MISDIRECTED ENERGIES

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 82, 5 April 1924, Page 22

MISDIRECTED ENERGIES

IK 4m^at>le advice is given to the enthusiastic tut .over-sanguine cxperimenJ^ 1" by a writer - w t [, n '-Manchester Uuardian." A very large proportion of the experimental Work is now being done .by amateurs, and much of if. unfortunately ia either trivial or misdirected, he

says. Youngsters who have hardly-grasp-ed the first principles of radio-telegraphy have»had it dinned into their ears that by some accident even a novice may Lit upon the solution of one or other of the great outstanding wireless problems, and, vague as the prospect is, it is alluring;. Disappointment soon follows, and in time the ardent experimenter realises his limitations and settles down .to steady jog-trot work. But his pla-.:e is taken by others, and all over the country there are amateurs making fantastic connections, interposing futile condensers, and plugging in impossible coils, in the vain hope of rising to sudden fame and affluence by some astonishing wireless discovery. ....

The craze for. "super-circuits" has also led to much "experimenting,'.' with little or no result beyond expenditure upon special parts which later have to.be scrapped, and the production of howls and whistles and the communication ot the latter to a large circle of indignant neighbours. A "super-circuit" in the hands of an expert • may do wonderful things indeed, but, instead of striving painfully to hear Timbuctoo on one valve the banner- would do well- to make sure that he is getting the best out of his nearest broadcasting station.on a simple, set. In the matter of valve cir,cuits it is probably safe to say that the majority :of serious experimenters are much less addicted to super-regenerative and reflex- systems than might be supposed from a study, of the wireless periodicals, and that research work is mostly done on . comparatively simple and straightforward circuits in which the risk of faulty interaction of the components and consequent distortion is reduced to a minimum.

It goes without saying that- experimenting ought not to be discouraged .as long .as t it is confined to suitable objectives and conducted on sensible lines.' There is plenty to be done which even the humblest amateur can usefully, do, but he should avoid the mistake of expecting that his experiments are iik'ely to be of much use to others until he is himself something of an expert as well as an adventurer. As a matter of. fact one of his early discoveries will be ;the value of experiment for proving the fallibility of many wireless propositions which are put forward as' if the}' were rules without exceptions. There are fewpursuits in which circumstances "alter cases more than .they do in wireless, and it not infrequently happens that local conditions affect materially the behaviour of a standard set which normally functions without a fault, 'lftere a r» no more useful preliminary experiments that those for the purpose of determining (1) whether any local drawback to full efficiency exists, and (2), if, assuminging that the drawback itself cannot be removed, it can be-compensated by .any additions to, or modifications of. the/circuit and gear in use. An amateur who is not an. expert is quite as likely to stumble on some serviceable new fact while exploring or seeking "to level up his ovra private facilities as he would be if he embarked prematurely, on some rather pretentious line of research. Little things, such as the- improvement of- an aerial, an exchange of transformers, or'the introduction of a wave trap, may lead a begin-ner-into byways of thought and practice 'in'-which-an' interesting,' perhaps even a rare and valuable, plant may crop up which would never be noticed by the unskilled searcher in the open field 6f experiment. Apart from studious self-im-provement even the novice can often do genuinely good work by systematic record of his results under .varying conditions, atmospheric arid other.