B.B.C. STANDARDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 April 1943, Page 5

B.B.C. STANDARDS

M.P.’s STRONG CENSURE

“ONE-SIDED HASH’’

LONDON, April 8. • “We question the authority of the 8.8. C. and the Minister of Information to conserve the right of expression through the 8.8. G. for Government members and ‘yes men’ from various political parties,” said Mr. J. McGovern, M.P., attacking 8.8. C. propaganda. “We get this one-sided hash which shows complete lack of faith in the democratic situation. Those selected to put over talks on religious matters are what I might call the -safe, patriotic men, the sort of people who praise 80001 b bombs and hope they do God’s work. No religious expression is allowed that contradicts the idea of the State waging war.’lt is a remarkable thing that the 8.8. C. states in medical talks that all foods which are difficult to obtain have no food value, whereas rubbishy substitutes are stated to be of great value. This shows how the medical profession can adapt its requirements to political need, supporting a Government which is waging war.” Mr. McGovern added that abominable things were constantly said over the German radio about Jews, but no Jew was allowed to reply over the 8.8. C. “One hears the Dean of Canterbury and others protesting, but this is part of‘the general exploitation of the suffering of these people for the purpose of fighting war.” Mr. McGovern said the manner in which speakers gloated over the massacre of Germans from the air caused revulsion among decent people. “We can only say now that all moral protests against the bombing of London arose because we had insufficient planes. Once we got them moral objections went into the Limbo. This totalitarian radio instrument is being wielded for the benefit of the Government at the Prime Minister’s dictation. Everybody seems afraid to face up to this. The radio should be a national instrument for the propagation of every viewpoint, and unless the 8.8. C. is radically changed we shall go headlong into the Continent’s mistake.”

MILLIONS OF LISTENERS.

RUGBY, April 8

Since the war started, Britain, unlike Germany, had never been off the air, declared the Minister of Information in the Commons, to-day, replying to the debate on the 8.8. C. It was believed the 8.8. C. had between 20 and 35 million listeners in Europe. Any big news story it put out got known by most people in Western Europe, excluding Germany, within three hours.

EMPIRE BROADCASTING

LONDON, April 8. A special correspondent in the “Daily Mail” urges the creation of an Empire Broadcasting Corporation, saying: “Since the outbreak of the war, a sense of community has grown throughout the Empire which must not be replaced in cold storage after the war. The beginnings of an E.B.C. are to be seen in a system whereby Dominion radio commentators in the Middle East sent messages to the 8.8. C., which transmitted them on short-wave from London. We owe it to ourselves and the world to let the Empire’s voice be heard. The Empire always has depended for safety on communications, and the new medium of radio is extraordinarily adapted to our needs. It seems appropriate that the Mother Country should give a lead, and that the Government should take action. There is the 8.8. C. in Britain, the A.B.C. in Australia, and the C.B.C. in Canada. India, New Zealand and South Africa- fill gaps m the radio alphabet, but at all costs we must have an E.B.C. to complete an Empire circle.”

RESEARCH DISCOVERIES

LONDON. April 8

An experiment with an important bearing on long-distance radio broadcasting was described by Sir Edward A. Appleton, when lecturing to the Institute of Electrical Engineers. He said this work began in 941 when he, in co-operation with Mr-R. Naismith, devised a radio method of measuring the concentration of electricity in the atmosphere sixty to one hundred and sixty miles above the ground. They suspected, after two years’ experimenting, that this electron concentration was varying, in sympathy with the appearance oi spots in the sun, and they realised there was need for' the observation of a complete sunspot cycle of just over 11 years. Observations were now being made in other parts of the world, but the British records were the longest available, and they expected to show that some of the ultra-violet light emitted from the sun increased by as much as 120 per cent, as sunspot activity changed from the minimum to the maximum conditions. But the light thus changed was absorbed in the upper atmosphere. Therefore, it was not detectable from the ground. Sir E. A. Appleton concluded that it now was certain that the range of short-wave lengths available for long-distance radio increases very substantially with solar activity. Therefore it certainly would be necessary that the international allocation of such wave-lengths after the war should take account of the variations during the sunspot cycle as indicated by these new results.