HOW MANY VALVES?

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 97, 18 January 1933, Page 6

HOW MANY VALVES?

Old /Question Again Arises

I §ee that once again' the mighty question of'whether a four-valve receiver, plus a rectifying valve, ought to •be described;as a four-valve or a five:valve ' instrument is agitating the minds of'manufacturers and others, .writes “Free Grid” in “The Wireless I World.” There are undoubtedly five fvalves in such a-set, but, to my mind, ■to call it a. five-valve receiver is, as John Henry used to say, all wrong. Some manufacturers of sets employing a thermionic rectifying valve now put the cryptic phrase' “Rectifier inc.” in their “literature.”

This goes a long way to clear. up matters, but, unfortunately, those manufacturers who employ metal rectifiers in their sets are moaning because, so they argue, a set calling itself a “five-valve set (rectifier inc.)” is far more likely to attract.a buyer than an instrument employing au equal number of “working” valves, which is debarred from calling itself a 1 five-valve set, because, to quote their own words, “it employs a metal instead of a. thermionic rectifier.” Ye gods and little fishes! If the thermionic people can get away with this stunt, can’t. they’ do the same, for surely a metal rectifier is just as much a valve as a thermionic rectifier?