Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

How Far Have You Heard on One Tube? Results of the First Contest. Three Final Articles on One-tube Reception: "An Evening's Trip Around the Whole United States," "The Automatic Regenerative Circuit," and "Cheap at Twice the Price." Some Further Points on Constructing and Tuning. Summary The contest which closed February first, and of which the final reports are printed in this issue, has brought to light a wealth of interesting and useful information about hook-ups, constructing, tuning, and in general getting the best out of one-tube sets. Some painstaking and excellent work has been done by experimenters in gathering complete details regarding their receivers and working them up, with the help of photos and diagrams, into clear descriptions from which any one can profit. Now that the net has been hauled in and the deep-sea catch examined, what do we find in it that seems to be of particular significance? Three Facts Stand Out Strikingly 1 . The great distance that is possible with a single tube. A score of contestants have heard stations more than 1,500 miles away, while i.ooomile reception is common. A dozen or so report an aggregate mileage of more than 50,000 (the record is 1 1 1,240 miles, made by Russell Sheehy. His circuit is given in Fig. i), and many have identified more than sixty different broadcasting stations! 2. The excellent showing that single-circuit regenerative sets and variometer regenerative sets have made in reaching out after the distant stations. A glance at the summary of results on page 436, last month, and page 5 13, this month, will show this clearly. 3. The remarkable work done by those operating homemade, makeshift (this does not mean carelessly made!) apparatus. What accounts for it? Is it because the man who "winds his own" learns more about the fine points of operation through being thoroughly familiar with every unit that goes into his finished receiver? Or is it because this type of experimenter is just naturally forever changing the elements in his circuits, experimenting, improvising, and improving until everything is adjusted for maximum efficiency under his particular conditions? In any case, those who have done the splendid work described in this and previous issues have well earned their success, and we congratulate them. Two Prizes Awarded Contestants whose reports we have published have been sent checks for their articles. Two of these articles have been considered by RADIO BROADCAST so interesting and instructive with regard to text, so well illustrated with photos and diagrams, and so exceptional in the number and distance of stations heard, that they have been unanimously awarded First Place and Second Place in the contest, and two prizes, voted by the Editors, have been sent them. We announce, then, as winner of the "How Far Have You Heard on One Tube?" Contest, MR. RUSSELL SHEEHY, whose article, " Feeling the Nation's Pulse" appeared in the February issue. He will receive a Grebe CR-8 Regenerative Receiver and Two-Stage Amplifier. And as second in the contest, we announce MR. E. V. SEAGER, author of "A Practical, Long-Range, Single-Tube Receiver" (See page 428, RADIO BROADCAST for March.) He will receive a Paragon Two-Stage Audio-Frequency Amplifier. It will be noticed that the manuscripts chosen for publication in this contest— appearing in the December, January, February, March, and April numbers — have not necessarily been those with the highest mileage reports. As previously announced, a high aggregate mileage was considered one of the principal factors in judging contributions, but the interest, clearness, and general worth of the articles also carried great weight. We hope that the hundreds of contestants who sent in their contributions to this contest will read the announcement of the new contest on page 5 14, and will send us some interesting material on what they have done with any number of tubes. The three articles which follow wind up the one-tube contest with a variety of material which will b£ of wide interest to all long-distance broadcasting experimenters and in which everyone should find some hook-up, receiving wrinkle, or bit of information to suit his own particular demands. — THE EDITOR.