Tht RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
1591 
Radio Department 
The Complete Radio Set 
ruder “How Radio Works” we have 
discussed in a general way some of the 
different things that occur in broadcast¬ 
ing and its reception, and special em¬ 
phasis was laid upon the aerial and 
ground. Now we have come to the heart 
of the matter, the radio set itself, and be¬ 
fore telling of the different kinds we 
should have a little idea of just what the 
radio set is supposed to, and does actual¬ 
ly do, for us. 
Win at It Does. —The aerial picks up 
or intercepts the electrical waves passing 
through the air, and leads them to your 
set. Here they are sorted out by certain 
pieces of apparatus, and the undesired 
waves are discarded, while the waves 
that are wanted are “detected” or saved, 
and built up in such a manner that they 
cause weak electrical impulses to pass 
through telephone receivers, which in 
turn enable you to hear the sounds that 
these impulses make. Just as an apple 
or potato grader drops out all under-size 
fruit, so the “tuner” of your set sorts out 
the different waves, only saving the one 
that you “tune in.” If the electrical 
waves are powerful enough they will be 
heard when passed through the detector 
without any outside aid. but when we 
deal with broadcasting that is coming 
from distances greater than 25 miles, we 
must use electrical batteries to build up 
the very weak impulses until they will 
be strong enough to work the telephone 
receivers and make a sound in your ears. 
These batteries can be compared to fer¬ 
tilizer and cultivation in your farm rou¬ 
tine of production of crops. If you plant 
a seed in rich soil it will come up and 
bear, and with cultivation yield more 
than if not cultivated. (Your rich ground 
being compared to being near a broadcast¬ 
ing station). Should you plant seed in 
poor ground, not add fertilizer and fail 
to cultivate, your crop will be next to 
nothing, and only under exceptional cir¬ 
cumstances would you receive any re- 
i urns from your land or seed. (Here your 
poor ground is your distant broadcasting 
station, and the batteries compare to 
your fertilizer and cultivation.) 
Exceptional Circumstances. —Every 
now and then we hear or read of the 
wonderful distance covered by some sim¬ 
ple radio set. This can be very true, and 
you or I may never have the same result. 
Radio sets are built to do certain things 
only, but they may at times go beyond 
what they are planned for ; this is excep¬ 
tional and cannot be depended upon. 
Wh en remarkable distances are claimed 
for most sets you can be sure that the 
claim is made only for the times when 
the set did these wonderful things, and 
not for the hundreds of times that only 
very short distances were covered. It is 
not the exceptional circumstance that we 
can depend upon ; it is the average every¬ 
day results in radio that count on the 
farm. 
The Parts of a Radio Set. —Ordinar¬ 
ily the radio receiving set is called a “re¬ 
ceiver.” but it consists of a “tuner.” and 
“detector,” and maybe an “amplifier.” 
Each of these may be separate, or the 
three may all be built in one piece within 
a cabinet. It is better when they are all 
arranged together, as the results are bet¬ 
ter. These three parts are made up of 
many different parts, and each has a very 
particular piece of work to do. 
Different Kinds of Receivers.— 
There are hundreds of different kinds of 
receivers, and each maker has given his 
kind some particular trade name, which 
in no way is an indication of what the 
set will do. Do not buy on the name 
alone, but on performance. With all 
these different kinds of sets and circuits 
on the market we must remember that 
there are only six basic principles in¬ 
volved, and they all use one or more of 
these six. 
Radio Principles. —When you go to 
buy or talk radio receivers to anyone 
you will find that these six principles 
will come up in the discussion sooner or 
later, and though no technical knowledge 
is desired, one must know something 
about these principles. Until you do you 
cannot buy intelligently, or know if the 
set that you have is doing what it should 
do for you. Here, then, are the prin¬ 
ciples : 
Crystal detector. 
Vacuum tube detector. 
Regeneration. 
Iletrodyne. 
Radio frequency amplification. 
Audio frequency amplification. 
Detectors.— The crystal detector uses 
a piece of mineral which rectifies or de¬ 
tects the weak electrical radio waves. 
This kind of detector is not satisfactory 
for distances greater than 25 to 30 miles, 
and will bring in local broadcasting sta¬ 
tions loud enough so that two or even 
three sets of telephone receivers can be 
used. It will not bring in the broad¬ 
casts loud enough for a roomful to hear, 
as it will not work a “loud speaker.” 
