History of wireless telegraphy and broadcasting in Australia/Topical/Publications/Australasian Radio World/Issues/1937 06

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Front Cover

The Australasian Radio World

JUNE 1, 1937; Vol. 2 - No. 2; Price, 1/-

Registered at the G.P.O., Sydney, for transmission by post as a periodical

Cover Photo: Photo of Amalgamated Wireless Valve Co.'s display at WIA Exhibition (See Page 7)

Highlighted Contents: Amateur Communications Receiver: "1937 Eaglet All-Wave Two": Wiring the "Empire All-Wave Three": New Section for Shortwave DXers: World Shortwave Station List.

P.02 - Editorial Notes

Editorial Notes . . .

At the 1937 Amateur and Shortwave Radio Exhibition held in Sydney last month, the man on the street was given an opportunity of learning something of the hobby of amateur radio. Certainly the casual visitor must have been greatly impressed by the tremendous amount of time, money and ingenuity that had obviously been expended on the design and construction of most of the equipment displayed. In all, there must have been several thousands of pounds worth of home-built amateur gear on show, ranging from wavemeters and one-valve receivers to cathode ray oscillographs, elaborate transmitters and multi-valve amateur communication type superhets. Taken all round, this year's show was the most successful yet held, and the organisers are to be congratulated on their efforts. This annual radio exhibition run by and for amateurs is a comparatively new innovation. Prior to 1936, the amateur exhibition was not a separate affair at all, but comprised merely a small section of the exhibition arranged annually by the radio and electrical trades in Sydney. Last year the Council of the Wireless Institute of Australia (N.S.W. Division) decided to stage its own show, and this proved so successful that this year a decision was made to take the Lower Town Hall for the occasion. This meant a fairly heavy outlay, and so the backing of that section of the radio trade that specialises in catering for amateur requirements was sought. It was so enthusiastically given that when the show opened, nearly 40 stands were occupied, and the financial success of the venture was assured. Last year's exhibition was in the nature of a feeler to determine public and trade reaction, and with its success confirmed by that of the latest show, it is now evident that an amateur exhibition will be a regular annual event in the Sydney radio world.

P.02 - Contents Banner

The Australasian Radio World

Incorporating the

All-Wave All-World DX News

Managing Editor: A. Earl Read, B.Sc.

Vol. 2. - June, 1937 - No. 2.

P.02 - Contents

CONTENTS:

The Eaglet All- Wave Two . . . . 3

Communications Type Superhet For Amateurs . . . . 6

Radio Ramblings . . . . 10

Assembling And Wiring The 1937 Empire All-Wave Three . . . . 14

25 Years In Amateur Radio (2) . . . . 18

World Shortwave Stations . . . . 21

Breaking Into the Amateur Game (5) . . . . 29

Across The Atlantic On Five Metres . . . . 32

Radio Step By Step . . . . 34

What's New In Radio . . . . 35

All-Wave All-World DX Club — New Members . . . . 37

The A.T.R.S. Bulletin . . . . 38

Eliminating Man-Made Static . . . . 38

Locating And Curing Hum . . . . 39

The All-Wave All-World DX News . . . . 41

Shortwave Review . . . . 42

DX News And Views . . . . 45

VK Amateur Stations — Additions And Amendments . . . . 47

P.02 - Publication Notes

The "Australasian Radio World" is published monthly by Trade Publications Proprietary, Ltd. Editorial offices, 214 George Street, Sydney, N.S.W. Telephone BW6577. Cable address: "Repress," Sydney. Advertisers please note that copy should reach office of publication by 15th of month preceding that specified for insertion.

Subscription rates: 1/- per copy, 10/6 per year (12 issues) post free to Australia and New Zealand. Subscribers in New Zealand can remit by Postal Note or Money Order.

Printed by Bridge Printery Pty. Ltd., 214 George Street, Sydney, N.S.W., for the proprietors of the "Australasian Radio World," 214 George St., Sydney (Footnote P.48)

P.18 - 25 Years In Amateur Radio (2)

25 Years In Amateur Radio . . . . (2)

The second instalment of a biography covering the early days of radio, and written for the "Radio World" by DON B. KNOCK (VK2NO) Radio Editor "The Bulletin."

BY this time, with signals audible, the urge came along to make them better and still better, and thus the writer started on the business of aerial experimentation. The idea of aerial improvement has been, and still is, his primary consideration through the years.

I had read all about Marconi and his reception across the Atlantic not many years previously by means of long wires supported by kites. Why not fly a kite and try the effect? No sooner thought of than it was in process of undertaking. By this time I had acquired two kindred spirits — fellow schoolmates — and had imbued them with some of my own enthusiasm.

A portable receiver of a kind was made up, and a massive kite built laboriously from bamboo and silk. From somewhere a few hundred feet of phosphor-bronze telephone wire was obtained, and things began to move.

Adjacent to the old home was a large-sized cricket-field in which we boys were wont to disport ourselves without arousing the undue ire of the committee. At least, we respected the pitch! This field was chosen for the trial, and on a very windy day, five or six boys could be seen struggling to hold the kite in restraint while bricks were attached as a tail.

Up she went with a rush, hands being cut and burnt as the wire whipped out. A concerted dive with handkerchief-wrapped fingers, and the wire was finally secured by winding it around a staunch wooden post, leaving the kite soaring placidly in the sky with several hundred feet of "aerial" reaching down to earth.

