… and don’t forget the aerial

An aerial that needs overhauling can prevent any set from working well. The lead-in and the insulators are the weak points, and should be inspected if reception becomes weak or noisy.

A valuable service

available from reputable radio dealers in many parts of the country provides regular inspection and maintenance of your own receiver and aerial for a fixed annual subscription.

Use the best aerial you can

Your receiver depends solely on its aerial for ‘raw material’

and the more elaborate the receiver the better the aerial must be to do justice to it.

A good aerial is a high aerial.

In most places a vertical aerial gives the best results, especially if it is erected on the roof in an exposed position away from trees, drainpipes, etc. Semi-rigid, whip aerials are effective, convenient, and easily installed, and where electrical interference is severe, a length of special screened cable may be used for the connection to the receiver. An unobstructed, vertical aerial renders the receiver less susceptible to interference of all kinds.

Indoor aerials are seldom really satisfactory.

They exaggerate electrical interference and fading, and also cause weak and generally noisy reception.

When you are deciding

how much you can spend on a receiver, do not forget to reserve a reasonable sum to cover the cost of an effective aerial. Don’t leave the aerial to chance.

Two special cases

1. In certain districts where two of the programmes are very strong, a listener may sometimes notice a background of one of them when his receiver is tuned to the other. This is caused almost invariably by the effect of nearby domestic pipework, electric wiring, etc., on the aerial. The remedy is to provide a more efficient aerial erected well clear of such objects, preferably on a chimney stack.

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2. Listeners who live very close to a transmitting station may find it difficult to eliminate that particular transmission. This can in many cases be cured by realignment of the internal circuits of the receiver, which will restore its original selectivity, but when this is insufficient, a good aerial should be used, to provide strong signals of the desired programmes, and a tuned wave-filter used to eliminate the local transmission. The manufacturer of the receiver will in most cases be able to supply or specify a suitable wave-filter, which should be connected between the aerial downlead and the aerial terminal of the receiver.

Published by the British Broadcasting Corporation, 35 Marylebone High Street, London, W.1, and printed by The Broadwater Press Ltd, Welwyn Garden City, Herts.

[No. 2184/5]

1951 // THIS IS TRANSDIFFUSION