World Radio

The annual international radio tests were conducted last week with indifferent success. The sun, undergoing its periodic attack of solar acne, discharged from its sunspots enormous masses of positive electrons, which swept into the far-flying signal waves with disruptive effect.* There was an earthquake in the Pacific one night which caused further blurring of communication; and two nights running, ships in distress on the storm-tossed Atlantic silenced all stations with their stark, tragic S.O.S./- The European program was flashed from stations in England, France, Germany, Austria and Spain. In Berlin, portly opera singers were obliged to loiter over their beer all night or scramble out of bed long before dawn to warble into the microphone songs that were to be heard in the U. S. between 11 and midnight. Mme. Clara Novello-Davies, in Manhattan, and her son, Composer Ivan Novello, in London, simultaneously attempted to lead radio fanatics of the Western Hemisphere in singing "Auld Lang Syne," but it was a bad night and few got the tune. The stations heard most clearly by the U. S. were Lima, Buenos Aires and Madrid. Dubious reports filtered in from Germany and Russia that U. S. stations had been heard there.

But the radio world was optimistic. Said the New York Herald Tribune: "The day will come when all that is necessary to hear the King's speech to Parliament or the snort of the sacred white elephant in Siam will be to tune in. . .

*These discharges are visible by night as the aurora borealis or Northern Lights. So strong was the free current from this source one day that telegraph messages were sent on its 150 volts from Pittsfield, Mass. to. Springfield, Mass. (50 miles) without the aid of batteries. Elsewhere the free current had the opposite effect, suspending telephone and telegraph service.

/-The steamers Solvang, Laristan and Antinoe. The Solvang rammed a tanker and sank. The Laristan foundered and was lost with all her Malay crew. The Antinoe foundered in a 90-mile gale and blizzard, her 25 officers and men being rescued by the President Roosevelt (George Fried, Captain), which stood by with splendid heroism for four days.