RADIO RECORD

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 May 1928, Page 4

RADIO RECORD

NOTES FOR LISTENERS-IN

(By ‘

“Reception”)

GOOD MUSIC. POPULARISED BY RADIO. If, is a. long step already to the time when the public’s interest in good music was confined to concerts, whose attendance was always a doubti.nl quantity—-concerts at which, George Bernard Shaw has said, “you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it.” Now, there are tens of thousands of people who make no secret of the fact that they enjoy classical music, because broadcasting has brought it to them in their homes, and because the British Broadcasting Corporation refuses to take the line of least resistance in the beginning, and give programmes of the more “popular” type. Not everyone, of course, likes the better-class music, and many of those who do scarcely like it all the time. There are as many tastes in music as there are in ties or fancy waistcoats; and this fact is recognised. “Some people maintain that there is no music but Bach.” said Sir John Reith, programme director of the 8.8. C.. “others dislike, or would have us believe they dislike, everything except the latest, jazz.” This indicates ihat the 8.8. C. by no means neglects the other side of its musical programmes. But Sir John Reith also said: “The musical taste of a. nation is a. matter of some importance. Had we allowed ourselves to be alarmed by the complaints received against the playing of good music, and been led to the conclusion that only cheap and catchy music would be popular, disastrous havoc would easily have been wrought in the growing musical taste.” Time has justified that outlook. And in many parts of the world where broadcasting so suddenly became such a. tremendous educational factor, and particularly in Australia, the same attitude has been taken, and has been thoroughly vindicated. The determination, in the form of a sort of endurance test, to force, high-brow music on an unwilling public, has by no means been adopted. Great artists, wlio before were only names to all except a few, have been brought into touch with the multitude establishing a closer contact between art than all the concerts could ever hope to achieve. Not many years ago John McCormack stood before a microphone in. an American studio one New Year’s night, and many thousands who had never heard this singer—in spite of the gramophone—listened sto him then. It was his greatest audience, and the singer said that the experience was one of lhe most impressive he had known, as it was, no doubt, to many of his listeners. Australian managers are emphatic that the trend there is upwards in musical appreciation, and an analysis of the programme bears this out. Light music has its place, but there is little doubt that the Australian listener has a deeper side to his musical tastes.

TELEGRAPHIC PHOTOS, A DREAM COME TRUE. “The Daily Sketch” and its allied newspapers will shortly install between London and Manchester an apparatus for the transmission of photographs by telegraphy. The plant and apparatus are now' under construction, and in the near future the photograph of an interesting and important event in London will be available in Manchester in a few seconds, eliminating the time lost in railway transit, and the limitations of aeroplane delivery, now frequently employed in order that the reader may have the latest news in pictures in the next issue of his paper. Within almost an hour of an event occurring in London, it will be possible to have a picture printing in the Northern editions of the “Daily Sketch” in Manchester, an achievement which has not yet been possible in this country. The rapid transmission of photographs by telegraphy is an achievement of which scientists, engineers and newspaper producers have been dreaming for years, a feat on which they have been working as well as dreaming, and the fulfilment comes in .an instrument which produces the most remarkably accurate results. The “Daily Sketch” and its allied newspapers are installing this newest development of phototelegraphy, and placing its work and possibilities at the service of its readers. Events the world over will be brought nearer in visualised form. The Post" Office have considered the institution of a photo-telegraphic service between London and the Continent, linking up with, the system now working between Vienna and Berlin. It is a. reasonable possibility that within a few years it will be as easy to transmit a photograph by wire as it is to send a telegram between the capitals of the world. Photo-telegraphy will be a valuable addition to the great news and picture collecting organisation at present used by the “Daily Sketch” and its allied journals. Between Manchester, London, Newcastle, Glasgow and Sheffield, and other towns, there already exists an enormous network of special telephone and telegraph lines, the largest private installation of its kind in any newspaper organisation in the country,, linking up the industrial hub of the nation with almost, every part of the country. RELAY OPERATIONS. A device designed to enable a. control operator to fade in or out the music from a certain section of a large auditorium, in much the same fashion that electricians can bring in or take out various colours in the lighting scheme, has been installed in an American theatre to facilitate broadcasting. The technical name is “fourteon-coil mixing panel.” .It is said to solve the problem of bringing the scattered sources together into one broadcast. pick-up and sending them out as a unified whole, free of breaks that would otherwise occur in changing from source to source. When the pick-up is being made from the stage, a member of the theatre staff sits alongside the control operator. He acts as prompter, advising the operator when the different units are performing on the stage. Thus the operator is enabled to connect the microphones near which the performance is going on, into the circuit. Ry means of |be mixing pane! ho can eliminate the microphones that are not in use Hi'l !ho?.c that are.

