THE 2YB TEST

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 48, 28 February 1929, Page 21

THE 2YB TEST

INTERESTING COMPARISON'S

Tho dual transmission by 2YA iind •2YB in progress from 19th February till 34th February was a very interesting experiment, which had some results not altjijcther in accord with expectations. 2YB is a 50-watt station constructed for use in New Plymouth, to rebroadcast programmes from 2YA or elsewhere as well as to transmit from a local studio. After a trial at Christclmrch, where it was assembled, it was brought to Wellington and used for simultaneous broadcasting with 2YA, working on 208 metres. Tho operation was no doubt of, direct value to the broadcasting officials, as it gave the now plant a good trial run. Listeners were invited to tune in the smaller station in order to find out whether they wore losing quality in the reception of 2YA through unavoidable overloading. There is, of course, no such thing as unavoidable overloading: it can always be cured; but everybody does not know that. Hence a comparison between the same items heard from a station that can overload-a roceiver and one that cannot is definitely useful. But there arose, in this test, a very important difficulty. In a fairly large neighbourhood, which embraces the Petonc-Hutt area, receivers of fairly good sensitivity were just as disastrously overloaded by the small station as by the big one. The writer, for instance, using in Lower Hutt a fourvalve set of the Browning-Drake typo, but without reaction, • and - carefully neutralised, found it quito. impossible to receive 2YB with .accurate tuning unless tho first (r.f.) valve was turned almost out. With such a set, therefore, the listener wuo unknowingly overloads oii 2YA would also overload on 2YB. .

It is highly probable that tho number of. people whose radio music is badly distorted through overloading is. not very great. It is not at all.convincing lo bo. told, in defence of a'particular station's transmission, that faulty roproduction of that station's transmission must be the fault of the receiver. If distanco is a factor, the trouble may, of course, be/due to atmospheric effects, as is almost certainly tho case with regard.to. tho .way New Plymouth 1; discriminates against 2YA. It may, in other cases,, bo due to a genuine defect in the" transmission criticised. Agaia, taking 2YA as an example, it cannot be denied by even its best friends that repeated observation discloses a definite difference in .quality between its music and that from 3YA. It has f.-ecn stated that this dift'orencc, which is principally that a rounder, sweeter tone comes from tho Christchurch station, is due to tho fact that at 3YA the studio and the transmitter aro housed together, whilo at 2YA they aro connected, by a land-line roughly a inilo long. That defence is killed by tho fact that the tone of 2YB was also definitely better than that of 2YA. In regard to location, both woro on tho 'same footing; the, same microphones wero used and the two tjrnnsmitturs woro housed together. It may still be contended, of course,: that this difforenco is due to overloading in the case of 2YA, and unfortunately that is an assertion that can only bo met by a, counter-assertion that tho statement is made by somo peoplo at least who know overloading when they meet it, know ho-w to avoid it, and habitually do avoid it. Good us 2YA is—and, of course, * in a good station —its defects havo Leon shown up by 2YB.