Top U.S. short-wave broadcasting power is the 40 kw. of General Electric Co.'s station W2XAF at South Schenectady and Westinghouse's station W8XK at Saxonburg, Pa. But General Electric is building a 100 kw. transmitter to improve the service it sends on directional beam to South America. Germany lists its short-wave transmitter that operates from Berlin's Haus des Rundfunks at 40 kw. Great Britain's Daventry, with top power at 50 kw., sends its short-wave voice round the world. The Netherlands has two 60 kw. stations at Hilversum, which operate with unique beams that turn in any direction (known to the Dutch as the "Holland merry-go-round"). The U. S. S. R.'s station RV96 at Moscow is listed at 100 kw., but its great power sings oddly small in many parts of the world.
Last week Italy boasted that it had beaten everybody. Premier Benito Mussolini put into operation the new Imperial Short Wave Radio Centre at Prato Smeraldo, on the outskirts of Rome. There the Italians have upped the power of two old 25 kw. transmitters to 50 kw. each, matched Moscow's RV96 with not one but two 100 kw. transmitters.
All four are equipped with directional beams to deliver concentrated short waves in 22 different directions. Thus, Government-controlled Ente Italiano Audizioni Radiofoniche (Italian Broadcasting Institute) hopes to cover the Italian empire, secure for Italy's new loud voice ears for its propaganda in the farthest corners of Britain's empire, the U. S., the Orient.