The vacuum tube detector will reach out 
to much greater distances than will the 
crystal, and when it is used in connec¬ 
tion with regeneration it will bring in all 
stations within 500 to 1.500 miles under 
good circumstances, and farther at other 
times. It will sometimes work a loud 
speaker on local stations, or those not 
over 100 miles away, but not satisfac¬ 
torily. The crystal does not require the 
use of additional batteries, while the 
vacuum tube does. 
The Ordinary Good Receiver. —The 
everyday ordinary receiver will use a 
vacuum tube detector with regeneration 
and one or two steps of audio frequency 
amplification. You need the amplifica¬ 
tion if you wish to use a loud speaker, so 
that several members of your family or 
friends can hear you. With this set you 
will need an “A” battery, a “P>” battery 
and telephone receivers; if your set has 
amplification you may wish a loud 
speaker. 
Regeneration. —Can only be obtained 
when vacuum tubes are used, and not 
through crystal detectors. In regenera¬ 
tion we have a peculiar action that en¬ 
ables a vacuum tube not only to deteet 
the radio signals, but also regenerate ad¬ 
ditional waves that build up the original 
waves, and so give much louder signals 
than a vacuum tube without regenera¬ 
tion. That is why the majority of radio 
receivers use regeneration in one form or 
another so that they have volume and 
can get distant stations. 
Amplification. —By adding certain 
parts to a receiver, and by the use of ad¬ 
ditional batteries, we can so build up or 
amplify the received sounds from the de¬ 
tector that we can get sufficient volume 
to fill a large room or ball* and in this 
way enable many to enjoy what only one 
cculd hear through telephone receivers 
connected to the radio receiver. This 
kind of amplification is called “audio” 
frequency amplification. By this means 
we can so build up the sounds that they 
are louder than when they were original¬ 
ly made at the broadcasting studio. 
J. II. T. 
A Wooden Wedding in the 
Tropics 
We were spending April and May in 
the mountains of the Philippines. One 
of my friends dropped in one afternoon 
and said, “We want you and your family 
to come to a picnic. It is to celebrate our 
wooden wedding, and so my husband says 
we must have it in the woods. Meet us 
at the Country Club at six-thirty, Thurs¬ 
day night.” Our whole family greeted 
this invitation with joy, for we knew it 
would be a real treat. Even our Chinese 
cook was happy. He would have a night 
out. with the whole family away. We 
knew he would put on a celestial smile 
and his beautiful plush cap. (He kept 
this cap for mountain wear only. It was 
a grayish, greenish plush leopard skin, 
and looked more like a much-sat-on old- 
fashioned hassock than anything else. He 
wore the visor rakishly over the back of 
his neck. It was all our family could do 
to treat this treasure with becoming re¬ 
spect. But it never would have done to 
laugh at it. We had a care to our daily 
cake, and retired to a safe, secluded dis¬ 
tance before breaking into hilarity.) 
The children were dragged from a game 
of forfeits. Dressed in our warmest coats 
and sweaters, we motored out into the 
sunset. To begin with, I turned on the 
wrong mountain road and went 10 miles 
out of my way, so when we reached the 
celebration the stage was completely set. 
It w T as on a surfaced, well-rolled, road 
leading to a prosperous mine. Autos 
parked all along under the huge pine 
trees showed that the picnickers were 
near. Up the side of the road we 
climbed toward a glow in the sky. There 
was a flavor of burning pine in the crisp 
air. Charles Lamb might have detected 
roast pig even before we did. There was 
certainly coffee bubbling. 
There, on the top of the world, under 
the soft, tropic stars, was a happy group 
of 00 people. Two bonfires gave light and 
warmth. The only other light, came from 
two lanterns on poles at one side of the 
circle, where a brown boy was cutting up 
a w’hole roast pig. All day that “lechone” 
(as the Spaniards call a barbecued pork¬ 
er) had been turned over a bed of coals 
on the hillside. Brown-faced cooks and 
barelegged boys had tenderly basted and 
turned it and fed the pine fires. The re¬ 
sult was delicious. Under a brittle crack¬ 
ling, every .part was thoroughly cooked. 
As the picnic was served we realized 
that it was truly a wooden wedding. 
