RECEPTION.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 95, 20 May 1938, Page 4

RECEPTION.

$ WIRELESS NOTES OF INTEREST.

The Leader of the Opposition (Mr Adam Hamilton), has revealed that two years ago the Broadcasting Board recommended the Government to reduce the license fee to 225, but that proposal was rejected. If the Board was able to make ends meet at that time, when the number of licenses was about 170,000, the service must be rolling in wealth now that the revenue has increased by more than £IOO,OOO. According to the United States Department of Commerce, there are 30,000,000 radio receivers in use in America. Great Britain comes second with 10,000,000, while Germany is reported to have 8,200,000. There is then a tremendous gap in the figures, the next country being France with 2,626,000 sets in use. Most other countries are well below the million mark. These figures were compiled up till 1937. Twelve or thirteen years ago, when wireless was in its infancy in Australia, multi-wave aerials were recommended, the argument being that they had more “skin surface.” Then four, and sometimes six, wires were strung in parallel, the wires all being brought in to the aerial terminal of the receiver. For all practical purposes nowadays it will be found that singlewire aerials will give equally as good results as those having several conductors, connected together. A singlewire aerial is easier to install, costs much less, and is therefore to be preferred to one consisting of several parallel wires. If used in a congested city area, extreme selectivity will be required, perhaps at a sacrifice of volume and long range, while if used * in the open country, miles from the nearest broadcasting station, the requirements are just the opposite. For selectivity a low, short aerial will be found to give results. To increase the selectivity it may be necessary to connect a small fixed condenser in series with the aerial lead. A condenser of .0005 mfd capacity should be sufficient. AMERICA’S “FIRST LADY.” BROADCASTS BY MRS ROOSEVELT. Six hundred pounds for fifteen minutes is the fee paid to Mrs Franklin D. Roosevelt, wife of the President of the United States. It would attract notice, for a single address, even in America, where large fees are an everyday occurrence. That sum, is, however, paid for a series of speeches of a quarter of an hour each in a “sponsored programme. ’ ’ Mrs Roosevelt’s popularity and, therefore, her advertising value are attested by the fact that her “fan mail ’ ’ amounts to approximately 100,000 letters a year. This number includes letters relating to her broadcasts and other matters. Well known as a writer and public speaker, the early directors in charge of her appearances were, apparently, so afraid of offending her that they never asked her to rehearse before the microphone so that they might time her speech to make sure that it filled exactly her allotted time. They were content to take a chance that she neither exceeded nor fell short of the minutes arranged for. Later, the direction of her broadcasts was placed in the hands of Mr H. Calvert Haws, who has had a wide experience of broadcasting. At Mrs Roosevelt’s first broadcast he followed what his predecessors had done and did not time the address beforehand. On that occasion he was amazed to find that, instead of speaking for the nine minutes allotted to her, she finished in eight minutes. A pause of a minute is a very long time in the American broadcasting world, and sets most of the people in the studio dithering. That would, no doubt, have been the case then but for the presence of mind of the conductor of the band which was to follow Mrs Roosevelt. Sensing what everyone was feeling, and with barely a moment’s hesitation, he gave the sharp beat for attention with his baton, and ,the next instant 1 ‘ the air ’ ’ was eloquent with music, which filled out the odd minute preceding his own programme time. Such a conti’etemps could not be allowVd to occur again. Mr Haws, therefore, counted the number of words in Mrs Roosevelt’s manuscript, and found that she had spoken at the rate of 135 words a. minute, so that during the eight minutes she had spoken 1080 words. Her next ’script, he found, contained 1700 instead of the 1200 or so required. In other words, the manuscript needed twelve minutes to be put over “on the air.” There was, obviously, only one thing to do in the circumstances —cut the manuscript to its proper length. Mr Haws did it. When Mrs Roosevelt arrived at the studio, the cut ’script was handed to her and she was told what had been done. Instead of being annoyed or put out, as so many women holding a distinguished position would have been, she smiled approval, read through the address in its abbreviated form, and broadcast it like a professional. In spite of the large fees she receives, Mrs Roosevelt makes no money by her broadcast addresses. All her fees are sent direct to a philanthropic society, which distributes the amounts to the various institutions to be benefited. Like eveiy other broadcast speaker, Mrs Roosevelt is not immune from public criticism. On one occasion, it has been related, a man, amazed at hearing the large fee she received, wrote that, in his opinion, no broadcaster was worth so much money. “I think you are perfectly right that no one is worth two hundred dollars a minute,” Mrs Roosevelt replied. “I never dreamed for a miuute that I was. I do not feel that this money is paid to me as an individual, but that it is paid to the "■.„.pi„v,t’s wife. It puts money into "relation. The money is spent for

