LAST YEAR IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 21316, 21 January 1933, Page 4

LAST YEAR IN AUSTRALIA

During the past year some notable wireless achievements were made in Australia. Without doubt one of the most important and epoch-making events during the year was the successful exchange of greetings, the reception of the speech of His Majesty the King, and of the Empire programme on Christmas night. Amalgamated Wireless celebrated the first anniversary of the inauguration of the first regular weekly world-wide broadcasts. Captain P. P. Eckersley visited Australia, the object of his visit being to report on the broadcasting system of Australia. The report was duly received. and has been handed to the Commonwealth Government. During the year the radio-telephone service was extended to a number of countries. It is now practicable for anyone in Australia to ring up and speak by telephone with 90 per cent, of the telephone subscribers in other parts of the world. Telephony services are also operated between Sydney and Now Zealand, and Sydney and Java, while the Radio Centre also acts as an interconnecting link in the wireless telephone service between New Zealand and Great Britain, Europe, and North and South America. Much research work in television transmission was carried out. The outstanding problem in connection with television was the great space which it occupied in the ether. For instance, if television were broadcast on the same wave-length as that used bj’ station 2FC, a groat part of the broad-

cast band would be required, leaving little room for other broadcasting services, but a possible solution of the television problem mi;vbt be found in the ultra short-wave band in which experiments are now being carried out. Particular attention was given to short-wave transmissions on the sevenmetre band. Extensive and far-reaching improvements were effected in the radio services in Papua, New Guinea, and Fiji, while the technical equipment of a number of the Australian coastal radio stations has been modernised. An important innovation lately was the use of new equipment which enables an operator in the city to communicate direct with ships at sea through transmitting and receiving stations situated some miles distant. This apparatus is the first of its kind in the world.

During the last few weeks an Aus-tralian-manufactured broadcast transmitter was shipped to New Zealand to the order of the New Zealand Broadcasting Board.