TELEVISION ATTACKED. UP AGAINST STONE WALL. With television so much before the eyes of the radio world, the following article from the “Cape Times” is of much interest: —The British pioneer of television has been challenged. “Popular Wireless,” the well-known radio weekly, has made him an offer of £l.OOO if he will televise certain specified items over a distance of 25 yards, to the satisfaction of a. special committee. This attack upon Britain's foremost television inventor by wireless experts will probably cause the world in general to ask many questions. What is it all about? Why this apparent estrangement between two radio “brothers,” who for years past have been blazing similar trails in the ether, and grappling with problems in common? Television is surely but a development of wireless —I him why should the interested parties fall out? The editor of “Popular Wireless” says that, such criticisms as he has made have been supported by two eminent scientists. One of these gentlemen, it may be supposed is Sir Oliver Lodge, who happens to be scientific adviser to lhe popular wireless journal. As far as one can gather at this distance, the opinion is widely held among radio experts in England that Mr Baird has reached a. stage in the development of television where he cannot possibly hope to advance further without some radical change in his system. Optical difficulties, it is claimed, stand in the way. and more especially mechanical difficulties. In the world to-day three prominent inventors are attempting to perfect television. They are Mr J. L. Baird (England), Mr C. Francis Jenkins (America), and the Bell Telephone Laboratories of the. United States. The three are working along different lines, but actually they are all handicapped in progress by the same mechanical limitations and disabilities. ‘‘Popular Wireless” and the “two eminent scientists” behind it probably hold the view' of many others —that Baird’s system cannot, possibly be developed to a satisfactory commercial proposition along present lines, and it is possible that the intention of the challenge is to focus public attention on the activities of the newly-formed television company, with the object of exposing the limitations of television before any attempt is made to introduce the public television apparatus which may be of little practical use and far from perfect. Ido not say this is definitely the motive, but. in the circumstances I assume that. it. might be so. In other words, the wireless press people seem to think that Mr Baird has attached too much importance to his invention. the limitations of which were well known from the beginning. I have already mentioned that these difficulties are chiefly mechanical, as well as optical. The greatest problem presents itself when one attempts to televise action —a moving picture — for one immediately leaves the realm of “still” photography and enters cinematography. In motion picture work it, is a, well-known fact (bat pictures on the film must, pass the gate of the projector at the rate of 16 a. second in order to give true lifelike motion on the screen. The same thing applies to television, and that, is where the greatest, difficulty comes in, vizi, speed. If one examines with a magnifying glass an ordinary half-tone block, reproduction in a newspaper, it will be seen that every square inch of picture is made up of something like 6,400 dots which is by no means the finest screen used in Press picture work. Now. to transmit such a picture —and every dot has to be sent —across distance by wire or wireless is a comparatively simple process, as long as there is no limit in tho time to be taken. Hundreds of experiments have already been successfully carried out on these lines. Pictures, cheques and handwriting have been exchanged between one continent and another and Marconi is already talking .of introducing his facsimile transmission at an early date. But this merely “still” photography. The pioneers of television, however, are up against, a much tougher problem, for they have to. transmit and receive 16 pictures a second. The whole analysis of the sequence of pictures has first to be broken up into countless thousands of tiny dots, impulses or atoms, to give a picture of reasonable size, and the building up at the receiving end must take place at precisely the same rate to give the idea of motion. Those who criticise Baird’s system which makes use of perforated revolving discs for the transmission and reception of picture elements, declare that nothing mechanical can possibly stand up to the speed required to televise pictures of lifelike motion. They admit, however,, that if the mechanical parts could be dispensed with and the whole production left to the realm of electro-psychics, with no moving parts, television passing the standing of cinematography—a standard less than which the general public will probably not regard as perfect—would be quite possible. But as yet. nobody has discovered such a desirable system. Other difficulties also present themselves in television. Straight lines do not always appear as such at, the receiving end, and while this can be corrected by using a. travelling cylinder at the receiving end when transmitting “still” pictures, it is not possible with true television. There is reason Io believe that this known difficulty of retaining lhe true definition and shape of objects transmitted has prompted the challenger to stipulate the special items nominated, which include human faces, a, rray of dice and marbles, simple geometrical figures and a clock face.