a good puipose, and these people would not • otherwise he helped. Therefore, I think I am perfectly justified in doing' it.” The result of doing exactly what the director desires is that Mrs Roosevelt has become an exceedingly efficient speaker “on the air,” with a technique so enormously improved that the people who' engage her feel that they get full value for their money, even though it costs them over six hundred pounds every time she broadcasts for a quarter of an hour. RADIO AND STAMPS. NOT MANY EXAMPLES. It is remarkable that in spite of the ever-increasing use of radio, the designs of postage stamps, which usually reflect the contemporary history of the world) have almost ignored this new science. Although it is 37 years since Marconi transmitted a message across the Atlantic, it was not until 1918 that Guatemala, issued a 30 centavos stamp, picturing the newly-erected broadcasting station on the outskirts of Guatemala City. The only radio engineer who has ’'een depicted on a postage stamp is Professor A. S. Popoff, whose likeness appears on two Russian emissions of 1925. In addition to his portrait, these handsome engravings bear the words, “Inventor of Radio — Popoff,” in Russian and Esperanto, and although this claim is open to dispute, there is no doubt that Popoff was the foremost Russian experimenter of his time, and made many valuable- discoveries. In the background, behind Popoff’s portrait, can be seen the towers and aerials of his transmitting station. Another Russian stamp, issued in 1927 to commemorate Dr. Zamenhof and the fortieth anniversary of Esperanto, is also linked with radio, as in addition to the Zamenhof portrait and Russian and Esperanto inscriptions, it hears a message in the Morse code. Newfoundland issued an attractive series of pictorial stamps in 1928, and the 9 cents value showed the Cabot Tower at St. John’s. A very old structure this, but one which had an all-important link with the development of radio. It was here that the first transatlantic wireless signal was received, and an inscription at the base of the stamp tells of the successful completion of Marconi’s vital experiment in these few words: “First Transatlantic Wireless Signal Received, 1901.” Another stamp of this Newfoundland series (2 cents) pictures the seamer Caribou, its most prominent feature being wireless aerials, which seem strong and heavy enough to be used as anchor cables. The engraver of the design certainly preferred effect to accuracy. A view of the transmitting station of the Honduras Government, as it appeared in 1929, is depicted on the 1 peso official stamp of this republic, while from far-off Afghanistan there is also a stamp -illustrative of the broadcasting station near Kabul. This modern Asiatic station indicates that after many ■years Afghanistan has realised some of the benefits of modern civilisation, although the design is anything but attractive. It is more suggestive of ancient ruins. A recent Russian stamp, commemorative of the Revolution, gives a fine illustration of the use of radio in the vast Soviet Union. The central design pictures the big broadcasting tower at Moscow, and in each of the four corners are medallions depicting various Russian types. Separated by thousands of jailes are Eskimos from the far north, Mongolians in Siberia, farm workers in the Ukraine, and industrialists in the southern coal regions—yet all are united by means of radio. They are shown wearing headphones, listening-in to Moscow — surely a fine illustration of the power of radio to link many minds. The 8.8. C. has adapted for outside broadcasts an instrument known as a “lip” microphone. It is mounted on a short handle, and is a modification in miniature of the standard ribbon-type microophone used in the studios. It is insensitive to sound coming from more than a few inches away, and this meets the need for an instrument that would enable the commentator to disregard extraneous sound when choosing his position—in other words, for a microphone that, while responding to the commentator’s vioce, would exclude background noises. To ensure that the commentator’s mouth is always the requisite two inches from the microphone, the instrument is fitted with a guard which must be pressed against the speaker’s upper lip. The quality of the output of the new device is claimed to be equal to that of the ordinary studio microphone. One of the American visitors to the World Radio Convention at Sydney was optimistic enough to envisage a world without dictators and warlords. “I foresee, even I shall not behold, the hour when radio, in its destined function of supreme schoolmaster, will have taught us all to speak one intelligible language. Electrical impulses, intercepted and reconverted into sight and sound, will one day he the type and illustrations of a universal newspaper, graphically, impartially, and instantaneously informing tjie world, then grown small, of social, scientific and political developments. The strongholds of ignorance, suspicion, and bigotry, from which spring the poisons of war, shall be levelled by factual proofs which every eye can comprehend and every ear may hear, ”,