SOME DETAILS OF S.W. STATION W3XAL OF N.J

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19236, 25 November 1930, Page 4

SOME DETAILS OF S.W. STATION W3XAL OF N.J

Audible Abroad; Rarely at Home. One of tbe most widely-known broadcasting stations in the world, a station with a world-wide service area, is virtually unheard of in the territory in which it is located. That station is W3XAL, short-wave transmitter operated by the National Broadcasting Company at Bound Brook, N.J. Although W3XAL operates only three hours a day, a huge mass of letters from all points where short-wave radio receivers are known attest the spread of its service range. These letters, states a New York message of October 5, represent a cross section of life not obtainable in the ordinary fan mail pouring into the modern radio station. They come from operators on ships at sea, from far-flung outposts of civilisation, and from radio fans in crowded cities and the inaccessible places of the w'orlcl. Is Experimental Station. Station W3XAL, however, has a prime purpose that is not entertainment. It was built for experimenting with international relaying of programmes, and it is in connection with these experiments that the three-hour-a-day transmitting schedule is maintained. Programmes transmitted through the short-wave station, regarded by engineers as among the most modern of its kind, are those heard on the regular broadcasting hand through WJZ. They are heard from 5 to 6 p.m. and from 31 p.m. to 1 a.m. daily except Sunday (Eastern Standard time). Many of the letters received describe conditions at points far removed from civilisation, and express appreciation for the writers’ only contact with the outside world. Almost invariably the writer seeks the station’s operating schedule. A particularly large number of letters has been received from New Zealand, but numerous reports are included from South Africa, India, Australia, Islands of the Pacific, Central and South • America, Sweden, Italy, France, British Isles, Spain, the Azores, Liberia, French West Africa, Madeira and many remote points in Canada. The W3XAL transmitter is operated at approximately 12,000 watts, and employs four UV-554 valves in the output stage. It includes modern crystal control equipment, with several stages of frequency doublers and radio-frequency amplifiers, conforming with the most advanced practice in short-wave transmitters. Uses Remote Amplifiers. The aerial for the transmitter is located 700 feet from the transmitter building, anrl consists of a. vertical copper rod mounted on a wooden pole approximately 110 feet high. The frequency assigned to W3XAL is 6100 kilocycles, or 49.1 meters. Although the station is heard in all parts of. the world, the actual equipment is compact, a feature that is characteristic of shortwave equipment. The high power amplifier is mounted on a framework about eight feet square by ninety inches high, while the crystal control equipment is set upon a similar framework, approximately eight feet long by two feet deep and six feet high. The rectifier and modulator are the largest units, being all of eight feet long, six feet deep and ninety inches high. The tank coil which furnishes power to the radiating system consists of only eight turns of copper ribbon and is eight inches in diameter. The tank condenser consists of two copper plates about two feet square. Most visitors seeing the apparatus are amazed to learn that it furnishes entertainment at a distance of 12,000 miles. All programmes transmitted by W3XAL consist of regular N.B.C. broadcasts, tlio identifying call letters being the only announcements made from the station itself. Plans for a longer operating schedule to comply with the demand from remote listeners are under consideration. Announcing Extraordinary. New York, October s.—Studio 7 is on the twenty-third floor of the Columbia Building, New York, and is hidden behind the master control room. It Is one of the newest studios used for broadcasting and is said to be one of the smallest. Its size is ten feet square. Two announcers spend all their working hours at a control flesk in the studio. Besides a clock, large panel of controls, a monitor telephone and a chair, the room is devoid of all articles usually found in a radio studio. The I announcer may not read, nor may he J receive visitors or telephone calls. For | eight hours he sits before a condenser!