Over The : AERIAL :

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18796, 18 November 1932, Page 10

Over The : AERIAL :

BY RHEOSTAT

THE COMING WEEK.

RADIO OLYMPIA. BIG LONDON EXHIBITION. MANY NEW MODELS SHOWN. All business records for any wireless show were beaten when the Radio Exhiibtlon at Olympia closed. Bringing the exhibition date forward a month, into the summer holiday, the organisers estimated that 150,000 people would visit it. Despite the fact that the exhibition opened in a heat wave'without parallel for 20 years, more than 170,000 people attended during its eight days. As a result of the exhibition no fewer than 50,000 radio instruments and components will pass into the possession of tire public (states the manufacturers’ report). Hitherto, it seems, listeners in New Zealand who wished to tune in to distant stations often purchased American instruments because of their high power. At least four of the wellknown British firms expressed their intention of catering especially for the Dominion market. They are now producing sets of sufficient power to satisfy the demands of the most ambitious listeners-in in New Zealand, and no doubt they wilt take steps to let the public know what they have to offer. An endeavour will be made to market the sets in New Zealand at competitive prices. £30,000,000 Turnover. Sales of sets this year will be approximately 1,200,000 battery type and 800,000 electric sets, and the turnover on sets is estimated at £30,000,000. The turnover on valve sales will he £5,000,000; on batteries, £10,000,000; and on other components £5.000,000. Last year’s exhibition provided £20,000,000 worth of business. A full report has been secured from each of the 212 exhibitors at “Radiolympia,” and each has declared an increase in business as compared with last year. This increase ranges from 25 to 000 per cent., and the over all average increase for the whole industry is 72 per cent. The ollloial report stales that the new business secured will necessitate the laying down of a total of 250,000 square feet of new factory lloor space. The last exhibition resulted in the sale of 1.250.000 sets, G,000,000 valves and i 0,000,000 batteries. Orders have been placed this year for 2,000,000 sols. 10,000,000 valves and 20,000,000 batteries. .Much export business has been done. Six times as many foreign buyers have visited Olympia Ibis year as in any other. Last year exports totalled £OO,OOO, but this year orders have already been placed for £200,000, while others have yet to come in. Britain’s position in world radio marketing has now improved so much that siic is in tiie third position. Some Innovations. Perhaps the most striking change in set design revealed by the recent show is the development of superheretodyne receivers. An excellent

exampe of this is a seven-valve superhet. made in three models. The 25guinea receiver incorporates an electric clock as the centre piece of the loud-speaker opening, and the station dial is illuminated and marked in the names of the stations instead of wavelengths. A five-valve all-electric receiver has a truly remarkable power and selectivity. The special feature of this set is the new visual station indicator. This consists of two illuminated stars, carrying white illuminating sight inos that can traverse the whole of .he scale. When the star is red it

.tieana that you are tuned in to a short-wave station; when it is green a long-wave station is indicated, in addition to this the station indicating dial is calibrated in stations as well as in wave-lengths. The cabinet is of modernistic design in walnut, with figured walnut panels as a contrast, and is particularly pleasing in appearance. The least expensive set in the show was priced at 755. This three-valve set is housed in an extremely attractive cabinet. Ten-valve Autoradiogram. ' A well-known gramophone company showed a new de luxe radiogram which is not only an Improvement in every way over last year's model but includes several innovations which have never been featured before. This is the superhet. ten-valve autoradiogram, which consists of a perfect gramophone with an automatic record changer which will handle up to eight records at one handling and a ten-valve superheterodyne radio receiver. A novel radio set is fitted with two compensated moving coil speakers, which means, in untechnical language, that there are twin loud-speakers. This makes it possible for this radiogram de luxe to reproduce both the high and low frequencies with equal clarity of tone and purity. It employs two variable valves and pentode. 2t 28 guineas this is made in a handsome satin-walnut cabinet. It is not in sets alone that the exhibition showed such a vast improvement over last year. Components of every variety were better and were made for longer service than ever before. One firm of battery and accumulator manufacturers showed a cell which has an indicator which when it floats horizontally at the top of the compartment shows that the cell is fully charged; When it floats vertically at the top of the compartment anything up to one-quarter of the full charge of file battery has been used. When the indicator lies horizontally at the bottom the battery is completely discharged and needs immediate attention.

IS TELEVISION NEAR? AUSTRALIAN EXPERIMENTS. Although television Is still in the experimental stages Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia), Ltd., the national wireless organisation of Australia, has succeeded in receiving by television messages typewritten in London over a direct route of 11,000 miles. v For several weelcs tests have been in progress between the Marconi organisation and Mr E. T. Fislc, managing director of AAV.A. The broadoasts originate, in London and are received at La Perouse, where the main receiving station of AAV.A. is situated. Three months ago. a receiving set used in the television tests was new, but it actually became obsolete within a week after enabling the experimenters to make radical improvements in design. Mr Fisk states that the Marcheso Marconi is personally conducting research in ultra-short waves, and his discoveries may revolutionist television and hasten ultimate results. In the meanwhile, although a message can be seen in Australia as it is being typed in England, the whole business of television is too much in the melting pot for any definite production to be made. It is to be expected, nevertheless, that it will be possible, perhaps, in the .near future to see as well as hear a person spoken to in England. In the tests now being made at La Perouse an operator in England sat at a typewriter and typed a message on to a reel of transparent tape. The tape passed through the special television transmitter and letters were read at the Australian end through a magnifying glass inooyporated in the receiver. At first the letters passed slowly before the eye, but the engineer at the transmitter increased the speed and the message then proceeded as fast as it could be typed. There is this natural peculiarity about tele-

