCAST. A special radio concert will be broadcast from New York on Sunday afternoon at approximately 2 o'clock, New Zealand tinje, for the benefit of the Commander Byrd South Pole Expedition, and it will be possible for owners of short wave receivers in New Zealand to tune in. In all probability arrangements will be finalised in time for the Radio Broadcasting Company to pick up and rebroadcast this concert from 2YA on Sunday afternoon. BROADCAST FROM WAITOMO CAVES Arrangements have been made with IYA in conjunction with the Tourist Department for a concert to be broadcast by a party of artists from the Cathedral Chamber at Waitomo Caves this evening from 8 to 9 p.m. The concert will be relayed by land line to IYA and from there will be transferred to the listeners. The Post and Telegraph Department is assisting in the real relay. Duets, elocutionary numbers, humour and instrumental solos will be included in the programme. Among the artists will be Miss Millicent O'Grady, Miss Nina Scott, Mr. Cyril Towsev, Mr. Len. Barnes (station director at IYA), and Mr. Owen Pritchard. WORLD-WIDE RADIO TELEPHONY. In order to advance the work of radio conversation between Australia and England, special transmitting equipment was some two years ago designed and factured and installed at A.W.A. Radio Centre, Pennant Hills. This is the 20 k.w. short-wave telephony, telegraphy and overseas broadcasting transmitter— the largest of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, and one of the most modern transmitters in the world.

Intensive experimenting resulted in telephonic communication being established with Java, Suva (Fiji), Amsterdam, Berlin and U.S.A. A successful demonstration of duplex or two-way telephony with the latter country was given in Sydney in November last before a gathering of (Sydney newspaper editors.

While the commercial possibilities of radio telephone service between Australia and England are not far distant, at the same time much research and experimental work has yet to be carried out, and the most suitable wave length has to be determined. It has been found that certain wave lengths prove to give better transmission in hours of daylight than in darkness, and vice versa. Factors of power and other problems have yet to be solved before a telephony service will be available that will give efficient commercial service under all conditions and at all times.

The possibilities of such a service cannot be estimated. The establishment of the service would mean tli&t one could speak by telephone from one's hame in a suburb of Sydney —in fact, in any part of the a telephone subscriber in any part of England.