Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Radio Broadcast cannot be allowed to fall far below 20. If the B battery voltage supplied to the amplifier tubes should fall below 40, it is well to add more "juice" or replace the low units with new ones. Your A battery — whether it be dry cells or storage battery — is serviceable until you find that even when you turn the lights up as far as the rheostats will allow, the signal is not so loud as you have a right to expect. It is a good rule to burn your tube filaments as low as you can, still getting sufficient volume; it saves your batteries and reduces distortion. It is advisable to hook up your batteries in this way: d) — connect the two wires from the A battery to the -f-and — A posts on the set; (2) — connect either the+or the -wire from the B battery to its proper post on the set; (3) — place the tubes in their sockets, turn up the rheostats (also snap on the battery switch if there is one), and see if the tubes light: (43.) if so, connect the other B battery lead and all will be well: (4b) if not, look over the wiring and see that all connections are correct and good (If the tubes do not seem to make firm contact in their sockets, take the tubes out, bend up the socket prongs with your finger.) This procedure may save you the price of the tubes you are unlucky enough to leave in their sockets when the B battery current runs along the path reserved for the A battery. AS FOR THE REST OF IT. . . AS FOR the business of tuning, there is little f\ that can be said which will be of half so much use to the novice as two or three evenings' practice in adjusting his set. He will soon get the "feel" of it, and learn how to cut out as much interference, static, and other noise as is possible, without diminishing the signal strength too much. If you are using two or more tubes of the same type, try interchanging them and then readjusting the rheostats and other controls. This often results in a considerable increase in signal strength. When a set goes dead, with antenna and ground connections as they should be, with batteries well up, and tubes hitting on all four, .trouble may possibly be located in the jacks, or in the phones, or in a broken connection elsewhere in the set. The jack springs should be inspected: does the tip of the plug make contact with the proper spring? does the side of the plug fit snugly against the side of the jack? do the springs which are displaced by the tip of the plug make (or break) their contacts as they should? The test for phones is simple: put them on; touch the tip of the plug (or one phone tip) to one terminal of a dry cell, and touch the sleeve of the plug (or the other phone tip) to the other terminal: a click should result. "No clickee, no workee." If you have done ah this, and have looked in vain for a loose or broken connection, it is then time to secure the assistance of someone familiar with the more serious ailments of receiving sets. But the chances are that this will not be necessary. If you had trouble at first, and started reading this article, you will probably have located your trouble and applied the remedy a page or so ago. Instead of reading these words you will have abandoned them for the serious business of bringing ' v the programs that float so freely through thh countrv's air. A Plea to Announcers Many letters have come to RADIO BROADCAST and many more have been received by broadcasting stations complaining that station announcers announced too indistinctly or too infrequently. This card was recently sent out by the National Association of Broadcasters to all their member stations. — THE EDITOR. STATION ANNOUNCERS Numerous complaints have recently come to us of announcers failing to give their call letters at the end of each program event. D.X. fans are especially aggravated. Local listeners know your station, but hundreds of thousands of long distance listeners on the air each night, do not. Call letters given immediately after an event and repeated again at the conclusion of announcement arc appreciated by these people. THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS 1265 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY