New Britain herald., 1926-12-29
Through the Static

There was plenty Of volume last evening, with slight fading. In spite of sundry buZzings and other aero battles of the atmosphere the pro- grams came through cheerily with out any trouble at all. Code would have been troublesome on any other night, but the strength Of the sta- tions halted any efforts on it's part. The evening started off with a great surprise for us. This occurred during an impromptu program by the WTIC announcers to fill in the time from 6:45 until o'clock due to the fact that the scheduled feature failed to put in an appearance. Well. Tom McCray, the Singing An nouncer," as they call him. offered several well chosen selections, and then Walter Johnson read two of our French Canadian recitations, Bar bara Frietchie" and Red Riding Hood" They must have been hard up for material, but we're glad We left those two numbers up at the studio, so that they could have something to do, anyway.
 
 The third feature of the evening was also interesting. Due to the fact that the Trinity College professors are on their vacations, the period usually occupied by the Trinity Col lege discussion was taken over by Walter Johnson and Hanford Bill ings. They talked on fan mail and of criticisms and of other interesting things pertaining to communication with the vast unseen audience, as some speakers are wont to describe the general public. The sum and substance of the whole thing was Write to the station and tell your likes and dsIikes." Several letters, some critical and some compliment tary. were read, and the only fault we have to find is that there was a slight touch of rather complete inde- pendence at times on the part of the two speakers, which somewhat un- dermined the idea of the discussion.
 At WBZ, Springfield, we heard part of the hockey game between the Boston Bruins and the New York Americans. We tuned in for the express purpose of finding out how the new announcer was taking hold and, as we prophesied last week, he is getting the fever. His talk is much more spontaneous and less studied than it was last week, and he is be- ginning to get as excited over the plays as Frank Ryan used to. The only thing this new fellow has to forget is that he is talking into microphone. That has sort Of cramped his style, so far, but we eX- pect big things from him. The hook ey game broadcasts are very popular down this way, since New Britain has it's quota of hockey fans, even if the town doesn't support team.
 
 KDKA, Pittsburgh, which was very strong most of the time, did considerable fading now and then. The Little symphony orchestra which worked overtime, according to the evenings program schedule, played as one of it's numbers "Nhis- pering Flowers" which sounded ex- actly like the title, sweet and delir- iously delightful. (WowD There was a little bit of noise on the wave.
 WMAK, Lockport, came through like the weather last evening, sloppy. The wave was muddy and failed to assume any vestige Of clarity. We heard two numbers played by a dance orchestra, Climbing The Lad der of Love" and Alabama stomp" There was plenty Of volume. despite the cloudy actions of the wave.
 WPCH New York, has a great habit of initiating ocean swel!s. Last evening there was plenty of volume at times and then again the station faded out so that it could hardly be heard, only to come back strong enough to knock one over. Several other stations tried to usurp the wave, with no success, since WPCH, when 1t was in it's right mind, was plenty strong enough to take care of each and every bit of interference.