Signals

Mad Morse

Japanese Interference With Pacific Radio

By a Special Correspondent

COMPLAINTS from New Guinea and other Pacific Territories in the Aus tralian zone have focussed recent Commonwealth attention on a short wave radio reception problem now per turbing every country in the world.

There is little that any one country can do to solve it, unless other nations, con ducting short-wave broadcasts, agree to a set of international rules—and then stick to them.

Over the last year, short-wave recep tion of Australian national broadcast from Lyndhurst (Vic.) by listeners in Wau (T.N.G.) and other Pacific centres north of Australia, have been seriously affected by morse signals from a Japanese sta tion. Annoying, unintelligible dots-and dashes have intruded a destructive background to news and entertainment broadcasts.

“If wave-lengths are allotted by inter national convention, surely the Austra lian Broadcasting Commission has guts enough to push for its rights and the rights of Australian-born listeners in New Guinea and other Pacific Territories al legedly administered from Canberra”, is the sort of comment reaching the Com mission from exasperated correspondents in the Islands. “Can’t the A.B.C. do something before listeners up here go

Cranky?”

One Wau man wrote on April 21 that the interiering Jap. “does not appear to send messages at all. On April u all he sent out was JRI, V,V,V,V,L,I,L,L, JIO. It may make sense to the Japs, but it is just a pain in the ears to us. For the rest of the afternoon the Jap. seemed to jam his key and go off to afternoon tea”. rpHIS New Guinea listener thinks the A interference could be overcome if Lyndhurst’s power were anywhere near the power of the Japanese morse station. “But VRL’s power is ‘pussy’ compared with overseas stations, which can be picked up here on any sort of a set. England, Germany, Japan, Rus sia, Italy, the Philippines, in fact—come in with great gusto and better modula tion than VRL could ever hope to with its present equipment.

“Some of the best sets ever made are installed in this country; but trying to pick up VRL with any degree of power is like the little girl trying to pull up socks she hasn’t got on”.

INTERVIEWED in Melbourne for the “P.1.M.”, Mr. J. Malone, chief of the Postmaster-General’s wireless branch, which handles all the A.B.C.’s technical problems, explained that the type of interference being suffered by Pacific listeners keen to get Lyndhurst pro grammes is being experienced in every country. “Fact is that the world’s short-wave ether is overcrowded with stations broadcasting in every language”, he added. “Of necessity, two wave lengths may be so close together that one can easily wobble partially into its neighbour, causing interference for list eners tuned into each station”.

Mr. Malone said Australia had already asked radio authorities in Tokio to lift VLR interference from their morse sta tion. While he believed the Japanese

were doing what they could to ease the annoyance, he realised Tokio’s difficulties in the matter. If the Jap. station were transferred to a wave-length further from that used by Lyndhurst, it would merely crowd into an ether corridor al ready being used by some other short wave station.

The International Telecommunications Conference held in Cairo early in 1938, and attended for Australia by Mr. Ma lone, had not dealt with the re-alloca tion of wave-lengths on the short-wave band, but it was generally realised by delegates that this task would have to be undertaken in the near future.

“People in Australia’s overseas terri tories who rely on short-wave reception to keep them in daily touch with the march of Australian events may be bet ter pleased then”, Mr. Malone comment ed. “Still, the already over-crowded short-wave field can’t be enlarged by human agency, and limitation of short wave broadcasting, though in the inter ests of world reception, mightn’t please some countries”.

In other words, international agree ment on the matter will be subject to the same violation as any other inter national agreement, should the world ever again become involved in a general war. Interference then would probably be regarded by belligerents as a counter propaganda duty—and listeners in Aus tralia’s Pacific Territories who are now suffering the effects of accidental inter ference of the Japanese variety, have some idea how much worse reception could be made by deliberate interfer ence.

Mr. Malone does not think a more pow erful Lyndhurst would benefit listeners in the tropics to the extent implied by the Wau correspondent. But if Australia is to protect adequately its Pacific Terri tories in event of any war, it should also protect their residents from the worry ing impact of likely wartime propaganda and mis-information that would reach the Pacific so much more powerfully than reassurances from Lyndhurst.

Stepping up the strength of Austra lia’s short-wave broadcasts looks to Paci fic residents like a defence project that would possess more permanent peace time value than some of those already under way.