vision—the image fades just as rapidly as does the spoken word, but engineers are working out the details of an automatio recording apparatus. In Britain, America and Germany television broadcasts of a kind are being given, but the immaturity of the system is shown by the fact that the British Broadoasting Corporation gives only four television broadcasts a week, never starting before 11 p.m. There are probably not more than 1000 television receivers in the British Isles, and the most that has so far been shown is about three persons in a group. Mr Fisk says that experiments will be continued in Australia in conjunction with the Marconi Company, and he lias no doubt that all the difficulties of television transmission will ultimately be overcome. ITEMS OF INTEREST. According to a cable message fron Madrid a census prepared by the Radio Congress gives a total of 140,000,000 wireless listeners in the world, and ol 34,500,000 homes equipped with sets. The total value of the sets Is computed at £200,000,000. About £30,000,000 a year is spent on broadoasting. 0 ® • » Tests made at 2YA during the past few weeks have revealed certain faults in the acoustic properties of. the main studio. Steps were taken immediately to remedy these as far as possible, and experiments are continuing with tho object of giving the best possible reproduction of the finest of the station orchestras.

It is rumoured that very successful results with television have been achieved in France. The work in connection with the experiments is due to co-operation between a broadcasting company and a television oompany.

Customer: “That receiver you sold me, the one which would cut off automatically as soon as I told it to stop —well, I spent a whole evening shouting at it and It Is going still.” Salesman: “Ah, sir, but you must make allowance for the faot that w r a never believed you would get it to start."

During summer months is the hour from 5 to 6 the most suitable for the children’s session? A correspondent of the Auckland Star raises this point, with the indioation that more suitable times could be found by putting the whole programme from 5 p.m. onwards baok half an hour.

Rebroadoasts of events in England and other distant countries are quite frequent with the Canadian and United States radio stations, the transmisisons coming through so perfectly that it is hardly possible to believe that they originated from sources across the Atlantic.

Many listeners could not resist the temptation to add comments to their questionnaire papers. Here are a couple of the latest gems: "Can’t you arrange to broadcast Parliament, and let us hear our member let us down?" (District of origin not given.) “In these days of taxes people want to laugh; less serious items, more humour; anything to forget our world worries for an hour or two.”

The following resulted in an extraordinary and original way of tracing non-llcensed listeners. A Moroccan radio periodical granted a free license to every new subscriber. In a very short while 1200 new readers were registered, and it was proved that before that time many of them were already radio listeners. The publiolty of the periodical caused RadioMorocco to have their takings increased by 62,500 francs.

In a recent interview Mr E. C. Hands, general manager of the board, stated that when 2YA was increased in power the location of the station would be transferred from contiguity to the city, but that the change was not likely to eventuate within the next two years.

Sunday. 1YA —7, service from Church of Christ; 8, Municipal Band concert at Albert Park. 2YA—7, service from St. Johns Presbyterian Church; 8.15, concert by Port Nicholson Silver Band. 3YA —7, service from St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Merivale; 8, studio conoert. Monday. 1YA—11, talk, “Skin and Hair Culture”; 7.35, agricultural talk; 8, relay of wrestling from Town Hall, or selected recordings. 2YA—Talks: 11.12 “Cooking,” 11.37 “Health Hints,” 7.40 “Books, Grave and Gay”; 8. studio concert; 10, dance music. 3YA—11, talk, “Things Antique”; 7.30, W.E.A. session; 8, concert by Derry’s Military Band. Tuesday. 1YA —11, talk, “Health”; 8, studio concert; 10, dance music. 2YA —Talks: 11.12 “Fabrics and Fashions,” 7.40 “For the Man on the Land”; 8, studio concert. 3YA—Talks: 11 “Fashions,” 11.40 “Gardens and Gardening,” 7.30 “Story of the Garden,” 7.45 “Tourist Resorts”; 8, concert by Smart Set Entertainers; 9.30, 481106 music. Wednesday. 1YA—7.30, W.E.A. session; 8, studio concert; 9, talk, “Famous ExAuckland Athletes”; 9.30, dance music. 2YA — Talks: 11.37 “Hollywood Affairs,” 3.15 “Value of Massage and Physical Culture,” 7.40 “Australia Today”; 8, all-Australian programme. 3YA—11, talk, “Drama"; 7.30, Addington stock market reports; 8, studio concert; 10, dance music. ( Thursday. 1YA—11, talk, “Gas”; 12.30, service from St. Matthew's Church; 3.15, home scienoe talk; 7.30, W.E.A. session; 8, studio concert. 2YA—Talks: 10.45 “Cooking by Electricity," 11.37 “Health Hints,” 3.15 “Home Science”; 8, studio concert. 3YA —Talks: “Summer Hints,” 3.15 "Home Science," 7.30 “Certification of Wheat”; 8, studio concert. Friday. 1YA—7.30, sports talk; 8, studio concert. 2YA —11.12, talk, “Fashions”; 8, studio concert; 9.30, dance music. 3YA —11, talk, “Cooking an Art”; 7.30, W-E.A. session; 8, studio concert. ' Saturday. 1YA —11.45, description of Takapuna Racing Club’s meeting; 7.30, “The Hygiene of the Garden”; 8, studio concert; 10, sports summary; 10.10, dance music. 2YA —8, concert by Wellington Harmonic Society; 10, sports summary; 10.10, dance music. 3YA —12, description of North Canterbury Racing Club’s meeting; 8, studio concert; 10, sports summary; 10.10, dance music.