UP-TO-DATE APPARATUS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 91, 14 October 1926, Page 16

UP-TO-DATE APPARATUS

A GREAT BBITISH EXHIBITION.

(Fnm Uar Own Cerrtipondtnt.) I LONDON, Bth September. Vice-Admiral Sir A. Chatfield, Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy, opened at Olympia what is claimed to be the greatest exhibition of its kind ever held under one roof —the first National Radio Exhibition. The material that is being shown is (said Msi A. E. Moody, chairman of the committee), not equalled by any country in the world. . The high standard of British workmanship in all the exhibits was praised by Sir A. Chatfield, and the advice he offered to visitors was to confine their purchases to British goods. He spoke of the close interest of the Admiralty and the Navy in wireless development, and he also recalled some interesting years in the history of the movement. It is twenty-eight years, he said, since Queen Victoria sent the first wireless message over the sea from the Eoyal yacht Osborne'to .the Prince" of Wales in the Isle of Wight. In 1899 the first wireless message was sent across the English Channel, and 1901 markeu the first message from Foldhu to St. John's, Newfoundland. But for the war wireless telephony would have followed much more rapidly. It was in 1919 that the first speech transmission between this country and America was recorded; and 1922 saw the first installation Of the station known as 2LO on the top of Marconi House. The exhibition is taking place at what Mr. Moody believes will prove to he the most prosperous season, the radio industry of this country has so far experienced. Many interesting developments are in' progress, and what may possibly prove to be the most important of all is the Baird televisor for seeing 'by wireless. This is not being actually demonstrated, but the transmitter is bping shown, with the revolving dial and-lenses-, which send a succession of images to fall in flashes on a light-sensi-tive cell. These flashes, it is explained, generate' electrical impulses, which are transmitted to the receiviug machine; and then by controlling a spot of light of varying intensity on a ground-glass .screen the whole imago is reproduced. THE HOME TELEVISOR. Mr. Baird hopes to produce the televigor {or home use for about £30. Very soon, he says, there will be added to the familiar'wireless receiving set a "look-ing-in" set, which will be as indispensable to the amenities of home life as the head-phones or loud speaker. He also predicts the advent of television theatre. .They will contain a screen, but neither orchestra nor film. Each will *bo linked by wire to a central broadcasting station. 'There the artists ' 'will perform and* the' orchestras will play. Simultaneously all over the country audience^ will see the piece and hear the music and the players. The methods and also the personnel of. broadcasting are shown by the B'.fi.C. in a replica of the main studio at Savoy Hill. The whole of one side of the studio and control room is of plate glass, so that visitors can see the routine that is carried out by the announcer, the placing of artists in relation to the microphone, and the arrangement of the orchestra. The effect is curious and unexpected. When the spectators, looking through the plate glass into the studio, see, for example, an artist singing, they do not hear her where they see her. The voices comes1 from behind them —from the loud speaker which hangs from the roof in tho centre of tho hall. ANTICIPATING IMPEOV*MENTB. ...There are receiving sett in.the exhibition from seven and six to seventy pounds, one of the most intriguing being a container in a portable cabinet, containing valves, batteries, and loud speaker. This receiver is worked by a single touch of a switch, without aerial or earth, and is described as^'unddubtedly tho greatest sensation in wireless— far ahead of all other receivers, and anticipating the improvements of-years to come." Another novelty is a loud speaker in the form of a picture hanging on tho wall. A wire running along the picture rail is connected with rings at tho back of the picture, These rings are really the terminals of the loud speaker, so that nothing is visible but the framed picture, a reproduction of a masterpiece in landscujlo or portraiture. This yoar the horn-type of loud speaker as in the minority. There are papor and cardboard cones and discs of every size and shape, some looking like vases filled with flowers. One contraption has silk diaphragms and an array of special steel tuning forks all round, v Several firms are showing battery eliminators, which save the trouble of ronowing batteries and recharging accumulators, making use instead of • the household electricity supply. Other interesting features of the exhibition include the Oliver Lodgo "N" circuit, which prevonjts oscillations being radiated from the aerial; a "press-button" set, said to beeasicr to operate than a gramophone; valves which withstand rough treatment;' and a tableau of the station at Signal Hill, Newfoundland, where, a quarter of a century ago, tho first signal across tho Atlantic was received. In striking contrast to the display of all the latest developments in wireless is tho little section alongside, wherein

is told by means o£ scenic effects, and I a few instruments in a glasa case the birth of wireless across the ocean. This is the 25th anniversary of the crossing of the' Atlantic ;by.'wireless, for it was in December, 19plj that ; the three dots, ' representing'the' letter "S," came through from this .country to Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland. A view-is given of the scenes of the historic happening, and attending the exhibition is Mr. G. Kemp, who played a big part with Senator Marconi. 'fTht wonderful thing to me," he said, "is that the small instruments in this glass case, wer? able to do in those days what all the huge and complicated things surrounding us -at this exhibition. are now doing. In those 'days we had none of the facilities that now exist, and nothing is more significant of the change: that has come about than the kite, which is displayed. That—pointing to a little brass instrument-—was the first tape-recording instrument ever used for wireless messages.' On the strip of paper are printed the dots and dashes of the Morse code as received across the Atlantic over a distance of 2099 , miles, and' it is less than half the size of a single two-valve receiver down there.'*;: - ■•'■''. ■ :.-.'.■' . . '„ ■ ■'■■ . The kite that is attached to the exhibit was used for the supporting of an aerial that^was sent'up to a height of between 400 and 500 feet. . :