Page:Radio Times - 1925-01-09 - p121.png



WRITER in a London newspaper bewails the lot of the experimenter who is at present indistinguishable from the mere listener now that special receiving licences have been abolished.

It is, therefore, interesting to give an extract from a young man's diary written in the year 1965.

April 1st, 1965.—I went to-day to see old Higden. I managed to wangle an introduction and I was, of course, interested in his set.

The set was certainly good. It had all the up•to-date improvements. The old man had fitted the stereoscopic attachment, product of the genius of poor Clauster, really, although, as a few of us know. Blatter-Smith took all the credit and, incidentally, the money.

After old man Higden had tinkered about, he left the set and came with me to the screen where I watched.

He gave me that look which has come down since the days of 1923, that sort of "pretty good, isn't it?" expression that a man inevitably assumes when he is showing of his latest set. I had no need to he hypercritical; save for a alight halation at the edge of the figures. I saw the "Ride of the Valkyrie" being performed in Paris about as clearly as if I'd been there myself.

I was particularly interested in the application of the primary colour process to television, and I launched into a discussion with my host.

"You know," be said, "interesting as all this is, it's nothing compared with the old days, when to be an experimenter was to be somebody. Now, unless one's, in the trade, one is indistinguishable from the mere buyer of sets."

I could see that the old boy was becoming reminiscent, and I encouraged him to gaze further into the crystal of past experience.

"People say it all began in America," he was saying, "but, really, who shall say where or how it began? I remember, just after the great war, sitting in this very room and hearing Dame Melba singing from a temporary station erected by the Marconi Company in Chelmsford. Wave-length was 2,400 metres. ... Ah! yes. I know that means little to you who have been brought up on kilocycles. Well, have it your own way: about 125 kilocycles, isn't it? Then our Government dusted the thing down, so I was told, but I went on listening; one got some pleasure out of Morse in those days. I don't suppose there were many stations doing high speed automatic then. I never heard any those days that I can remember. Yes! just crashing out der der der der at twenty words a minute! Spark, too, spreaching over an awful band of frequencies. Well, well! one didn't get much. And before the war! Why, in 1910 or so with a bit of crystal and a pair of high resistance 'phones one was pleased enough to hear anything."

But when did Broadcasting start?" I said.

"Oh, Broadcasting proper began with the British Broadcasting Company in 1922. I think. Oh! no, there was a young man called Eckersley, who afterwards became Chief Engineer of the B.B.C. He had a station that used to send out once a week. Some people found him amusing. I found him tedious, always trying to be funny. Sneering sort of feller, too, never believed the amateurs were any good. Yes, he began it at Writtle half an hour a week; it used to be good quality, although, of course, they used carbon microphones."

"Then came the B.B.C., you said?"

"Yes, then came the B.B.C., with a treat flourish of trumpets, till experimenters never could get the work ahead at all. We were somebodies. I can tell you, before all the others came butting in and complained about our oscillating. How could one do any work those days without a bit of oscillation? They used to get so ratty at the B.B.C. Lord! I used to sit and oscillate all through those silly technical talks, but, there, they most of 'em got swelled heads one way or the other."

"But surely, sir," I said, "how else would you have had it? Broadcasting did, and we all know is doing, a tremendous lot towards making people happy."

"Pah! Democratic principles and all that sort of stuff they put in their books so's to wriggle another ten bob out of us. Oh! yes," he went on, "all this muck about entertaining. The only part of Radio that's any good is listening to distant stuff, finding out new things; experimenting, my boy, that's what it's for. All these programmes! Who wants to see a Pageant of Empire at Ontario? Who wants to see and hear this Opera?"

I had read of some of the early difficulties, and asked him to tell me how they'd fixed up licensing and so on at the beginning.

"Licences! Licences!" he almost screamed. "Well, well! you're not to know. I suppose. I told you when one was somebody the Post Office recognized one and gave one a licence to experiment, and one did a lot of really useful work. Why, in 1922 I remember I got through to America on a 20 watt set! Yes, sir! It may seem laughable to you, but I did, and got a sneaking little paragraph in one of the papers. Pah! makes you sick! Then this B.B.C, comes along and stops all my work, and hey presto! before you know where you are, there's one type of licence only for everybody—crystal scratcher, present buyer, listener, or experimentor. 1925 was it, or 26? I forget anyway.

"Yes. I heard all those silly early 'stunts,' as they called 'em—Wembley and the nightingale singing, and heard them talking from aeroplanes. Oh! but they did think they were wonderful, so they wrote books, books I tell you! They're a bit better now, now that they've got to work in with other countries. But what's the good of listening to distant places, eh? They do it all for you. I remember getting America one of the first. Did I get any credit? No! ... But they tumbled to it weeks later and rebroadcast Pittsburg or somewhere, and rotten it was; I got it twice as well. But how they talked about it, and that Chief Engineer fellow butting in and saying it was all experimental, as if he was an experimenter."

The old man left the room to do some trifling adjustments. I stayed to notice that a dear, silver-haired lady sat in a little alcove drinking in the ever-changing pictures.

As a result of my host's adjustment in the next room, the picture faded, leapt into the air, blurred again, while the sounds of Opera became the sounds of inferno. The old lady sighed, and said: "Always the same, he can't leave it alone. Ever since we've been married. I've never heard and seen the beginning and ending of anything. It's like reading a hook hurriedly; a phase here, a situation there, the last dramatic words robbed of their drama by an ignorance of all that's gone before."

"Oh," I replied, "those are the necessary trials of being the wife of an experimenter."

"Perhaps." she smiled back at me. "Science is a wonderful thing; but I think it is better as a slave than a master. My husband, you know, thought of taking it up as a profession when we were both much younger—when we were engaged. He tried for a job with one of the companies. I think, but, they told him his qualifications were not quite suitable. He has never quite got over that. I have told Phyllis that she would be better to marry someone without too great an interest in Wireless."