Radio age (Jan 1927-Jan 1928)

10 RADIO AGE for February, 1927 "Noise Doctors" Cure Static IT ALWAYS makes you feel better if there is someone you can complain to when things are going wrong. That is especially true if you are a radio fan. So when the Canadian government decided to institute a department for combatting preventable static, it was employing good psychology. When the loud speaker begins to scream like a locomotive and the reception sounds like a load of coal, radio fans in the Dominion simply telephone the nearest government interference station and register their complaint. Soon a corps of trained "noise doctors" are on the case diagnosing the trouble and preparing a remedy. Canada has taken a step ahead of the United States in trying to improve radio reception for its listeners. The radio branch of the Federal Department of Marine and Fisheries conceived the idea of organizing a body of experts to suppress preventable interference. Government stations were established at Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and Halifax. C. P. Edwards, a commander in the British navy during the World War, was placed in charge of the service. The stations are equipped with automobiles fitted with special instruments and apparatus. When a complaint is received, the experts start out in their cars to locate the source of the interference and, if possible, to correct it. "Every population center has a noise level due to preventable causes," Commander Edwards told me. "Every time an electrical switch is opened it creates a static noise. Research by the department disclosed that in one moderately sized town there were sixty-seven sources of preventable noise. Faulty street car wires, telephone wires rubbing against trees, short circuits, power plants out of order, motors of all kinds, and defective By GEORGE A. BARCLAY switches are the principal offenders. "The difficulty of locating noises increases with the size of the city. In a small population center it is possible to isolate noises with comparative ease. But in a big city where there are thousands of power plants, interference may be felt by radio listeners as far as ten miles from its source. Whenever a defect in an electrical plant is corrected, a permanent source of radio noise is removed. For instance a transformer may have been slightly out of order for ten years without being detected. When it is fixed there is that much less noise on the air to deal with. Thermostatic Static "OOME of the queerest things O Cause trouble. At a soldiers' hospital in Hamilton, Ont., the patients had a terrible time with static. The authorities called in our 'noise doctors.' Every bed in the hospital was fitted out with electrical footpads equipped with automatic cutouts. When they tuned in on a big city station and the orchestras began to play jazz numbers, the patients would tap their feet in bed in time to the music. This threw the switches off, creating a static that ruined the reception at the hospital until our experts discovered it. "In another instance our service not only corrected static, but saved some lives as well. In a fairly large city in Eastern Canada there was a street railway company operating a converter which supplied 700 volts of current to its terminal lines. There was a strong inductive interference in the district. Radio fans were complaining constantly. Our experts investigated. They believed the noise was caused by the car line's power plant. They interviewed officials of the company. They examined the ma rk Magazine of the Hour Inductive chinery. But they could find nothing wrong and engineers at the station laughed at them. Finally they induced the company to shut off power at noon one Sunday. The inductive noise stopped immediately and radio fans got wonderful reception on the afternoon concerts. At four o'clock the plant started again. The noise appeared at once. "Our 'noise doctors' were not satisfied. They began checking up on the frame of the converter. Then they found something startling. A wire from the armature was touching the frame. It had charged it up to 600 volts. Workmen of the plant knew nothing about it. Yet if one of them had touched the frame it would have meant instant death. The short was corrected and the converter is still operating. It is as safe as can be now but you could not pay a workman to approach it without rubber gloves. All the inductive trouble it caused has ceased. "Another case was baffling. There was a noise in a Toronto office building. It was spoiling reception for four city blocks around. Our experts tested and tested without success. They visited the place fifteen times and still could not find the cause. The noise was like a phantom. It came and went. Finally the experts isolated the noise down to a dentist grinding teeth in the building. The motor of his drill was defective. It caused enough electrical disturbance to ruin the reception of scores of radio listeners." Canada is spending $100,000 a year on this special service. Revenue for operation of the work is derived from a license fee of one dollar on every radio receiving set. The Dominion is the only country in the world carrying on an organized campaign of noise prevention. Radio has had a remarkable (Please turn to page 47)