WIRELESS WONDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 8, 9 January 1914, Page 8

WIRELESS WONDERS.

•man siGNAxs to ships. VALUE OF THE JfEW ZEALAND EXPERT'S VIEW. <Ey Telegraph.—Own Corresponaent-> WELLiIMJTON, Thureday. An :ntereiting visHor to WeHrngton at prc-ren; ie Mr. A. C. Braithwaite, who until recently wae attached to the London t=:afT af the Marconi Wireless Telegraph (.'irmpany. Mr. Braithwarte is etill a voting man, and ie a New Zealinder. having been born in Christchurch. After an a;bsen<-p -of seven years he nor; com-e to the Dominion on holiday to see his relatives, who reciJe in Christchnrcli. iA "Timi repreeentative haul an interesxlns: with Mr. Braithwarte to-day on recen" dorngs in the ■wirele&s world.

The march of projrreft in wirelefic mat-t-ers has been most, phenomenal. Only cix years people looked upon th* wirei-cfs telegraph as v mere freak irirvdTtion; now it ;ts the nitmost mjpoTt-anc-e To the. commercial word. The. Tioveiry az ti is wearinir off, and the ■wiiote tiring i≤ coming t>> be regarded as a matter of course, -but if a person delves a little beneath the surface of this •cctraor&iimry ecien-ce 'lie learns that there is more c.haii he has ordinxtriTv time to understand.

Mr. Br.aii'hTwaJite first, spoke of a "branch -a: 'wireJeee work in whicii he JiimseJf been engaged, the sending of time cignale. '"With ahc ordinary means at our disposal." he said. "It is vrry d-cnibi-fnl whether outeide Green:■wich JLseJf the world h;is e% - er had the absolutely attrurate time of day. The Bending >f time signals over α-he ordinary tolegraph line iss a. meane t-o -ill sorts of iniluenef*. and r>ne trouble ha* been the kick of co-capemiion between the varions point-s through ■which rhe signals have 'been transmitted, liacli country lias -Had ire own obscrvutorir;-. ■working with the eun and etare. and the ■inaccuracies iound. in the time have often been atrocioub. The first wh-eU-sa Time signals were sent out from the Eiffel Tower station in Paris in 1910 The sigTtals were tnipplied from the Paris Obr-erv:Uory, and were emitted each Tijgrit. Now a regular series of signal : a sent out day acd ■nigh:, and these Jiave proved indiopemsable already, esperially CC navigation." Formerly, he continued, ovecin-going sbrpo ccmld deterTnine tbe time by means of eextant observation of tlie r-un <j. r (i-f the t?tars The vorresiionding lime oi the Greenwich meridian has :o l>e c-irried by ,-;iron<rmetert= or received from '.ami by wireless. Accuracy by chronometers is impoessi'blf. so it ha*s come about that accuraie time at, sea can only be obtained i)Y wirelec-s fro-m -the KinVl Tower. O'liips in the Kaetem Atlantic and Medi:hnp whirii it- was impotsrble for them

«leal in limes of peace, but ii- means even more in vr.ir time. A ship carrying wireless anJ receiving the time signals X'xdf. >ure!y thU means the prevention of disaster. One n! the suggestion- recently put f.mvarj. Mr. Braithwaite aJde.l. in rolusion n> ihi> subject ww thai a f-ye-u-m of intermit io nil iime should be applied f.Titioini. When he left Knjland negotiations were 6-till in and 'he British IVstmar.wr-fler.eral had the mi:ter in hand. He undergo,*! thai The air.hori-ties in Npw Zeaiand and Australia .vnre to be a>=ked to eo-oaer.v.e in The

Amateur wireless experimenters lave, a staunch c-hajnpion in Mr. A. (_'. Braiih"T 'uve put in ;i plea fur i'w amateur An aft many O:v.a=ions ,ib possible," he told :i "Times" rernme:-. "aiul I Jiave nearly h:id my hea.d -bitTen ofl* in consc- ■ |iieii,v. People semrio fnrgPt that umaworid in a svicme like wirHeer. of which ■we don'; know bait f-iioujrh ye;. In muBT ca*en the Testrk-tkins placed upon amateur "WirelcssS enthusiasts ha-ve been The worst kind o: pure officialdom imposed by pU'lili officials, who have no; :.he leaet idea of wiat they are doing." Mr. Brartirwarte naturally /eels etrotrgly on the subject, Kir he started as an amateur 'himself teven years ago at liis home in He carrying out experiments wirh a trade home-made wireless set which worked well with a Tange of :in yards. Mr. Braithtwaite became .-ft interested in the subject that 'he •weni to Germain" to study, and now be if an expert. Same of his ideas for tie improvement of various parts of the Marconi wirel-eas apparatus have ihpen put, into practical uee. and his design for a portable military wireless •■et 'for Tniliuuy purposes was the tin?: mif adopted by- the English army authorities. "I owe a great deal." he said, "to tiip "fiddling round" T did in niv lirtle workshop, and I can quite understand rhat :;.herp are d-ozens, if not hundreds, of young men ;wim want to do a≤ T did. In 'iXew Zealand amateurs are •barred absolutely, and. T doubt from ■wiKit T heard w-he; lier t:if*v will <»vor be all-owed to experiraonl in t'nr T>TTr:nion. but there is a simple solution of tlio A year or so -ago ihe amateur surione in New York were so TTirmfrous —ulien- were ►romethiirg like 2..10n of them—-tiat. were not able to work wifii ihe land stations'with any rfl>«C. That, of Cjmmse. .was highly daiito life "at sea. but the American authoTitiffi. when they were forced to t-AKA iwtioTi. did rrot Isar amatcure a]*o-get-ber; they prohibited sets of wide -range. 'That meant tiiat aina.teurK must not naTC wirdess appara-tns of beyond a power. As an ad<litional precaution they -werp allowed to work for only one hour in the early evening. Heavy penalties -were imposed, and that stopped all the lunatics who- were -esponsEble for nearly all the fihips in the Atlantic day and night, but it. cave the genuine amateur a chance. T: lie was serious about hie experiments h" would keep strictly to the regulations The latter, as far as I know, are .working ■well, and similar ones have ibeen adopted at various European centres with {rood effect."

"The amateur rfiouM 'lip nnrnuraspd a<s much as pcesible." addfni Mr. Brairhwaiti. , "We don't want lunntics with ainaifiir sets sending out tlip "S.O.S.' c:ill at frequent intervals just f or f unthp 'h-ontet experimenter -ia the mo.-t valuable man to the science."