Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

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 it, we came to the conclusion there were still 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 great criticism is that we are sending much too 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