STRAY SPARKS

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 4

STRAY SPARKS

If there were eight more broadcasting stations in the United States, Uncle Sam would have half the transmitters in the world. Ho lias 612, while the other countries have 620. The United States has a population of 122,000,000, while the remainder of the earth has 1,906,000,000 inhabitants. * * * * Station 6KG, K.algoorlie, is now working on its full power of 200 watts. Opened on September 16, it soon became popular. The station, which was erected to cover an interior area, not efficiently provided for by any “A” class station, is working on a wave length of 246 metres. * * * * A radio mechanism designed to alter tho characteristics of broadcast speech, so that it becomes unintelligible to all listeners not equipped with the proper equipment has been invented by an American experimenter. By his plan the speech is broken up into three parts and transmitted on three channels. At the receiving end the components ere combined in the correct relationship. « * * • A report from Tokio tells of the. difficulties encountered by Dr Tadaoki Yamamoto, scientist of Waseda University, Japan, during a recent experiment in televising a baseball game played on the University grounds about two blocks away from the University laboratory. It was the first public demonstration of television by a national scientist in Japan. The apparatus, which is not described, was lound to work quite satisfactorily in tho morning, but late in tho afternoon, when the time camo for televising the game, it ceased functioning properly. This was supposed to be due to moisture in the air. Movements of the pitcher could be discerned clearly, but, says the report, the ball could not. bo seen in motion. The umpire’s decisions and the shouts of the game were carried tlirough a loud speaker. Other demonstrations are being planned. Like H. G. Wells, Edgar Wallace, tho well-known mystery writer, realises tiie importance of broadcasting. During the month of. October ho began a new feature in British broadcasting with a series of stories entitled ‘ Crime Stories for Broadcasting.’