TO KILL RADIO FALLACIES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 273, 2 November 1932, Page 4

TO KILL RADIO FALLACIES

In an attempt to kill a few radio fallacies an English writer states:—

We distinguish electricity supplies by the abbreviation A.C. and D. C., which, as everybody knows, stand for alterating current and direct current respectively. But does everybody know? If so, why is it that so many people speak of "DC., current’’? The precise significance of this term is difficult to trace; one might venture to suggest that one of the words is superfluous. A.C. voltage is bad enough. I have a strong suspicion that what is really meant is alternating voltage.. Then why mix it up with current? “High tension" is a term which has been clearly defined by the authorities. It refers to electrical pressures from 650 to 3000 volts. It was ludicrous enough when this standard term was perverted to use iu connection with batteries of 50 or 100 volts, but when four-electrode valves became popular some years ago the anomalous position was reached that the "high-tension” battery was sometimes of lower voltage than the low tension!

Another expression associated with jokes—and rightly so— is "loud-speak-er.” It is true that it is a fair description of some of these appliances, but surely a name should embody some feature that is essential in the object named, and mercifully loudness is no essential feature of a loud-speaker. I believe the origin of this misnomer is a confusion with the loud speaking telephone which Mr Alfred Graham produced for use in the navy, and which was distinguished from the ordinary telephone by the fact that it could be heard without going up to it and applying one’s ear to it. But that has nothing to do with radio. The other end of the system also unhappily labours under an association with the past, a sort of ductless gland which does anything but remind us of a distant ancestry. Wo Used to be taught that "microphone” is derived from two Greek words meaning "small sound.” My dictionary says so, any way. If so, why doos the 8.8. C. eipploy a combination of 114 musicians to make the small sound with which tho microphone is intended to deal?