THE WIRELESS WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23866, 21 July 1939, Page 2

THE WIRELESS WORLD

NEWS AND NOTES

By Magna Vox

Items ol local interest are Invited by Magna Vox " for publication In this column It Is necessary that such matter should reach this office by Tuesday of each week for insertion in the following Friday IYA Auckland.—6sU k.c.. 461.1! meties 2YA Wellington.—s7o k.c.. 526 metres 2BL Sydney.—74o k.c.. 405 metres 2FC Sydney.—6lo k.c., 476 metres 3AR Melbourne.—77o k.c. 390 metres SCL Adelaide.—73o k.c.. 411 metres 4QG Brisbane. —800 k.c. 311 metres 3YA Christchurch —720 k.c. 416.4 metres 4YA Dunedin.—79o K.c., 379.9 metres 4YO Dunedin.—ll4o k.c. 261 metres

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS "Distortion,” Kaitangata.—(l) Without seeing the set, one suggestion I can make is that you try a new '42. as the present one may be defective. (2) I have not heard of the set, but Imagine that it is very little use In entertaining the idea of importing one, as the import restricttions will Bar you. You can try your luck, of course, but I am afraid you will be disappointed. (3) Yes, probably one of the best In New Zealand. He was one of the pioneers of wireless In Otago, and was considered an expert even in the very early days. A. F. W., Anderson's Bay.—The type of aerial referred to is one specially designed for this purpose, as the use of a simple shielded lead will only reduce the signal as well. With a properly designed transformer and transmission line, the loss in signal strength is small and good results can be obtained. The whole idea la to place the unshielded portion of the system, the aerial proper, m a position where it is not in the field of influence of the source of disturbance. THROUGH OTHER EYES This is how the German short-wave station described the landing of the King and Queen at New York: "The King and Queen of England landed at the Battery to-day, guarded by 5000 police and 1000 military.” The announcer went on to say that something approaching a riot followed, but, apparently as an afterthought, mentioned that after their Majesties had left thousands of people broke through the cordon to stand where royalty had stood, and that the police had a strenuous time in preventing souvenir hunters from cutting the carpet to pieces. That was the riot. “TWIN-POWER” REPRODUCERS Named “ twin power ” owing to the use of two permanent magnet dynamic speakers, one to handle sounds of high frequencies and the other to take care of lower notes, special reproducers have been developed by American engineers to provide coverage out-of-doors. More than 50 of these are being used at the Golden Gate Exposition and about 40 at the New York World's Fair. The wide and smooth frequency response and the uniform distribution of the great volume of sound enables anyone within the enormous range of the speakers to hear perfectly. The fact that no field exciting current is required greatly simplifies installation and maintenance of these units, each of which can handle 40 watts, although the cabinet enclosing the speaker is only three feet square. NOT A SUCCESS The German "people’s sets,” which are being turned out at a low price on “ mass production ” lines, are said to be of a retrograde type in that they incorporate reaction in the aerial. They go back to the days when plug-in coils were mounted on the outside of the receiver, and to increase volume the set was tuned almost to the point of oscillation. The air was hideous with howling and squealing as receivers were oscillated In attempts to pull in distant or weak stations. STATIC ELIMINATORS Not much is heard nowadays of static eliminators, contrivances which a few years ago were acclaimed as infallible extinguishers of electrical discharges. Unfortunately these eliminators were much like noise-reducing systems; they cut down the radio signals in exact proportion to the reduction of obnoxious noises. The fundamental difficulty is that the aerial picks up static just as it absorbs other discharges, and there are untold riches in store for the man who can devise an antenna system that will be selective enough to distinguish between static and stations. Apart from switching off the set, there is only one known way of cutting out static. That is by earthing the antenna; but that is not exactly helpful, as station signals go to the ground along with the others. A MATTER OF COMPARISON Dr Heinze, professor of music at Melbourne University, is reported to have deplored the effect of modern music on public taste. No, this rather highbrow gentleman was not dealing with jazz or swing or modern dance “music." His complaint is that recordings of famous orchestras set a hopelessly high standard to which local orchestras cannot attain, and that people leave before the interval at home performances. Professor Heinze does not actually suggest that the world's best combinations should not be broadcast, but that seems to be the only cure for his trouble. One can easily imagine the storm that would break if the National Broadcasting Service discontinued playing records by Crooks and Tibbetts because they showed up the amateurishness of some of the local talent inflicted on listeners. RADIO ADVERTISING The controller of the N.C.B.S. has returned from a trip to U.S.A'.. undertaken to investigate the radio systems of that country. It will be interesting to observe whether his tour has any effect on the fcharacter of radio advertising here. There has been some improvement since the days when the aim of the copy-writer appeared to be to repeat as many times as possible the name of the firm and of its product, but there is still much crudity. Brevity should be but is not the soul of advertising over the air in the Dominion, and one or two of the alleged advertising specialists treat their hearers very much like children. E’ r en the sponsoring method in many cases leaves a lot to be desired. To announce that “this programme comes to vou by the courtesy of ” is more or‘less an insult. It is permissible to state that a session is presented with the compliments of a firm, and if it is desired that listeners shall take note of the name (and the product) this should be mentioned as quickly asncssible (states an exchange). Then the more rapidly the nrogramme is broadcast the better If the goodwill of the audience is to be enlisted. HERE AND THERE To date the Chancellor of the Exchequer has taken about £10,000,000 out of the receipts for radio licenses in Great Britain, and the Post Office has retained £4,000,000. The Post Office renders service for its quota, but the £10,000,000 represents a straight-out tax of about 25 {Ter cent, on the gross revenue. Australian stations arc back again to full winter strength. Static there is in plenty, but scores of transmitters are sending over powerful signals. The Commonwealth has over 130 stations in operation, but that does not mean 130 programmes. Far from it. The No. 1 National is relayed over 15 stations, and at times more than 30 commercials are linked up t broadcast features sponsored by soapmakers and other big advertisers. And that is only one chain. An overseas advertising expert has offered some criticism of Australian commercial radio which is applicable to New Zealand: “Australia should follow the tendency overseas towards less mention of the product advertised. There is too much interpolation of sales chatter in programmes. This must either set up an automatic resistance in the listener’s mind, so that he

does not remember what he has heard, or else makes him switch off. A point to be remembered is that the better the programme the less the listener likes Interruptions for advertising. Also the improvement in programme standards makes listeners less tolerant of a poor class of advertising." If an international agreement is enforced, interference due to Morse should be almost eliminated by the end of the year. Under the convention spark transmitters on ships are to be replaced by January 1 by lower powered ones, which are designed to be non-interfering and which are expected to improve intorship communication. While it is improbable that there will be any television transmission in this country for quite a long time to come, New Zealand DX listeners will have fresh fields to conquer in the audio transmissions that accompany all television broadcasts. Soon after the London television programmes were put on the air reports Of reception of the “ voice ” were received from far afield —even so far as the middle of the United States. It is therefore not at all unlikely that, under favourable conditions and with a good receiver, one may pick up the audio programmes of some of the many United States plants that are now, or soon will be. on the air. Some of these stations are very powerful, one (W3XP, of Philadelphia) being of 30 kilowatts audio power and a like output on the

television channel, while there are a number of 10 and 15 kilowatt? outputs. All the audio programmes are broadcast on about four metres, the “picture" channel being around 8i metres.