A RADIO EXHIBITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20364, 19 September 1929, Page 18

A RADIO EXHIBITION.

AUCKLAND DATES FIXED. Like Wellington and Dunedin, Auckland is to liavo a radio exhibition this year. The Town Hall has been engaged (or October 50 to November 2 (Wednesday to Saturday), inclusive, and a very good show is promised. Tho Auckland Radio Dealers' Association is supported in tho venture by the Broadcasting Company, tho Auckland Radio Society and tho Association of Amateur Radio Transmitters. Tho Post-master-General, tho Hon. J. I). Donald, and tho Mayor of Auckland, Mr G. Baildon, will speak at tlio official opening. Thcro will be 20 stalls in all, and it is certain that a wido range of 1929 radio receivers and accessories will be shown. The Transmitters' Association will demonstrate short-wave apparatus, and supply information to all who wish to know more about "ham" radio. The Broadcasting Company has agreed to fit up a temporary studio on the stage, from which most of lYA's concerts will bo relayed during tho four days. It, is also intended to provido orchestral and other music in tho hall each afternoon and evening. Tho two Southern exhibitions were both regarded as most successful from every point of view, especially as they brought modern receivers of many different makes together under one root, giving tho potential purchaser a ready means of finding out what tho trade as a whole had to offer. Although sets cannot bo demonstrated under homo conditions in an exhibition hall, dealers have much to gain by showing them. Auckland has supported broadcasting from its earliest days, and the exhibition should draw large crowds. THE LOCAL STATION. HOW TO REDUCE VOLUME. To obtain reduced signal strength from tho local station with a powerful set is generally considered difficult if it is desired to preserve the quality of the output. An English engineer, Mr. C. P. Allinson, claims to have found a simple solution that is satisfactory in theory and practice. It consists in disconnecting tho aerial coil of tho set from the aerial and connecting it to the slider of a 40,000-ohm potentiometer. Tho latter is thon connected direct between aerial and earth. With the slider at the top of the resistance the aerial is connected directly to the aerial winding, and the effect is merely to connect a high resistance in parallel with the aerial coil. As tho slider is brought down, however, the value of the resistance in parallel with tho coil increases, and so tho damping increases, while a* series resistance is introduced in tho aeriSl circuit. This goes on progressively till tho aerial coil is eventually short-circuited. The control of volume given by this scheme is smooth and silent, while the characteristic of the aerial-earth system as a whole remains unchanged. The potentiometer should be non-inductive and of any value between 20,000 and 50.000-ohms.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

It should hardly bo necessary to remind listeners of the special concert to be relayed frirn the Waitomo Caves to IYA to-morrow evening. Tho latest, available return of receiving licences ; r: Britain, dated May 31, was 2.760.878. The increase for the month was 20,000. In addition, 14,830 frc* licences for blind listeners were in force. For the first time tho evening service at St. Paul's Pro-Cathedral, Wellington, will bo relayed by 2YA next Sunday evening. * The preacher will be Canon James, who often broadcast when he was vicar of St. Mary's Cathedral. Auckland. Among the talks from IYA next week are:—Tuesday, 7.40, Professor A. B. Fitt, "How and Why We Dream;" 8.29, [ Mr. A. B. Chappell, topical subject; Friday, 7.0, Mr. Frank Sutherland, "Rugby Football;" 7.40, Mr. W. G. E. Wheeler, "Esperanto." Saturday, 7.40. Mr. G. D. Rutter, "Gladioli." Recently an amateur with a strangelydistorted sense of humour has been using the wave-length of station WJZ (America) to send out fake _ news despatches reporting the assassination of public men and other alarming occurrences. A number of persons who tuned in the messages made inquiries, only to find that they were the victims of an unscrupulous hoax. I "Xot Quite on the Western Front" will be tho title of a novelty programrno at IYA next Thursday. Pa c t efforts at free-and-easy entertainment from the station have been generally popular and much appreciated, even if some listeners found them unconventional. Just what form the "war-time" programme will take has not been disclosed, but it should include, a good many of the songs that wero sung in tho war years. The Broadcasting Company seems to have "gone in off the deep end" in Canterbury with its talks to farmers from 3YA. Tho latest list of subjects drawn up by tho special committee looks very heavy indeed to the townsman, but presumably tho man on tho land will bo interested. Still, it was rather a shock on turning over the page 3 of the company's officiul journal this week to come suddenly upon a full report of a talk on tho treatment of lambing ewes. Thero was a wealth of obstetrical de'nil, and it was hard to see what it all had to do with wireless If tho 630 radio stations in the ITnit-.v 1 States were financed on 'lie British liccnco fee plan, at the samo expenditure for each station, it. is estimated that the listeners of America would have to pay approximately £40.000,000 in radio taxes, or from .10 to IS dollars a year on overv radio set. Nevertheless it is not to 'be inferred that the American listener gets his entertainment for nothing. He pays for it through direct and indirect radio advertising, and some of it goes on to the price of radio sets and accessoiies. Non-listeners who b'".y goons advertised over the air also pay, so the burden on the set-owner is less than it would be with a licence system. The 8.8.0.'s efforts to educate this j public through "talks" draw many protests from a public which wants amusement, not instruction The following verses in a Scottish paper are typical:— To several million homos each night, The 8.8.C. dispenses light In c.lints on Art, the ArtjueSus, Or "How to eat asparagus," Or "Ways to Renovate a Hat." A'ld interesting things tike that. 1 hey tell us what to do or use When in the pink or in the blueff: We len.ru what littery mulches are, The distance to tho farthest star; .Vnd ere Bie Ben booms out his chimes We're urged to buy tho Rndio Times. But wouldn't it be rather nice K there could be a small device Whereby the "Talker" (all alone). Knseonsed before the microphone. Might fee p. coloured light—say. red— When I switch oil and ao to bed I