RADIO REALM.

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXII, Issue 225, 25 June 1928, Page 6

RADIO REALM.

VARIOUS JOTTINGS. Try This. Owners of sets,/.where reception is confined usually to loud-speaker work, tvill find quite a lot of amusement and entertainment on good nights by plugging in a pair of ’phones in the first ; audio stage, and taking a trip round 1 the dials. . It’s well worth a trial. ? Advance Christchurch. Christchurch will be the first city in the Dominion to have a modern highpowered short-wave transmitting station, broadcasting regular programmes during each week. The Government has granted a license to 3ZC (Homo Bocreations, Ltd.) to broadcast on a wavelength of .50 metres and a modern plant ■with an output of 250 watts, ..will be installed almost immediately. It is hoped to inaugurate a -weekly Empire programme for oversea listeners, similar to those which have done so much to make Australia known in all parts of the world. A New Battery. i News comes from Europe that an important discovery lias been made in connection with storage batteries. An inventor claims to have perfected a storage battery that has ten times the capacity of the present-day popular type; for instance, one of the new batteries of, say, the same size as a standard SO amp. hour batttcry would not only be lighter, but would have a capacity of SOO amp. hours! x

One Wire Aerial. A good many of pur enthusiasts use a one-wire aerial, but h ow many of them know when this typo of aerial ■was first used for broadcast reception? In an official statement issued by the United States Department of War, it is stated that the honour of first using the single-wire antennae belongs to its Army Signal Corps. The statement declares that the recent widespread development of short-wave radio, and the development of modern receivingsets, have combined to make the one ■wire aerial the rule rather than the exception. Continuing, the statement says: “It is M*ortliy of note ; that probably the first practical use of singlewire antennae was made by the Army Signal Corps unit operating radio stations in Cuba in 1908, under Colonel John E. Hamphill, now on duty in Washington. Valve “Silvering.” / Novices often express curiosity regarding the reason for valves having a silvery appearance. This silvery coat you see is nothing more than the deposit of magnesiums, which accumulates on the inner surface during the process of ’ getting rid of gases inside the glass bulb. That is, after the valve has been evacuated as much as possible with mercury pumps, a .small piece of magnesium which is attached to the plate of the valve is heated with a radio frequency coil until it vapourises and then flashes. When this happens the metal is deposited on the inside of the glass walls, at the same time combining with any of the gases present and completely eliminating them. The degree of silvery deposit is not a factor of efficiency. As Others Hear Us. According to a speaker at a recent meeting of the Radio Society, if some of the artists who face the broadcasting microphone could only hear “what comes out the other end” they would never broadcast again. Undoubtedly it is a shame that so many fine items should be distorted, as they frequently are, by faulty transmission.

Bringing the Best to All. An Ameriican writer asks: “How can any human being ever be so blase about the M'onders of broadcasting when ho realises that the isolated lumberjack, sitting down to his crude meal of canned billy and hard bread, may mellow his supper -with the greatest music the world has ever offered? How can anyone accept as a matter-of fact the radio programmes sent out today, when he knows that men, women and children to whom finer music was an unknown thing now have the best of it in their daily lives?”

Do It Properly. When a set is used purely for broadcast receiving, and is free from the attacks of the family experimenter, there is no reason. why it should not bo an addition to the furnishing of any room, and not a tangle of untidy wires - and batteries. A neat cabint, designed to hold thd batteries as well as the set, is well worth while. Modern speakers, by reason of their design and musical qualities ®,assist, to wards broadcast reproduction, which is entirely free from the old_ conception of wireless. A set is now a musical in-

strument no less than the piano and organ, and deserves to be regarded as such. / i g; A Blank Week. “What! No patents?” Under this caption the New York Times recently remarked on the fact that- for the first time in years a week has passed without the issue of a radio patent. This fact, perhaps more than any other, is significent of the approaching stability of the radio trade. On the other hand, there, is now a great and ever-growing incentive to inventors to evolve a set which will not need the protection of the R.C.A. patent umbrella. The Now York Times recently heard of a very successful demonstration of a set for which this was claimed.