“SINGING WELL” NOW

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 12 (Supplement)

“SINGING WELL” NOW

STRANGE VOICES IN CANADA. LOGICAL EXPLANATIONS FOUND. Radio engineers have been interested in, and amusing by, reports from various points in Canada of music and voices coming from the oddest places. Thus at Redwater, Albert, Ben Robert lifted his well cover to draw water and heard the voice of a singer, with orchestral accompaniment, coming up from the depths. Teste showed the well “played” music received on a radio receiver in a neighbour’s house 70 feet distant. Near Aylmer, Ontario, voices and music have been heard emerging from the interior of a farmhouse cook-stove. In North Toronto the turning on of a certain water tap used to release radio programmes, and in one section of Toronto telephone conversations were interrupted by radio entertainers interjected by errant air waves. An engineer who investigated these phenomena had a logical explanation in each case. The florist's shop and the musical telephones were close to a transmitting station, pipes and wires picked up the cuiTent, but the trouble was remedied by a slight change in station equipment. The talking well was connected to the ground wire of a radio receiver, the current passed down into the water and the well itself served as an amplifier. In the case of the Aylmer stove he said the pipe served as an antenna, the stove would begin to resonate at a certain temperattire, and programmes would fade as the heat increased.