ACCIDENTAL BROADCAST

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 28 October 1941, Page 7

ACCIDENTAL BROADCAST

YOUTHS ON THE AIR COURT CHARGES FOLLOW Dunedin, Oct. 27. The story of how a listener, engrossed in a broadcast from Daventry on the evening of a Sunday in August, was startled to hear a somewhat intimate transmission liberally embellished with the great Australian adjective, and obviously of local origin, float over the ether, was told in the Magistrates’ Court, when two youths, Thomas Car lyle Ellis and William Jacalone, appeared before Mr Bundle, S.M. Ellis was charged with having been in possession of apparatus capable of transmitting wireless communications, j I and Jacalone, with aiding him in the) : llse °f it. Mr C. J. L. White appeared 1 I for Jacalone and Mr O. G. Stevens for the other defendant, and Mr J. B. Deaker represented the Crown. Outlining the charges, Mr Deaker said that shortly after 6.15 p.m. on 10th August, the radio inspectors were informed that an irregular station was operating on the 41 -metre band near the Daventry station G.R.S. On tuning to this station they heard a man's voice announce that he was : «*bout to play some records. Another j voice then announced: "This is Wil|liam Jacalone, transmitting from his I premises at Port Chalmers.” After a lapse of a few seconds there was a j further announcement that the station i was closing down while the operator had a smoke, and then, “I’ll play the record if I can find the needle.” I The other voice replied: “Watch out ; j that you don’t blow the place up.” EXPERIMENTING WITH SET Thinking it was about time that they look a hand in the proceedings, the inspectors visited the home of Jacalone’s parents and were told that he was probably in Dunedin. In a car .equipped with a direction-finder, they finally arrived at Ellis’s home, where I' both defendants were found using a . ! wireless set that had been adapted so : that it could send messages. Ellis, it . appeared, had been experimenting with the set, and had by some means sue- i ceeded in turning it into a transmitter. Mr Stevens explained that Ellis did i not know a great deal about wireless, ■ j and to a low-wave set that had been ' fitted by a friend with a shortwave adaptor, he had added a pick-up which enabled him to play records so that ! the music would come back through the : set. A microphone was attached, but apparently something had got out of gear, and without the knowledge of defendants, the set went on the air. Mr I Stevens emphasised that there was noth- , ' ing sinister about the matter, and there : | was no suggestion that either of the youths knew that the set was broadcasting. It was by sheer chance that it I went on the air. Mr White supported Mr Stevens’s remarks, and explained that while the defendants were picking up music from a record in one room, they were receiving it in the next. The set had “oscillated,” with the result that they inadvertently sent out a broadcast. "They were playing at announcing,” counsel added, “and the language used was conclusive proof that they did not know what was happening.” DEMONSTRATION COURT r The set was then brought into Court, < ■and for the next 10 minutes, a com*! , 1 mission of inquiry, presided over by ! <

i the magistrate, and with one Court orderly, one clerk of court, two Pressmen, and a constable, as interested listeners, and two radio inspectors as demonstrators, thoroughly examined the consequences of connecting up the wrong valves. Ellis admitted that he did not know a detector valve from any other, and gav? the simple explanation that he had connected a wire with "the one that buzzed.” The magistrate said that on the facts he was satisfied that the youths had no intention of broadcasting. Considering all the circumstances, he thought that the proceedings would serve a good object in bringing the regulations clearly under the notice of the public, and emphasising the fact that nothing must be done to a wireless set, whether by a qualified person or otherwise, which would make the machine capable of transmitting messages. The case was adjourned for two years conditional on defendants each paying costs amounting to £1 11s 6d, and giving an undertaking not to interfere with any radio set in future.”