SEASONAL CHANGES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 300, 4 December 1929, Page 10

SEASONAL CHANGES

Summer always brings disappointment to many people who have acquired radio receivers in the preceding winter and have neither experience nor knowledge of the vagaries ot wireless. A set which has performed prodigiously in the winter ano early spring in “bringing in” far-dis-tant transmissions, rousing the house with the wail of Japanese singers and the sound of the Samisen, shuts up like a clam when summer comes. It may make a feeble effort with the bigger Australian stations. It is hard for some people to realise that this summer sickness is not a matter for grave alarm. This failure to perform as well in summer as in winter is quite normal, and a complete recovery will be made when winter returns. It is due io tne same cause that cuts down daylight receiving range and which also produces fading —a breaking-up or ‘•ionisation'' os

The upper air is subjected to sunlight for much longer in summer than in wintei and the ionisation effect is correspondingly prolonged. The summer sickness ig therefore merely an aggravation of the “daylight effect." Although distant reception is verydisappointing during ordinary hours, it is usually better, even good, round about midnight, because the atmosphere has had time to recover itself; darkness lias settled well over Eastern Australia.