Evening Star Newspaper, November 14, 1926, Page 44

John Smith and BY FREDERICK C, RUSSELL No. 90—Condenser Caprices. “This looks like a good condenser,” Smith said, pointing to a special plece of equipment which he found on the nter in a radlo accessory store. jee, it has lots of insulation.” That started us going on the sub- Ject of condensers and their charac- teristics, because the best condensers @enerally have the least insulation. If the bearings of a variable con- @enser are of insulating material there Is bound to be greater wear on them and wear at this point in a con- denser of this kind is the prelude to trouble. It throws the plates out of line, with the result that sooner or later rotor plates may touch stator plates. At any rate, the space be- tween the plates will vary, and when the tuning of a set is so dependent upon the most accurate operation of its delicate units such a variation may mean the difference between getting & station clearly and not getting it at “But I don’t see that it makes much @ifference whether the plates are a little closer together at one time than another,” Smith said. “That i3 because you don’t under- stand the connection between the diejyctric and the capacity of the corglenser,”, I replied. The narrower the spacing between plates the greater the capacity, other things be- ing equal. That is because there is less dielectric between the plates. Dials Not Always Same. “Perhaps that's why my set seems to be so variable of late,” Smith spec- ulated. “The dlals are not always in the same position for the same station. Perhaps this happens when the rotor plates of one of the condensers get & Ittle closer or a little farther away from the stator plates.” “That sounds reasonable,” I agreed. “But in your case 1 doubt very much ouble is due to bad insulation g trouble directly caused by ngs themselves. The con- on vour set are equipped with a atop. and this is a bad arrangement. You twist the dlal of one to its limit on the marked scale and let it bang on the stop. This wouldn’t cause any trouble if it happened just once in a blue moon, but you seem to take particular delight in letting the con- denser rotor bang this way. That loosens the condenser bearings and varies the capacity of the instruments. “Also I was noticing that one of the dials scrapes a bit against the panel. This may seem very trivial but *hat panel on your set is too hard to he scratched. If it were made of some sof* materlal, it would wear down ard¢ thus accommodate itself to the panel. And, of course, the dial, in bending, carries the shaft of the particular condenser with it. That throws the plates a bit off, particular- ly since those stops have helped to loosen the bearings.” wanted Smith to see that con- densers cut up chiefly because they are made to violate simple rules of radlo and electricity. The capacity of any condenser is generally directly proportional to the area of the plates, their rumber and the “dielectric con- . in turn, is dependent upon the kind of material used for the dialectric. The idea of a con- denser is to allow passage of a ca- pacity current and not to provide the sort of a conducting path as you would have, for example, with a cop- per wire. Whatever conduction is offered by the arrangement of the plates. tkair construction or the ma- terial nged for the dielectric has to be oonsidered as leakage or loss. Dielectric Absorption. There is another form of loss known as “dielectric absorption.” This fs the characteristic some dielectrics have of absorbing and turning into \e additional voltage after the - of voltage is applied to I didn’t burden Smith s of this imperfec- tion of the condenser, but mentioned it to as just another sample of the pecu y of the condenser An American Achievement Such quality 1s without prec- edent among radio loud- spe: Powerful, direct- drive unit with eight connec- .| tions to cone (instead of only one). Adjustable. Good-looking. ers. FERRANTIi5 Transformers THEsE are the coils of a Ferranti A. F. 3 transformer. They constitute one of the reasons for its superior per- formance. No better trans- former is available at any price. Now you can have the radio reception to which you are entitled. Now you can all those low base notes and the high ones, too—and volume, plenty of volume, because a Ferranti is almost pesfect. Por the best obminable transformer se- nu Audso Prequency Trass- E3-muo3% w1 12 For eransformer far superior 1o the average, e Fesranu A.F. 4—rauo 3% 1©01—§8.30 FERRANT]I, Inc. 230 Wesc 420d St. - New York, N.Y. w1 Lo, FmxmaNTiELscT. LTD. Bliiweod 26 Nobie Sty Toroaw ‘Eagland Canads His Radio which, despite the finest design and most expert construction, usually is imperfect measured by the ideal. Condensers are well named ‘“vari- able.” A% a matter of fact, the so- called fixed condensers might also be called variable, because they often are anything but constant. Because they operate with such low capacity values and cannot be altered by the radio operator to meet varying conditions, they are rather vital and should be replaced when under suspicion. Cheap ones are always a source of trouble because they are just so much farther from the ideal and are subject to just so many more vagaries. They should also be handled carefully, just as in the case of the strictly variable tvpe. It is & very good thing to be able to vary the capacity of a condenser to meet the requirements of adjusting for different wave lengths—in fact, it's vital—but there should be a.definite limit to the variability of a condenser. It should ;ot be variable to the point of being capriclous. (Copyright by the Ullman Feature Service.) ol ity Missed Opportunity. From the American Legion Magazine. The village bank had been forced to olose its doors, and lke, although the town's champion ne'er-do-well, was loudest In his denunciations. “Aw, 'what are you kicking about?" growled a comparatively large deposi- tor. “You couldn’t have had more than a couple of dollars in there.” “Well," retorted lke, “if I'd known was gonna happen, I could of this been overdrawn, couldn’t I?" time1 Radiola 28, with 8Radiotrons, $260 A. 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Coincident with the assembly of the congressional conferees in Washing- ton, representatives of practically every branch of the radio and broad- casting industry are expected to be on hand in the Capital. The National As- sociation of Broadcasters will be rep- resented by L. S. Baker, executive secretary of the organization. e Chinese Drug Revived. A 4,000-year-old drug is just coming back into favor. Physicians have again staried to use ephedrine, a pow- erful aid in raising blood pressure and treating asthma and colds. Ephedrine was a favorite Chinese household rem- edy as far back as history carries. J M. P. QUAFS TA WITUCTANN {, CHARLESTON DEMANDED Footwear Will Endure Wriggling and Not 8lip Off Being Bought. By the Assoclated Press. .. ..aver 13.—Special | footwear which will not slip off during the wriggling foot movements of the Charleston is in growing demand now & that the modified Charleston has be. ' come one of the most popular dances | in London balirooms. 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