RADIO RECORD

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1936, Page 9

RADIO RECORD

NOTES FOR LISTENERS-IN

(By

"Reception")

PREVIEW OF TELEVISION. SUCCESS BEYOND HOPES. In the big workshops beneath the Ciystal Palace are masses of greypi.’nt&d machinery, not unlike the turb'nc engines of a small destroyer in i.carance. They arc part of the triovision transmitter built by ’he Baird Company lor the 8.8. C., and wh'-n 1 saw them last week they were being given a final test before being taken to the north of London for installation in the Alexandra Palace, writes the television correspondent of the Observer.

Another big workshop contains a large number of home receivers. They, also, were being tested, ready for the rush of orders that will follow the start of the programmes, on July 1 or :hereabouts. A large number of these receivers have already been ordered by those who want to be in at the first and see the test transmissions which probably will start in May. The transmission of television is complicated, difficult,, and costly. Reception is easy with proper apparatus —a child can do it—and the proper apparatus will cost no more than did a radio-gramophone a year or so ago and less than a really high-class radiogram costs' to-day. The ease with which television can bo tuned and adjusted was, demonstrated by Captain A. G. D. West, head of the Baird Research Laboratories, where both transmitters and receivers have been developed and where almost every part of both is now being made, including the big cathode-ray tubes for the receivers.

Imagine that you are in your own room. The television receiver is in the corner and is no bigger than the zamiliar radio-gramophone. Indeed, it looks very like one. You raise the lid and disclose a mirror, in which the pictures will presently be reflected. You are going to hear sound as well as music. The televisor is a home moving-picture instrument, with the difference that you do not have to buy or make films for it, and the pictures are -fresh each time you switch on. You tune in by the sound of the pregramme, just as you tune your radio set. When the sound is correctly received the pictures will also come in correctly except for some small alterations to suit your own ideas or brilliance and focus, which you make by touches on a couple of knops, just as you adjust volume and tone in a radio set to please your ear. The room is best darkened, though it need not bo completely dark. The pictures are so brilliantly lighted that they can bo seen fairly we!) in the ordinary daylight of a living room. They m’e about 13 inches wide and 11 inches high, and viewed, comfortably seated, from a distance of about six feet the horizontal lines which are characteristic of a television picture are quite invisible. They look like*the projection from a very good home cinema lantern. If what 1 saw at the Crystal 1 alace is the kind of thing which will be available to the public generally, and I have no reason to doubt it,then television is going to be a success beyond the hopes of the most optimistic a year ago, when the Television Committee made its report and promised, us a worthwhile service. These pictures are the best I have yet seen. They are definitely good and well worthy ot the very best programmes the 8.8. C. can put out.

INTERFERENCE. Certain forms of interference experienced by the average listener, and for which the amateur operator is blamed, are discussed in another ot the series of articles supplied by headquarters of the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters. This reads: — There seems to be a popular impiessicn amongst some listeners that the radio amateur is an evil, of doubtful necessity, whoso chief delight is to interefere with broadcast reception. Such impressions are far from the truth. Interference' comes from many sources, but actually interference from amateur stations is almost negligible, as certain reports show. The chief engineer of the Federal Communication Commission, in his report to the United States Government, stated definitely that amateur interference was so small that it could be completely ignored when considering general broadcast interference. In England the Institute of Electrical Engineers has definite statistics which show that one in every lo.iK.ii) listeners receive genuine amateur interference. Figures, unfortunately, are not available for New Zealand, but it is reasonable to assume that they will be the same here as elsewhere. The New Zealand amateur may use but onetenth the power permitted in the United States.

To many listeners the mere fact cf hearing Morse is sufficient to cause them to blame an amateur station. Such is not the case, for, apart from there being many other sources of Morse, such as ship and Government stations, the possibility of low-power amateur Morse interfering with broadcast reception is remote. Telephony stations do, in some instances, interfere on older model receivers, but it must always be borne in mind that an amateur, using modern equipment worth hundreds of pounds and paying a higher license fee, cannot bo expected to cope with a listener using a crystal set. Nevertheless, it is unnecessary for any listener to suffer, as a few shillings will make a device which will eliminate the trouble.

Tho legal position is laid down definitely in the radio regulations, 1932, which state that, if a listener having set .of modern design, experiences interference, the onus is on the amateur station to co-operate with the owner in cither its elimination, or remain off the air during the hours ob-

served by tho nearest A class broadcasting station. No prpßclion is made for tho owner of an older type receiver, but there is an unwritten law amongst amateurs to assist all listeners in ( ‘the elimination of amateur interference.

The problems of eliminating all types of unnecessary interference have been occupying the amateur’s time equally as much as it has the authorities, and' much has been stopped through their representations.

TWO-WAY RADIO. FOR THAMES POLICE. A gap in Scotland Yard’s wireless equipment in dealing with crime has been filled by fitting some of the Thames police boats with apparatus for two-way radio communication, rays the “Daily Telegraph.’’ In addition, atfer experiments which began a year ago, most of the fleet, of thirty launches and motor-boats have receiving apparatus. This means that a police boat anywhere on the river is now as much in touch with the Yard as a Flying Squad car in the Strand. Before the introduction of wireless, if a police boat were wanted in an emergency a message might be sent by telephone to the nearest wharf watchman, who would hail or signal the boat when she passed.

