RADIO IN THE HOME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23227, 22 December 1938, Page 5

RADIO IN THE HOME

PROGRAMME FEATURES HOLIDAY SCHEDULES SHORT-WAVE CONGESTION lIV AU.-wavj; Featured from IYA at 8.15 this evening will be a recital by Julie Worry, a New Zealand soprano of outstanding brilliance. Her songs will be of the popular type and will include the Maori number "Mine Him*." The same programme will include a further talk by .Mr. I). ( 'rosswell on early New Zealand, this time dealing with the journeyings of the missionaries to the South. The week-end schedules will include many solos and duets sung by Viola Morris and Victoria Anderson, who are making their second tour of the YA stations. Although consisting largely of recorded items, the Christmas Eve programme is particularly appropriate. it will conclude with a relay from St. Patrick's Cathedral of midnight Mass, the station closing down at 1.30 a.m.

Under the baton of Anderson Tyrer the augmented 2YA studio orchestra will broadcast at 9.5 this evening the first complete performance of the dramatic symphonic poem "Dr. Faustus." This composition for orchestra, choir and narrator, lias been composed by the conductor. The broadcast may be heard from -YA and 4YA. The Wellington transmitter will put on the air on Saturday at 9.5 p.m. a British broadcasting Corporation recorded revues "Who's Hooper," from the book by Fred Thompson, with lyrics by Clifford Grey and music .by Ivor Novello. The Sunday concert session from the same station will open with a piano recital by Paul Schramm, Viennese pianist, and will include a group of baritone songs by Clement Q. Williams and tlie radio play "Four Looked Down One Christmas Morn" written by the A uok lander W. G. Holder.

Cricket broadcasts are a feature of the holiday programmes of the southern YA stations. At 11 a.m. on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the Wellington transmitter will give a summary of the play in the Pluuket Shield match, Wellington versus Otago. at the Basin Reserve, Wellington. C'hristchurch, which, unfortunately, is not well received here in daylight hours, will give progress reports, commencing at 11 a.m. on each day of plav, in the shield match, Auckland versus Canterbury, In addition a review of the day's plav will lie given at 7.20 o'clock each evening. Progress reports on the Canterbury tennis championships will be available from .MYA at noon on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Short-wave reception of overseas broadcasting stations is now approaching its peak, particularly in. the evening, when the dial of an all-wave receiver is crowded. That this congestion is becoming acute is evidenced by the questionnaires which many of the main overseas broadcasters are distributing with their programme schedules. The problem bids fair to be difficult of solution. To obtain fidelity reproduction under the present method" of transmission the emitted wave must be 10 kilocycles wide, and as the 31, £5, 19 and 16 metre bands are narrow, only a small number of stations can use simultaneously any one of these bands. .Most Continental countries, and the custom is spreading elsewhere, employ three or more bands for disseminating the one programme, and this, and the vagaries of short-wave propagation, intensify the difficulties. One wonders whether, if there is much more delav, the proposed New Zealand short-wave station will find a vacant dene anywhere on the present bands.

Experiments on the shorter wave bands continue and quite a deal of use is being made of lengths around one metre, using a special type of aerial, which is, to all intents and purposes, the radiating equivalent of a motorcar headlamp. The radiating rod or rods are at about the focal centre of a reflecting system, thus resulting in a comparatively narrow directed beam. It has been discovered that 4 such an arrangement on short waves requires an unobstructed path il efficient reception is to be had. Indeed, for optimum results, t-horc should l>o no object within 30ft. of a line drawn between receiving and transmitting antennas, Triode valves arc employed and the receivers are adapted supcrhotrodync receivers, not dissimilar in principle to the conventional broadcast set.

