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Show Static Can Be Licked When a citizen has to prowl the town in his automobile automo-bile looking for the trouble as Ralph Gunn recently did, or when a citizen has to protest the trouble from his sick bed as Clarence Anderson recently did, or when a group of citizens citi-zens volunteer their time and talents to lick the trouble as Les Lund, Ray Nielsen, Morris Shirts and George Bittle recently did, or when the trouble infuriates all of us as it has on one occasion or another recently then, brother, it is time to go to work on the trouble. The touble is radio interference. It has become so prevalent that there remains little pleasure in listening to the radio. In order to hear a program through one must endure a series of screeching, grinding noises, in between which one may or may not pick up bits of entertainment or information. Ask anyone who owns a radio. He'll tell you the interference is bad enough during the day and worse than that at night. What causes interference? Motors big motors, little motors and middle-sized motors whose owners are unintentionally uninten-tionally ruining radio reception for themselves and their neighbors by operating these motors in a state of disrepair or without benefit of static filters. How many people are affected? Practically everyone. A conservative estimate would go about like this. There are approximately 500 homes in town. There is at least one radio in each-home. Average cost would be around $30 per radio. Conservative estimate of money ' invested in radios in this community, $15,000. And as long, as radio interference continues at its present high level a good part of that $15,000 is wasted. None of us will ever be wealthy enough to afford that kind of waste. Here's what Les Lund and Morris Shirts and some of the others who understand radio tells us about the cussed interference. Any motor which sparks will cause radio interference. The bigger the motor, the bigger the spark and the bigger the interference. The offending motors may be on household appliances, stokers, electric shavers and the like. In some cases interference is caused because the motor is in disrepair. The obvious correction is a repair re-pair job. In. other cases a motor which is mechanically perfect may be causing the trouble. The type of interference interfer-ence this motor causes may be corrected by the installation of an inexpensive filter ranging in price from $2.00 to $4.00, according to the size of the motor. Still other sources of radio interference are the city electricity linens which throw off sparks when limbs or other obstructions contact them. You can lick that one by reporting same to the city electrician. It has been suggested that the city empower volunteers volun-teers like Les and Ray and Morris and George to seek out the offending motors and recommend to their owners the proper remedy. If the rernedy is repair, it should be the responsibility of the owner to have the motor repaired. If the solution is installation of a filter, the owner should purchase a filter. These could be stocked either by the city electrician or by local hardware and radio stores. Whatever the remedial action recommended by the inspectors, in-spectors, the big majority of citizens will no doubt gladly comply. Then just think. One of these days you'll be able to listen to the "Lone Ranger" clear through without having to wonder what happened during most of the program when . you were having your own troubles trying to get "Silver" to ride through that static curtain. |