That might take a long time. In a fog, too, a police boat might become marooned and out of touch.

Messages are now sent by wireless to boat on patrol as far down the river as Erith. Less than 150 years ago the Port of London lost £500,000- annually by plunder and pilferage, and a little later the first Marine Police Office was opened. To-day, although 12,000 barges use the river, the Thames police service has reduced crime to a minimum.

If a man is seen acting suspiciously at a wharf, perhaps disappearing on shore when approached, a police boat can now send a wireless message direct to Scotland Yard. This in turn ■ s relayed to the nearest patrol car, so that shore police can converge quickly on the spot. Similarly, police on patrol ashore, who see suspects put off in a boat, can have details wirelessed to the nearest police boat. River rescues, help following a collision, retrieving boats that have broken loose, locating bodies —and 120 of these are found every year in the Thames—sending, news of casualties to shipping —all these and other duties of the river police are now made easier and more efficient.

FAMOUS VOICES. IN LIBRARY. The news that the British-Broadcast-ing Corporation has succeeded in its quest for a record of Mr. Gladstone s voice for the great library that it is ci eating of records of the voices of prominent people who have lived during tho gramophone era raise the interesting question of who these first people were who could be persuaded to overcome their shyness or their cont< nipt and play with Mr. Edison’s new toy. In those early days ol the phonograph and its cylindrical recording few people were prepared to treat it with seriousness or to foresee the immense possibilities that it held; since comedians— especially if they had powerful voices—and the performances of brass bands form the bulk of the early recordings in America, it is a surprising discovery that Queen Victoria not only was responsible for the first recording made by any royalty, but was the authoress of the first serious record ever made in England. It was a message from Her Majesty to the Emperor of Ethiopia, after the return of .a British expedition to Abyssinia in the ’eighties. By the Queen’s command only two copies of this royal message "were made by Colonel Douraud, of the Edison Bell Company, one of which she retained, while the other was sent by the company’s special courier, along with a machine on which it could be used, to the Emperor. The ■courier had strict orders to destroy the cylinder as soon as it had been heard. Disraeli, in 1888, appears to have bseii the next person of ’prominence whose recorded voice is still in possession of the Edison Bell Company, which is naturally responsible for so much of this early work. It was in the July of 1890 that Lord Tennyson made his famous record of “The Burial of the Great Duke”; but his declamatory style, Mr. Howard Flynn, of the Edison 801 l Company, states, was not exactly suited for the recording methods of those, early days.

A 'few days later, at a dinner party in Kensington, Mr. Gladstone was persuaded to make a speech for the benefit of the gramophone. It was an impressive speech, addressed to Liberals all over the world, but unfortunately it went on for much longer than there was room on the cylinder. But Mr. Gladstone remedied this by granting a further audition the next morning, when he gave a shorter version of his speech, and this is the record which the 8.8. C. was so anxious to obtain. The action of the 8.8. C. in compiling

?. “library” of recrods of retrospective interest is a very admirable and useful undertaking.

WOMEN ANNOUNCERS. Miss Jasmine Bligh, a niece of the Earl of Darnley, and Miss E.-D. Williams are the two successful applicants fur the positions- of 8.8. C. television announcers at the Alexandra Palace television studios. Thousands of applications have beem considered, and more than 100 women interviewed. Miss Bligh is 23 years of-age, and is tho sister of Miss Susan Bjigh, whose photograph was reproduced on the cover of the London Telephone Directory. . r Miss Williams also lives in London. Qualifications for the appointment v--.ro charm, personality, a. “golden'; voice, and features which reproduce well "on the air.”

RADIO TO KILL GERMS. The Radio Society of Great Britain decided recently to form a pathological and bacteriological seel ion to in-

vestigate the use of wireless waves to kill food bacteria. The killing of beetles, weevils, and eggs in grain by this method has an important bearing on the problem of national defence. It may become possible to store grain in large quantities for a much longer period than hitherto. It is understood that an experiment on a big scale is to be made shortly. Dr. C. G. Lemon, at whose suggestion the new section has been formed, stated that by placing milk in the field of 2J.-metre radiation he had killed’ the bacteria con-

tained in it. “I have killed beetlesand weevils in grain with a wave-length of 50,000 metres/’ he said. “It has now to be shown whether these experiments can be applied commercially.” LISTENERS’ REACTION. How to test the listeners’ reaction to radio is a problem still much to the forefront at Broadcasting House, says the London “Daily Telegraph.” The idea of a questionnaire has fallen into disfavour with Sir Stephen Tallents, the Controller of Public Relations, besome and slow working. He seeks machinery which will run smoothly and speedily. Ju America they use the telephone. On Sundays, after the “Amateur Hons,” in which amateur talent has its opportunity at the microphone, thousands of telephone votes are recorded. A hundred telephone operators do nothing but receive calls and 60 other persons tabulate the votes. Particular towns lire designated week by week, as those in which votes may be cast. Chicago one Sunday, New York the next, and so on. *