EMPIRE RADIO SERVICE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 160, 22 June 1935, Page 12

EMPIRE RADIO SERVICE

Improving The System TWO NEW TRANSMITTERS Two new short-wave Empire transmitters are to bo built by the 8.8. C. at Daventry-. They will be more than twice as powerful as the present transmitters there, using a power of 50 or 60 kilowatts. New masts are to be built for a considerable extension of the beam aerial System, based on experiments carried out during tho past two and a half years. Construction of a building to accommodate the new transmitters will begin shortly. These changes, already foreshadowed in the “Daily Telegraph,’’ indicate the most important advance in the Empire service since it was opened in 1932. They should constitute tin effective reply to the German “Empire’’ broadcasts from Zeesen, Berlin, reception of which, in certain parts of the Empire, has been reported to be better than that of Daventry.

The idea underlying these changes is to send narrower and more intensive beams to the Empire. Each beam will resemble a searchlight rather than a fan in shape. When tho two new transmitters are in operation the two existing ones will be combined to form one high-power transmitter.

Thus three separate wave-lengths may be used in each of the five daily transmissions. Where, for example, one broad beam has to serve the whole of Africa, it will in future be possible to split the zone into throe, sending one beam to East Africa, another to South Africa, and a third to West Africa. The problem of the Empire service has been to discover the right wavelength at a given time and season for a particular part of the world. In the past two and a half years an immense amount of data has been collected on this point, and tho service may be said to have passed tho experimental stage.