Radio Times/1925/01/02/My Aerial Adventures

by Davy Burnaby

My Aerial Adventures.

---

By Davy Burnaby, the Popular Co-Optimist.

Have you noticed that since wireless became the fashion, there has been a dearth of fishing stories?

I met an old angler friend of mine the other day who when I asked him to tell me all about his latest catch, merely shrugged his shoulders and murmured something about his having landed a wretched little "tiddler of a thing—just so long," indicating a length of, perhaps, four inches.

Then I introduced the subject of radio. My friend brightened instantly. "Ah!" exclaimed. "Now, you're talking, my boy. S'pose you heard how I got Valparaiso the other night on one valve? Came in splendidly—bit of jamming now and again from Honolulu, but otherwise excellent."

Tall Tales.

I wouldn't mind wagering that in recent months a lot of fishermen have beaten their rods and lines into aerials; their swivels and paternosters—whatever they may be—into leads.

Some of the tallest tales ever told have been and are being told about wireless. The wireless brand of tall tale is, I should say, at a rough guess, two thousand metres taller than the tallest tall fishing tale—I shall be getting jammed myself in a minute-ever told in a club smoking-room.

And talking of altitude, I am reminded of the serious—er—contretemps—a little bit of French won't do us any harm—in which I was involved one day last summer.

I remember the day quite well, because the summer this year fell on my birthday, and not on a Wednesday, as we are officially informed. The Co-Optimists were appear:ng at Edinburgh and, being a radio fan—short for fanatic, I presume—I thought I would rig up my four-valve set in my dressing-room, with the aerial on the roof in the usual way. So I climbed up aloft and, under a blazing sun, got the aerial into position.

Unfortunately, I didn't realize until I came to descend that I had also got myself into position: the sun had melted the tarred roof and—well, I was stuck.

The episode was a splendid joke; of course, and there was only one person in the kingdom who didn't properly appreciate it. That was me.

Frightening the Clerks.

Anyone desirous of verifying this story should apply to the management of the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, for permission to scale the roof, where he (or she) will find a substantial pattern of the nether garments I was wearing at the time, to wit, an extremely loud pair of plus fours, still flapping icily in the breeze.

On this particular tour, they tell me, I earned among hotel managers a reputation for being "slightly—er—well, eccentric, don't you know." It seems that instead of entering an hotel and asking the conventional question, "Have you a room, please?" I developed the habit of frightening booking clerks with the query, "Have you a flat roof, please?"

One manager tersely informed me that his establishment was not a sanatorium, and that if I wanted to sleep out of doors, I had better try the park.

Mr. Davy Burnaby.

However, at an hotel in the Isle of Man I found just the sort of roof I was looking for, and got permission to erect an aerial, with the result that soon the lounge was filled with sweet music from "2ZY." Many of the visitors had not heard radio music before, and quite a crowd assembled.

During an interval in the programme a rustic-looking person came up and, drawing me aside, said, confidentially: "It's all right, o' chap; I rumbled you was a conjurer from the start. You've got a gramophone inside that box. Now, now," he added, playfully, as I protested, "keep your hair on! It's not a bad wheeze at all. Here's sixpence—go and get a drink. just to show there's no ill-feeling."

Remorse Over Morro.

But if it is true to say that in one way or another I have got more fun out of radio than out of any other hobby, it is almost equally true that I have found no other hobby more exasperating.

Take the question of Morse, for example. Something really ought to be done about Morse. It's a bit off, just when you're in the middle of enjoying a Beethoven sonata, to have it rasped at you that another cargo of oranges is passing the Needles, or that the s.s. Pride of Seven Dials has sprung a leak in her bilge pipe, or wherever it is that ships spring leaks.

I notice that when a lecture on the theory of the Cosmic Impact, or the immunity of bootleggers from yellow jaundice, is going out, Morse mysteriously vanishes into nothingness, so that one has no really reasonable excuse for downing the head-phones or gagging the loud-speaker.

Then, of course, there are Xs, oscillation, jamming, fading, and there is Chelmsford. Against Chelmsford I have a particular grouse. When it is broadcasting, I may as Well pack up and get on with the knitting of my winter socks. Chelmsford hasn't got any manners at all. Just when "2L0" and I are getting along very nicely, thank you, it butts in without being properly introduced, and starts "telling the world," or most of it.

I want Chelmsford moved, and I shall be glad if it can be moved before next Tuesday, as I've got a radio party on. and at least twenty-nine hearts are beating a little faster than usual in the pleasant anticipation of hearing Paris.

With my two radio sets, including the one that is installed in my dressing-room at the Palace Theatre, London, I have listened to nearly all the stations on the Continent and in America now broadcasting, and I have yet to be satisfied that any of them provide better entertainment than those here at home.

A Silly Ban.

And, by the way, a subject on which I must have my little say is the broadcasting of plays from the theatre. Personally, I think that the existing ban is silly. A slice out of a "show" can do no one any harm, for, after all, the majority of listeners who don't respond to the bait wouldn't do so anyway, while many others have their appetites whetted for more.

But, plays or no plays, radio is a fascinating pastime, the more so, I sometimes think, by reason of its imperfections.