RADIO TESTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21065, 9 April 1943, Page 4

RADIO TESTS

EFFECT OF SUNSPOTS WAVE-LENGTH RANGE BRITISH RESEARCH (By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright.) (10 a.ni.v LONDON. April 8. An experiment with an important bearing on long-distance radio broadcasting was described by Sir Edward ‘A. Apnloloii (secretary of the Privy ’Council for Scientific and Industrial 'Research), in a lecture to the Institute of Electrical Engineers. IJe said the work began in 1931 when lie, in co-operation with Mr. 11. Naismil-h-, devised 1 a radio method of •measuring the concentration of electricity in the atmosphere (50 to 100 r,Mies' above the ground. They .suspected after two years that this election concentration was varying in sympathy with the appearance of sunspots and realised the- need for the •observation of the complete sunspot cycle of just over 11 years. - ‘ Observations were now being made in other part's of the world, but the -British records were tho longest available and he expected- to show that some of the ultra-violet light emitted from the sun increased as much as 1-20 per cent as the sunspot iactivity changed from (lie minimum Ito the maximum conditions. But the light thus, changed was absorbed in I the- upper atmosphere- and, therefore, was not: delectable from the ground. Sir Edward- Appleton concluded: “It is now certain, that the range of jshortrwave lengths available for long--distance radio broadcasting increases very substantially with, solar activity. Therefore, it will certainly be necessary that the international allocation of such wave-lengths after the war should take into account the variations during the sunspot cycle indicated by these new results.”