APATHY DENIED

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 84, 8 April 1936, Page 21

APATHY DENIED

INTERFERENCE PROBLEM

"The Department is not sitting down on -the job, but unfortunately we are not in a position to publish all we are doing." This was the reply given to a reporter when he' sought the Department's answer to the allegations of apathy made at a recent meeting by a committee of the Christchurch DX Radio Association. The telegraph engineer at Christchurch, Mr. R. T. C. Roberts, said that if the Department was as apathetic as some would have the general public believe they would receive even more complaints.

"Scientific investigations are being made in the laboratory at Wellington," said Mr. Roberts, "but the results cannot be disclosed at present."

Many persons were under the impression that the mere inclusi&n of a filter in the circuit was sufficient, but often a filter only would not overcome the trouble, • said Mr. Roberts. Many of the appliances termed interference eliminators were satisfactory in theory, but they did not always prove so satisfactory in practice.

There are instances in which the Department might be mistakenly charged with apathy, the reporter was told. Listeners in a certain district had been complaining of interference, and the trouble was traced to a faulty incubator. Just before the interference was located the owner of the incubator had set 500 eggs, and it would have been grossly unfair to demand that the incubator be immediately switched off, although the inspectors have wide powers. It was, therefore, three weeks before that source of trouble «vas eliminated.

"Our inspectors are active in cleaning up much of the trouble," Mr. Roberts said. "A considerable amount of time is being devoted to these investigations of all types of interference, many of them complained of, and very beneficial results are being obtained."