Radio Broadcast - 1925, February - 113 Pages ... - VacuumTubeEra

734 Radio Broadcast
signal on an ordinary simple crystal set; and
they do. They use the crystal set to a man.
You would be amazed to see the extent to
which this simple set is used. I should think
that the crystal set represents forty-eight per
cent, of the fifty per cent, mentioned. Nearly
everybody has a crystal set. They love it.
They put it in the corner, and sit all night
listening.
DEMOCRATIC BROADCASTING
BUT still feeling that broadcasting should
be democratic so that anybody, anywhere,
with anything to listen on, could get
we came to the conclusion there were still
it,
large areas unservcd by main or royal stations.
We have just secured permission to erect a
super-power station, to reach all areas not
previously served by main or royal stations.
This station, which has been running experimentally
in England for the last three months,
is a station of twenty-five kilowatts power,
about twenty-two kilowatts in the antenna,
at least so the designers told me. This station
has a crystal range of exactly one hundred
miles. It works on a wavelength of sixteen
hundred meters, which was wrested from the
Government under great pressure. We have
found out the value of the longer wavelength
in that you suffer neither from fading, night
distortion, or jamming. The station does
not send out stuff banked up in the middle and
falling off at the ends, and at the long distances,
Underwood & Underwood
LADY TERRINGTON
M. P. for Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, listening
to a British Broadcasting Company program
four and five hundred miles, the station is very
adequate.
I listened myself in Scotland, and
with a single valve reaction I was able to
hear that station every night clearly. The
only trouble was static. And there's another
slight trouble, and that is with the strength
falling off slightly at night. But on the whole
that station is
very successful. And down
along the coast we feel that we have solved
our problem once for all, and everybody,
everywhere is given a strong, adequate signal.
You may ask about the variety in the program.
The variety is in the program. We
block the program out to cater from the meanest
intelligence up to the highest high-brow.
We vary our selections from the more humble
Rhapsodic Hongroise of Liszt up to the classical
Yes, We Have No Bananas'. We have tried
to keep the Yes, We Have No Bananas side of
the thing down just a bit, however, and our
we are sending much too
great criticism is that
highbrow programs. Well, as a matter of
fact, it is a subtle compliment to pay to anybody
to give him something rather above him,
and we have found it
immensely successful.
SEVENTY PER CENT. USE CRYSTALS
WITH the high-power station, we may
say that seventy per cent, of the population
of Great Britain is served by crystal; and
while the manufacturers may not be quite so
pleased about it, at any rate the people whom
we are serving are, and we feel that the [manufacturer
has got a great
field, because he will be able
to concentrate on the one
thing that needs concentration,
that is, the perfect
quality, the perfect transmitting
of sound between
the studio and the drawing
room or kitchen. That is
what we are working on,
not to listen to the distant
signal, but more to get perfect
programs, perfectly rep
reduced. And that is
more or less the line that
we are working on at the
present time. We have a
different problem, a different
temperament, but that
is what we are doing.
I should like to say a word
on the linking up of the two
continents. We did last
year, as you know, broadcast
probably more than