RADIO AND RECEPTION.

Waipawa Mail, Volume LXVI, Issue 142, 26 August 1938, Page 4

RADIO AND RECEPTION.

| WIRELESS NOTES OF INTEREST.

Radio dealers in Australia reported an increase in sales coincident with the cricket broadcasts, and service men had an even more profitable time. Thousands of listeners decided that it was time their sets were overhauled and brought up to concert pitch. Valve sales reached record proportions during June and July.

The N.B.S. is producing a series of recreations of notable sporting events, and appears to include these in the list of what Mr Shelley calls “recordings of outstanding merit.” Actually some of them are pretty crude, as instance one covering the New Zealand-Scotland match at Edinburgh in 1905. The first section was a jumble of a forecast and a match description; then listeners were treated to a “radioed account of the concluding stages.” Apart from the fact that broadcasting was unknown in 1905, the description, shouted into the mike, was altogether foreign in manner and matter to what would have been given by a Scottish or British announcer, and whoever produced the item has something to leam of the rules of 1905.

Not so many years ago the short waves below 200 metres were regarded as useless for broadcasting and ecmmunication purposes, but amateur experimenters achieved such remarkable results that there is little of this part of the spectrum that is not congested by broadcasting and other radio services. Many of the major companies are delving into the sphere of . micro-waves, which are of exceedingly short length, and: approach the characteristics of light. For these minute waves the required antenna length is about one foot, and pigmy apparatus gives remarkable results.

There is claimed to be an entire absence of static, but the ignition systems of ears are very troublesome. One large broadcasting company uses a micro-wave transmitter for relay purposes. The transmitter, which has a. range of four or five miles, is but a tube of three inches, and uses two 10inch aerials. It has an output of two-tenths of a watt, or about onehundredth of that of an ordinary lighting bulb, and weighs complete, including batteries and microphone, four pounds.

Station 3YA has some unusual talks scheduled for the next few days. To-night will see Mr N. S. Woods at the microphone, dealing with “Glimpses of Workaday Europe.” On August 29th, Mr Allen Curnow will chat on “What’s All the News?” He should know. He is a working journalist attached to a metropolitan daily. August 30th is set aside for the Rev. Lawrence Rogers, whose subject is John Bunyan, and, on September 2nd, the Rev. A. C. Aeheson will have something to say about “Douglas Hyde, President of Eire.”

Eugene Aram, an English philologist, whose trial and execution in 1759 stirred the whole nation, is the subject of Lord Lytton’s novel and of Thomas Hood’s “Dream of Eugene Aram.” In his spare time Aram acquired and amazing knowledge of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Arabic and •Celtic, which he intended to utilise in the compilation of a great comparative dictionary—to him belongs the credit of discovering the affinity of Celtic to other Indo-European languages. But all this industry was interrupted when he was arrested and charged with a fourteen-year-old murder. In prison he made two attempts at suicide by opening an artery in his arm with a razor. The final attempt, on the morning of his execution, left him almost insensible; but the law took its course, and Aram was executed at York in the presence of a huge multitude. At 2YA on Wednesday, August 31st, George Edwards and Company will present a recorded dramatisation of “The Dream of Eugene Aram.”

RADIO EDUCATES.

COUNTRY FOLK HELPED. The part played by radio in carrying knowledge to people in rural areas was described recently by Miss Grace Hadow, a member of the advisory council of the British Broadcasting Corporation, principal of a. woman’s non-residential college at Oxford University, and vice-president of the English Women’s Federation, who arrived at Auckland by the Aorangi on her way to attend the British Commonwealth Relations Conference in Australia as the only woman delegate.

The extraordinary results which had attended efforts made by Oxford University professors and lecturers to give country people the benefit of their knowledge, were described by Miss Hadow. She said the Oxford scheme might be of some interest to any university body seeking to enlist the active interest of groups of people not ordinarily coming within its scope.

The majority of the people whose interest had been enlisted by the scheme were agricultural workers and definitely rural types. From 30 to 40 courses were arranged every winter and the result had been astounding. It was safe to say that not only the university had profited, but none of the villages and towns would now do without the scheme. Library results had also been encouraging.

THE NATIONAL SERVICE. j INCREASE IN NUMBER OF I LICENSES. The revenue received from radio j license fees for the year ended March • 31st last totalled £313,716, accord-1 ing to the annual report, tabled in j the House of Representatives. Ex- 1 penditure on programmes totalled I £109,525, and general administration and running expenses amounted to £28,548.

“Included in the capital expendis ture was an amount of £30,630 for the purchase of land at Dacre and Opapa, the purchase of studio and office buildings at Christchurch and Invercargill, and part-payments on the equipment for the new Southland transmitting station,” explains the report. “To provide for capital commitments, £75,000 was invested temporarily on May Ist, 1937. During the year £98,975 4s lOd was advanced to the Commercial Broadcasting Service and £29,975 19s 7d was deposited by that Service to the Broadcasting Account. The net advances to the Commercial Service at March 31st, 1938, amount to £80,269 19s 6d, which includes £11,270 14s 3d net advances prior to March 31st, 1937. Due partly to the increased transmitting hours and partly to the operation of additional stations, programme expenditure increased at the rate of £34,800 per annum, and maintenance costs at the rate of £14,000 per annum. “During the year sixteen private stations were purchased,” states the report, “at a total cost of £IB,OBI 19s Id. There are now five stations being subsidised by the Government and five stations owned by the Government being operated under contract. “That interest in broadcasting has been fully maintained is evident from the fact that radio-receiving licenses increased by 43,751 during the year. To-day approximately 76 per cent, of the houses in the Dominion are equipped with radio-receiving sets. There were at March 31st, 1938, 17.829 licenses per hundred of population. New Zealand is now third on the list of countries where licenses are issued in respect of the density of licenses to population.” The percentage of licenses to population in the larger towns of the Dominion is shown in the subjoined table: —■

Town. Percentage of Licenses to Population. Masterton 27.99 Blenheim 27.18 Ashburton 26.45 Hamilton 23.97 Wellington 23.57 Oamaru 22.68 New Plymouth ... 22.56 Wanganui 22.30 Palmerston North 21.37 Gisborne 21.27 Kotorua 21.19 Christchurch 20.89 Greymouth 20.63 Hastings 20.21 Auckland 20.14 Timaru 20.02 Dunedin 19.42 Westport 18.89 Invercargill 18.56 Napier 18.01 Nelson 17.67 Bluff 17.51 Whangarei 16.05