Abstract
THE broadcasting stations of Europe have now been working for two years in accordance with the Lucerne plan, by which a redistribution of wavelengths was put into operation on the night of January 14-15, 1934 (see NATTJBE of December 2, 1933, and January 20, 1934). A review of the working of this arrangement during the past two years is given in World Radio of January 17. The Lucerne plan has been more nearly applied than its predecessors of Geneva, Brussels and Prague, but the recommendations of the plan have not been fully adopted even by some of the countries which signed it. This failure is chiefly confined to the long-wave broadcast band, in which portions of three separate international arrangements now co-exist. On the medium waves, the position is much clearer and, generally speaking, the broadcasting stations are in their allotted places. The exceptions are chiefly confined to cases in which frequencies were allotted in the plan to stations not yet built, and these are now being used temporarily by other stations. A noteworthy development which has resulted from the application of the Lucerne plan is in the increased stability of frequency of broadcast transmitters which has taken place. The plan recommended a tolerance of ±50 cycles per second for stations using exclusive waves, and of ±10 cycles per second for stations using shared waves. A table of observations given in the article referred to above shows that in November 1935, 107 stations had attained the first limit, while 67 stations came within the smaller tolerance. Actually 12 stations showed a maximum deviation from their normal frequencies of 1 cycle per second or less. On the whole, it may be said that the results of international co-operation on the technical aspects of broadcasting in Europe have been fairly satisfactory; for some 230 stations in thirty-five different countries are now working relatively free of interference.
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Operation of the Lucerne Plan in Broadcasting. Nature 137, 145 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137145c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137145c0