PICTURES BY WIRELESS!

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 156, 3 July 1937, Page 5 (Supplement)

PICTURES BY WIRELESS!

SCHOOL BU.LT steel The age of steel draws nearer. There has been constructed in Sussex an all-steel school made of an alloy hitherto used only for motor car bodies. The building contains fofir j class rooms, which, by an ingenious system of movable partitions, can be converted into one large room, two medium-sized rooms, or several small cubicles. The school can be quickly dismantled and transported elsewhere if required. NO MORE TAR oifr , o SPLASHES. Motorists whose cars have been tar-spattered on freshtarred roads, and pedestrians who also may have suffered, will be interested in a discovery now being tested. It normally takes 46 lumrs for tar to dry firmly. Laboratory experiments were carried out with calcium soap, and it was found that when this was mixed with the tar the drying time was reduced to six hours. This new use for soap should prove valuable to road makers and road users. FROZEN SMELLS. Have you ever complained of stale air in railway Carriages? Hitherto, on most railways, the only remedy has been an open window —and a draught. A filter has now been devised which should banish this travel drawback. In investigating canses and remedies for the impure condition of the air it was necessary to obtain samples for laboratory ex- - animation. A small suction apparatus was arranged to draw air from the car and pass it through a tube kept very cold by dry ice. All the moisture in the air, along with any odours, condensed and froze inside the tube. Later, in the laboratory, the tube was warmed to release the concentrated smells, which were measured by determining the amount of fresh air necessary to make them imperceptible. Thus by freezing a smell the scientists were able to produce' the required filter for use in the air-conditioning equipment. It is said to remove all objectionable odours and to remain effective for four months.

The Wonder ot I*s/ Magic—black and white magic it is, and no less that brings before our eyes pictures of events 20 minutes after they _ have happened 12,000 miles away! Such is miracle of 1937--the coined word to denote a picture wh.ch has been end girl-and many ,du,ts too, the mere, thouoht of receiving o picture by wireless leaves one breathless with wonder Surely here is a miracle if ever theJ is one. Wonderful it is, but not a miracle J «•" ~ explained, and in such a manner that any boy or <£» can understand—wh.ch truly makes it all the more wonderful. , f ; New One further point before I explain how it is all done; there is no, plant .n in»w Zealand yet which can receive radio pictures, but in the hear: o= the city bourne this magic in black and white is practiced daily by ordinary loJ'^ o men whose constant dealings with this modern wonder has taught them to look upon it as something quite common. Let's watch the modern magician at work. transmittina First he takes your picture and wraps it round a cylinder on the transm tting plant which you see at the foot of this page. If you look carefu ly you will see iust to the riqht of the paper that there is a narrow crack in the cylinder. N° w ™ e cy nder is hollow, and exactly behind the crack is a mechanical eye 'ooking outwards Soon the picture is to be slid over that crack very very slowly, and at the same time the "eye" is going to revolve inside the cylinder. So slowly, does the Picture move that for every revolution of the eye the picture has moved forward only Cne-hunTedth part of an inch. Therefore at each turn the eye takes it sees a fresh striD of the picture, each strip being one-hundredth of an inch wide. citx , P Now what is the work of this magic eye? It is just to note he varying ntensrty of the light that reaches it through the picture. The black parts let no the grev parts just a little, whilst the white parts allow a lot of light to pass This information it passes on to what is called a "photo electric cell." This is the most wondTrfd pa t of all, far it converts those waves of light into waves of electric ty The technical phrase is that it converts the light it receives into electrical .mpulses that vary according to the degree of light and shade which it r « ce '^- Just as the mouthpiece of your telephone turns sound waves into electric waves, so does the photo electric cell turn light into electric impulses. Just as the mouthpiece sorts out loud noises from soft ones, and squeaky voices from harsh ones so does the cell record the changes in light it receives from complete darkness to bright '' 9ht 'just in the same way as the telephone receiver changes the electric waves back into speech, so does the receiving apparatus in London convert the electric waves into light waves. The process is just reversed In London the photo electriic ceN receives the electric waves, converts them back to waves of light, and sends them on to the magic eye which shines out into a piece of photographic paper Slowly as before, the paper is moved across in front of the eye and strips ot sensitised paper, each one-hundredth of an inch wide, make a photographic impression of the light. When the whole surface has been covered, the paper is developed and the picture appears in the usual way. . \a/u q „ Such in its simplest form, is the process offending pictures by wireless When a photo is'to be sent in this manner the receiving station tunes in much in the same way as you would tune your wireless to a sending station. When the tuning is exactly right, then word is given to "go," and the transmitting commences. Such, in its simplest form, is the process of sending pictures by wireless. When a photo is to be sent in this manner the receiving station tunes in, much in the same way as you would tune your wireless to a sending station. When the tuning is exactly right, then word is given to "go," and the transmitting commences.

PEAT AS RIVAL TO PETROL. Many alternative motor fuels have been invented; the latest is peat. German engineers have successfully completed tests with a peat-driven lorry. The vehicle has its own generator, producing gas ,fuel that takes the place of vaporised petrol in an ordinary motor car. A wood fire, to which peat is added, starts the producer. With everything stone cold, the lorry can be made ready to start ten minutes after the fire is Ht. With a load of three tons the lorry averaged one hundredweight and a half of peat every 100 aules. COLLECTING BIRDS' STOMACHS. Some people collect birds' eggs. Others collect birds' stomachs. American laboratories in Washington have 125,000 of these "tummies," collected from all parts of the world, filed for reference. A large staff is kept busy classifying, labelling and storing these relics, which are/ examined microscopically and analysed, in order to discover the exact eating habits of the original owners. Every known variety of bird is to be found on the shelves or rather its stomach is—in a sterilised bottle. So if you want to know if it was indigestion that killed Cock Robin you can ask the U.S. Biological Survey Laboratories. ARTIFICIAL V. NATURAL RUBBER. The rubber tree, with the help of energy derived from the . sun, can always produce rub- ' ber much cheaper than can the most efficiently organised factory. For neoprene, an artificial rubber made from coal, limestone and salt, it is claimed that it possesses special advantages which compensate for the fact that it is three times as costly as the natural product. Those advantages include: Improved resistance to oil, heat, ozone, chemicals and certain solvents; lower _ water absorption; reduced permeability of gases. As far as "bounce," capacity for being stretched and general appearance are concerned, neoprene is claimed to be the equal of* the best natural rubber, for which it would prove a useful substitute in time of war.