EMERGENCY RADIO TESTS

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1934, Page 7

EMERGENCY RADIO TESTS

TARANAKI SECTION’S WORK YESTERDAY’S TRANSMISSIONS. SATISFACTORY CONTACT KEPT UP. Successful radio tests were made yesterday over the whole of New Zealand by the Radio Emergency Corps. These transmission and reception tests were on a competitive basis, points being allotted for time, speed, accuracy, etc., and after the reports have been sent in, checked and examined, awards will be made for the best work. Taranaki was represented by a strong organisation. The value of this form of amateur work was realised at the time of the Hawkes Bay earthquake when important messages were sent out by a lowpower transmitter and the news of the .disaster conveyed to the outside world.

The formation of the Radio Emergency Corps and its recognition by the Government was the outcome of this pioneer work, and now a highly efficient organised body of amateur stations exists throughout New Zealand. The whole of this work is controlled by Mr. H. B. Arthur, Auckland, station ZLIAN, and he has officers assisting him in the various sections all over the Dominion. Enough equipment has been accumulated by this enterprise to act completely in any case of national emergency. This is particularly so in the Taranaki M section, of which Mr. T. W. Ward, Tariki, is leader. Under his enthusiastic guidance the provincial amateurs have been trained up to a high standard. . The method of attaining proficiency is by means of fortnightly practices -among the operators of the section. These tests also are of a competitive nature, the whole scheme being in anticipation of the big field day yesterday. INTERCHANGE OF WORDS. It was the custom of Mr. Ward to send to all operators a list of words and from these words the operators would send out to each other two’ words. When the interchange of. words . was completed it had to be assembled correctly into a complete .sentence and sent back to Mr. Ward, the section leader. The first operator in received the highest number of points, and points were allotted for second and third place. Those taking part in the practices, fhe location and call sign of their stations were: F. W. Bolwell (Pukengahu) ZL2QK, A. Stevens (Hawera) ZL2HR, W. E. Smith (O; unake) ZL2QP, C. Ambury (New Plymouth) ZL2LQ, Girling (New Plymouth) ZL2OT, P. Fairbrother (New Plymouth) 2NQ, F. Huggard (New Plymouth) ZL3CB (supervisor), L. Niite (Eltham) ZL2HQ, W. Guthrie (Eltham) ZL2LF, and V. Scanlon (Pukengahu) official listener.

The tests yesterday lasted from 10.30 a.m. to 3 p.m. The first thing was the checking of all clocks by 2YA to be in readiness to commence the exchange of messages.

The first message came from the outpost at Mangorei, in charge of Messrs. C. Ambury and Girling, this being picked up by Messrs. T. W. Ward and W. Guthrie at Tariki ZL2KV, and re-trans-mitted to Mr. White,' who in turn forwarded the message from his base station to fhe outpost ZL2EQ near Raetihi, in charge of Mr. S. Bell, deputy section leader. From .then on the Morse code was busily used in exchanging and relaying messages. The signals generally were fairly satisfactory and correctly deciphered, although very low power was used. The Raetihi base was using a transmitter of six watts, Mr. Ambury at the outpost used about one and a-half watts and Mr. Ward’s zone station about two to three watts. Mr. White’s transmitter possessed a power of 24 watts and his receiver consisted of a single signal eight-valve super-het. These competitions are not carried out on the usual amateur wave-lengths, but on a commercial band specially allotted by the Government, and private commercial calls have been given for emergency use.

The idea of the emergency tests is to experiment with low power portable transmitters which can be used anywhere regardless of the breakdown of the electric power system. The portable set works to one of high power, which communicates with the base station of still greater capacity, and this in turn forwards messages to the more powerful Stations in the distant centres.