Everything was served on wood. Our 
plates were round slabs covered with a 
paper doily. “We just sliced up a tree,” 
said our hostess. Our only feeding uten¬ 
sil was a beautifully carved wooden table¬ 
spoon. An Igorot can take a block of 
hard wood and cut anything out of it. 
These spoons, all in one piece, were 
smooth, and they cut as well as most 
table knives. Each handle was a clever 
human figure in one piece with the bowl. 
The well-dressed Filipino “boys” thar 
served us passed sandwiches or boiled eggs 
in native baskets; fried chicken on large, 
round slabs. The lechone (“lay-shone”) 
was on new wooden trays with the narrow 
sides still covered with bark. Olives and 
pickles and lump sugar were in native 
carved wooden bowls. Often the bowls 
were carved double from one piece of 
wood, with pickles in one bowl and olives 
in the other. This town was an especial¬ 
ly easy place then to find quaint wooden 
gifts for a wooden wedding. All one had 
to do was to go down to the public mar¬ 
ket-house to find all sorts of carved things 
brought in by Igorots from remote moun¬ 
tain towns. There were all sorts of 
carved animals and serpents for orna¬ 
ments and for flower holders; spoons, 
forks, bowls; strong, iron-pointed alpen¬ 
stocks; human figures of all sizes that 
would make book ends, and even elabor¬ 
ately carved chests. 
'When the lechone was turning, pota¬ 
toes were not forgotten. In the hot 
ashes were roasted delicious, really well- 
done potatoes. These same white, mealy 
potatoes were grown on some native farm. 
Also from some nearby farm came the 
sweet corn, boiled in a big, black kettle. 
We must not forget to tell of the potato 
salad served on “States” head lettuce 
from Seattle or San Francisco. It had 
been brought 175 miles from Manila, first 
by train and then up the Zigzag by auto. 
Homemade doughnuts and coffee finished 
our meal—rather banquet. 
Around that jolly circle were Amer¬ 
icans from all parts of the States. There 
were more women than men. Most of the 
husbands were in the lowlands earning 
enough to give their families a vacation 
in the wonderful, pine-scented air, 5.000 
feet above the sea. Yet Manila has had 
a comfortable hot season this year. My 
husband has been sleeping on a porch fac¬ 
ing Manila Bay and writes that he has 
used one blanket every night, and some¬ 
times two or three. Many of these wom¬ 
en were with me in a “daily dozen” class 
every afternoon, making strenuous efforts 
to reduce. But one said as she took her 
third helping of roast pork and apple 
sauce. “That’s why Mrs. Black and I 
walked down here. We were smart.” 
As the boys cleared away the food that 
was left, we sang, just as we always do 
at “home” after a picnic. We sang all 
the old songs we’d heard our fathers and 
mothers sing, and all the songs we'd 
learned at college, and all the latest pop¬ 
ular songs. These latest would not be 
more than a year old in the States! As 
we sang we beat out an accompaniment 
on our wooden plates with our wooden 
spoons. The children toasted marshmal¬ 
lows on long bamboo sticks. We gath¬ 
ered closer round the friendly fire, and a 
mountain lad threw huge chunks of pine 
upon the flames, as if he were "tossing 
chips. He had even put on his coat be¬ 
cause of the chill, but his strong, uncov¬ 
ered brown legs made a beautiful silhou¬ 
ette. 
Over at one side, near the supplies, 
stood an interesting watching group of 
Igorots. They were all sizes, from the 
small brothers of the country club golf 
caddies, and the caddies themselves, to 
old men. The brown youngsters stood 
eagerly unconscious, dressed only in a 
little shirt. The caddies wore coats. The 
fathers, wrapped in cotton blankets, 
perched on boulders. After one of the 
guests entertained us with some sleight of 
hand tricks in the firelight, we sang some 
songs over again. We sang “For They 
Are Jolly Good Fellows” and “Auld Lang 
Syne.” Then we said good-night to our 
host and hostess and wandered down to 
the road in the starlight under the tall 
pine trees. Frances graydon. 
Two sweethearts from Aberdeen were 
rambling round, when they came to a 
movie. The young man ran his eye over 
the front of the building. It rested on a 
Title in large letters—“The Woman 
Bays.” “Jean.” he said, “T think we’ll 
gang in here.”—Corydon Advertiser. 
