Wireless Broadcasting - Concerts For Settlers

The Argus

19 September 1922

Service in Two Months.

The plans of the Amalgamated Wireless (Aust) Limited for providing a wireless telephone broadcasting service are well under way and it is hoped that the first concerts will be held in two months time.

A broadcasting station has recently been completed in Sydney and all the material is ready for the construction of a similar station in Melbourne as soon as a suitable site is obtained, this set can be erected in a very short time.

Similar stations will be erected in each of the other States later.

The matter broadcast will include concerts, fashion notes, bedtime stories for children, market notes, weather reports, and on suitable occasion’s sermons.

As it is proposed to employ leading artists to give the concerts and to supply a good programme each evening the expense of providing the service will be considerable.

It is estimated that it costs £120,000 a year to operate the broadcasting stations at present in use in England.

The Australian service will he modelled on the English and American services.

Each subscriber to the service will be charged about £12 a year, inclusive of battery charging, renewal of valves and repairs.

For receiving the concerts a large number of sets are being mode in Sydney, and 5,000 of these ore nearly completed.

In some cases these sets will be sold to those desirous of receiving the concerts, while in others they will be hired out by the company.

Various types of receivers have been constructed to suit the varying Australian conditions.

For use near the broadcasting centre receives which do not require an outdoor aerial will be provided, while the settler in the backblocks will use a set employing an outdoor aerial and drawing its current from the farm lighting set.

Experiments are now being conducted to produce a receiver capable of operating off the electric light supply mains.

New Zealand too is to have her broadcasting stations and 33 wireless telephone transmitters have been approved by the Postmaster-General. Thus every person in the Dominion will be within easy reach of wireless music.