EMPIRE BROADCASTS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 28, 27 October 1934, Page 6

EMPIRE BROADCASTS

Search For Improvements

In Transmission

RECORDED PROGRAMMES

While visiting Britain on other business, Mr. L. R. C. Macfarlane, of Cuiverden, a member of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board, saw a good deal of the operations of the British Broadcasting Corporation. Mr. Macfarlane, who returned to New Zealand this week by the Rangltiki, said that he would report to the board upon a good many matters, and in the meantime he did not feel entitled to say much. “I was one of the guests at the opening of the great new long-wave national transmitting station at Droitwich,” he observed. “It is a very remarkable place, and the huge steel towers and elaborate plant gave me the impression of something out of the pages of Jules Verne. The station is quite self-con-tained and generates its own power on the spot.” Mr. Macfarlane received a cordial welcome from the officials of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and was impressed by the goodwill of the whole organisation toward broadcasting in New Zealand. He said that every effort was being made to overcome the difficulties of providing good short-wave transmissions to this country. Highly technical experiments were being carried out with new types of directional aerials, and with other apparatus. He was shown a graph made up from daily reports of reception, and these showed that in recent months the average quality had greatly improved. Since New Zealand was near the antipodes of Britain, beam transmission could be made by a large number of different paths, and it was possible that one would be found which gave much better results than any of the others. The problem was well illustrated by a large terrestrial globe which the oft ficials had shown him, and which was used to indicate the routes of different Empire broadcasts. It was hoped to extend the system of recording selected British programmes, which had proved very popular in New Zealand, Mr. Macfarlane said. So far discs had proved the only practicable means of doing this. The Blattnerphone, a machine which recorded transmissions electrically upon a steel ribbon, was extensively used by the British Broadcasting Corporation for repeating transmissions in the Empire service at suitable times a few hours after the event. However, it was considered that the ribbons could not be shipped through the tropics without damage.