| In a receiver high fidelity simply j means that the loud speaker reproduces very faithfully the programmes put over the microphone. For a number of reasons exact reproduction has not yet been achieved, but a good set is little short of the absolute, and does, in fact, so render speech and music that the most discerning car cannot detect the slightest shortcoming. To secure high fidelity the set must have what is called an overall linear response from 50 to 8000 cycles or higher. This simply means that the speaker will react properly to every note from the lowest to the highest. The demand for selectivity causes side band attenuation, but compensation after detection largely replaces the tones lost through the necessity for selectivity. Many modern receivers employ automatic tone and volume expanders to secure the utmost in fidelity of reproduction. The manual tone control on many sets is simply a means of boosting the reproduction of any desired group of frequencies at tho expense of other tones, thus giving treble or mellow reproduction at will. FROM IYA To-day: s p.m.. "Westward Ho!"*, 8.15, Julio Worry, New Zealand soprano. "Lovo Everlasting," Jlino c lllne," "I Wonder If Love Js a Dream." "When Moonbeam!! Softly Fall" and "Mexican Serenade"; b.I.V "The Fourth Form at St. Percy's"; 0.5, talk. Mr. D. Cresswell. "The Mission Goes South"; ii.'JO. recorded hand music: 0.30. "Dad and Dave from Snake Valley"; 0.11, lig'it mi.sic; 10 to It. music and melody. To-morrow: 8 p.in.. "Yeomen of the Guard" selection; 8.l(». Mary Martin, violin. "Choral Prelude," "Murcinna." "Andaluza" and "Guitarro", B.'JB Frank Titlcrfon, operatic, selection; B."Finlandia"; 0.5 to 10. recordings; 10 to 11, music and melod.v. Saturday: 5 p.m., Her Excellency Viscountess (Salway broadcasts a Christinas message to children, followed b.v greetings from two crippled children; 8 p.m., "The First Nowell" and "When Christ was Horn of Mary Free"; 8.8. "The Christmas Overture"; B,'J'J. "Shepherds' Christmas Music" from Bach's "Christmas Oratorio"; B,HO. Viola Morris and Victoria Anderson, vocalists, duets, " Through Your Strangeness," "When Myra Sines." "Sister Awake." "The Lamb," "A Lake and a Fairy Boat" and "Spring." solos by Victoria Anderson, "Wanders Xachtlied" and "Wohin." and solos by Viola Morris. "Ween No More'' and "The Maiden"; !!..*». dance music; 10.15, Christinas messages from the Right Hon. M. J. Savage, the Hon. Adam Hamilton, and the president of the Returned Soldiers' Association; II to midnight, variety and vaudeville: midnight lo 1.110 a.m.. midnight Mass relayed from St. Patrick's Cathedral. Sunday: II a.m.. relay from All Saints' Anglican Church; '2 P.m., "The Messiah" (recorded); 7 p. ni„ relay from Salvation Armv's Xeivton Hall; 8.30, Viola Moiris and Victoria Anderson present solos and duets; 0.5, recorded presentation of the third act of Wagner's "Parsifal." Monday: 8 p.m., "The Exploits of the Black Moth —(irief Comes lo Mr. Granby; "The Old-Time Thea.vter'H 8. |.'i, "John Halifax. Gentleman"; 0 5 to 10 light recordings; IO to I I.Mo, dance li|iisic. Tuesday: 8 p.m.. "A Cafe in the Moonlight' . 8.5, Japanese Honseboy; 8.18, "The Homestead on the ltise"; 8.31, F.b and Zeb: 8.10 "Melodies by the Pirates of the Vulture' 1 : 0.5. Viola Morris and Victoria Anderson, voralists, in solos oml duets; 10 to 11. dance music. Wednesday: 8 p.m., massed band music; B.comet and recordings: 0.5, "Coronets of England- The Life of Mar.v Queen of Scots"; 0.35. "Music Graphs"; 0.18. music, mirth and melody.

EMPIRE SHORT-WAVE STATIONS GBD and GSE, !2o metres; 080, QBF aud Q SI, 10 met res. Daily: 8 p.m. to 10.13 p.m.