State

Blame It On The Sun Spots It's I lie* sun dial is responsible for iiiueli foully radio reception, and il was a Winston-Salem vouii|* man who led the scientists to dis¬ cover this fact. «1# JOHN A. PARKIS. JR. ТИК black-haired young man with the Hashing eye' who set scientists on the trail of radio signal fade- outs and the discovery that the phe¬ nomena VII caused by spots on the sun, slumped on the big couch at his home in Winston-Salem and talked about radio and airplanes and the mysteries of the air. He was Francis Jenkins and he is one of Eastern Air Lines’ crack radio operators at 30th Street Airport in -Miami, In Winston-Salem visiting his parents, Jenkins recalled ho began working with E.A.L. at the Greens¬ boro Airport buck in 1031 when radio was making its debut in the Hying in¬ dustry. How It Happened Jenkins hung a rope of cigarette smoke above his head, drew his long legs up under him and told how he made observations of radio signal fade-outs, and bow Dr. J. IL Dcl- leuger. director of the Bureau of Standards, in Washington, cleared up one of the biggest mysteries of the magic of wireless. It was spring, 1934. Jenkins sat his short-wave instru¬ ments in the radio shack at the E.A.L. airport in Atlanta. Ho had just closed his key after gabbing with Frank Hawks, who was streaking like a bul¬ let from Miami to Newark. A few clouds bung in the sky like cotton candy; otherwise, it was clear. Weather reports along the circuit sig¬ nalled a perfect day for Hying— and radio. Then it happened. •Signal- from Miami, Newark, and Jacksonville faded rapidly and com¬ pletely. Jenkins bent over his instruments, threw wide every one of his six re¬ ceivers. No sound oumo from them. For 40 minutes it was like that. For 40 minutes he was isolated from ev¬ ery Hying station in the country, and then as suddenly as they disappeared, the signals returned. “That’s funny — and peculiar," Jenkins told himself. He called Newark and his signal was picked up. He asked the operator : "Have you been able to pick up mv signals during the lust 40 minutes?" The answer came; “No." Jenkins contacted Miami and the answer was the same. Л Repetition Two days later the same thing happeued again, and then three days went by and the signals faded on the fourth day. By this time Jenkins knew something was happening some place up there where men never have been in ships. For two months he checked these signal fade-outs. He put the day, the time they occurred, on a chart. And then ho wrote out a report, sent it, along with the chart, to Interna¬ tional Radio la-ague. No radio operator ever before had reported signal fade-outs. So the In¬ ternational Radio la-ague became in¬ terested in the strange occurrence, and that was when Dellcngcr waa called in on the case. "Dr. Dellcngcr wrote me.” ex¬ plained Jenkins, "and told me he had seen my report, and that he was mak¬ ing a personal study of the fade-outs. He said he believed the sun or the moon had something to do with them." So Dr. Dellcngcr contacted scien¬ tists at the Mount Wilson observa¬ tory and sent them the chart Jenkins had kept. With this chart, the scientists at Francis Jenkins, of Winston-Salem, one of Eastern Air Lines’ crack radio operators. the observatory checked their daily records and were amazed to tin-1 that un the .lays Jenkins reported signal fade-outs there had been disturbances on the surface of the sun. "The scientist' reached tin- conclu¬ sion,” said Jenkins, "that spots on the sun caused the radio -igual fade- outs. My observations checked closely with the lime of the unusual eruptions on the sun’s surface, and so they put it down as a fact that spots on the sun cause these fade-outs." When the investigation was over. Dr. Dellcngcr wrote Jenkins and thanked him fur his keen sense of ole servation, and told him he hud con¬ tributed much to science. Jenkins is a iuodc-t young fellow. He doesn't think lie has done m much — particularly since the technician' have reached a dcnd-cnd as to what to do about eliminating the fade-out periods. "They’re stymied there," explained the bluck-liaircd young man. "For months now thev have 1ичч» Irving to find s ome way to keep the radio sig¬ nals from fading when llu-e -un erup¬ tions hap|ieu. They’ve tri.-l to stop the fade-outs by increasing the i*ower. But nothing »ee ui-> to do any good. The only thing about it i. that they know now for the first time what causes the fade-out.-. 1 hey don’t blame them on faulty receivers." 3