I busied myself with preliminary detector adjustments, and when all was considered ready, asked a friend to hand me the end of the wire hanging from the post, and dangling about two feet above earth. He reached for it, and what followed was a distinct surprise to us, and a very nasty one for the victim. A blue spark leapt out as his hand neared the wire, jumping about three inches in the process. Boylike, the assailed one retreated in fear, and no-one was game to go near that wire.

Static Electricity The Cause. What had happened was a natural sequence of events. A dry windy day, and the kite well up in the sky just under scudding clouds resulted in the accumulation of a hefty static charge on the aerial, which was insulated from earth by the wooden post. Ideas of connecting that aerial to the receiver were dismissed forthwith.

But how to get the kite down with out further shocks? Simple, really, if we had had the sense to throw a bare wire over the aerial and to let it touch earth, but nobody thought of it!

Picking up a chunk of stone, one of the party dashed it at the aerial wire near the post, and it parted with a twang. Away went our kite, propelled by a stiff wind, trailing about half a mile of twisting, snaking wire. It careered on over that field, reached the heart of the town, and caught up sacreligiously on the tower of the parish church.

En route the trailing wire crossed the overhead tramway cables, and sparks flew and wire melted. We didn't see that, but we heard about it afterwards through our respective parents in forceful terms. After that, kite aerials were OUT, and I have since thought how near we might have come to emulating Franklin, and meeting with tragedy, if a sufficiently strong static charge had lined up in that elevated aerial.

Getting On The Air. Experiments from then on were confined to home, and the idea of transmission began to arise. A license? — nobody ever thought about such things in those days. They were merely a formal matter. Application was made, and permission given gratis forthwith by the Post Office in encouragement of the new wireless art. A callsign with an "X" somewhere in it was issued. Prefixes were unknown, as the very idea of amateur international working was not even thought of at the time.

Anyway, with much labour and perspiration, an induction coil was constructed with a few miles of fine silk-covered wire, and behold, it gave a nice crackling spark when energised from a six-volt accumulator. With glass plate condensers the spark was fattened up nicely, a helix was constructed, a hand-key made, and the week-end afternoons and nights were rendered hideous for the household by the fitful crashing and singing across the gap as I and another boy a mile distant tried to work with each other. We did too, and thereby improved our morse knowledge considerably.

In time, we found that by using a simple buzzer connected to the aerials, we could work equally well over the distance. Heaven alone knows what the wavelengths were, for the signal from both ends was so broad as to have no noticeable peak, but it was wireless communication, and that was the main thing.

Time progressed, and in due course I became apprenticed as a mechanical engineer in a local steel-works. In between learning my trade, I must confess to having done several "nix" jobs for myself when the "gaffer" wasn't looking, and all those jobs were something or other for my wireless outfit.

Parental ruling said that I was going to be an engineer whether I liked it or not, and that there couldn't be any future for "this new fangled wireless." And so I tackled both jobs, with, unfortunately for my desires, wireless only as a hobby. Visions of walking the deck as a gold braided wireless operator at sea had been uppermost, but the "guvnor" was adamant. No wireless school for me.

Time went on, and in between learning to become a good fitter of steam engines and motor lorries, all kinds of wireless gadgets were constructed, with varying success. Then came the war, and things happened. A Post Office official arrived on the scene, sealed in boxes everything down to the last bit of tinfoil, took down my pride — the big white pole in the garden — and departed after handing me a receipt and instructions regarding the dire penalties of working wireless apparatus forthwith.

A year went by, and I must confess to having run the risk of being interned as a spy by getting together more gear; scrounged, it is true, from a marine friend. Indoor aerials were erected in all shapes and forms, but such was the insensitivity of my home-made detectors and gear that silence predominated.

Telephone Line As Aerial. However, it so happened that the next door house had a disused telephone circuit. A long wire led from a telephone pole across the road to an insulator on the side of that house, the wire terminating there. An idea was born. In the dead of night the fence was scaled and a thin insulated wire run around the walls into my den.

I wasn't game to risk transmission, but I had a great deal of enjoyment in copying the war bulletins from old "FL" and listening to the medley of activity among shipping. That aerial was miles long, and brought signals in galore!

1916 came along, and old school friends and older apprentices had gone into various services. Being big for my age I felt that I could do my bit also, and the climax came when a scornful flapper handed me a white feather as an intimation that I ought to be in uniform. Under the Munitions Act I was exempt from active service as a skilled worker, but that meant nothing to romantic ideas of adventure. So one day, an apprentice didn't clock in, and a naval recruiting petty officer had enrolled a mechanic for the Royal Naval Air Service, ostensibly 18 years old, but actually quite a bit younger.

The news was broken to the family, and before I realised I found myself in the old Crystal Palace in London, with a lot of other fellows, old and young, ready to take what was before us. Had I had time to think, I might have enrolled in the wireless section, but mechanical engineers were wanted for aero engines, and so I took the plunge in that direction. Anything before my late employers had time to find out where I was and bring me back, as under age!

It was a wet morning, and I had arrived at the Palace in sports coat and flannels. Inside, a roll was called, and a petty officer marched us up and down for two hours until the steam rose in clouds from us sorry, bedraggled recruits. Then we were handed eating utensils and were fed and re-heartened. Next, an important-looking fellow handed me a broom, with the order to "get busy and sweep this store out clean." Having heard all about naval discipline, I sprang to it and got the job over. This had a sequel three weeks afterwards, as I will relate later.

Photo of 2NO in 1918

The author at the door of the armament "workshop" (an aeroplane packing case) at Stavros, Macedonia, in 1918.