FREAKS OF RADIO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22004, 10 January 1935, Page 6

FREAKS OF RADIO

MANY STRANGE SOUNDS

MUSIC FROM A WELL

[from our OWN correspondent]

VANCOUVER, Dec. 20

A Prairie farmer heard jazz music «md beauty talks coming from the depths of his well. A new cook-stove on an Ontario farm emitted radio programmes until it was fully heated. A tap in, a florist's shop in Toronto furnished a piano solo when it was turned Da. Telephone subscribers in an eastern city complained that broadcast programmes were "scrambled" with their conversation when they were connected witl| their friends, although their radios were silent.

Transmission experts have furnished explanations of the phenomena. The well had the ground wire of a radio receiving set attached to the cribbing, and the current passed through the water. The stove pipe acted as an antenna, and brought the current into the stove, which resonated up. to a certain temperature, * the frequency fading as the metal heated and expanded. The musical telephones were near a radio station. A condenser, placed across each transmitter, pacified the subscribers. In the case of the water tap, it was a matter of mechanical resonance in the pipe, with the current conducted bv the flow of water.