TELEPHONING ANTIPODES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 49, 28 February 1927, Page 3

TELEPHONING ANTIPODES.

POSSIBLE THIS YEAK., BUT WHAT ABOUT SECRECY! 1 jt'.oni Opt Special Correspondent.'! -;A LONDON", -January 10.-;. Is lf>27 to be the Annus Mirabilis iaj which talk with the antipodes will noi: only be scientifically possible, but com-* ; mercially—at a price—available? Thai success of the first few days' service toi Xew York seems to indicate this is certainly possible. {j

Mr. Kellaway, a former general, and now managing director ofc the Marconi Company, sees in the im»* mediate future scope for great develop*-' ment when the beam stations in !ia, South Africa, and India are These were set up primarily for tele*? graphic work, but once installed, thej£ will serve the purpose of being useful telephony. Generally it can be stated;; that wherever high-speed wireless tela*; graphy services on the beam system aref established, the installations can alsq be used for wireless telephony services,It will be possible to conduct both ajwireless telegraph service and a wire*: less telephone service simultaneoustj»J from the same station by putting in ai£ additional transmitter, the cost of with the necessary building, will he conn; paratively small, and it should follow the cost to the public will be lowered. •

Mr. Kellaway says after these three beam overseas services have been started all that wiif he required to establish! wireless telephony with the Empire 'will be an additional transmitter with tha necessary building for each station. Ha does not wish in to be supposed, however. that the Postmaster-General, os anybody else, can start a service in the:' twinkling of an eye. but he is confident; it would be possible to do it in the course of the present year.

He went on to say: '"The possibilities are simply fascinating. For example, the Duke of York will be opening tha new Houses of Parliament in Australia, this year. If a wireless telephouy seri vice on the beam system was established, and an hour convenient to each country, could be arranged, I can see no technical difficulty in the Duke of York's speech being sent to London by wireless telephony and broadcast by the 8.8.C."

A great deal of business has been transacted over the Englan.d-America service. Whether at the price, and after the novelty has worn thin, it will continue to be made use of in any great quantity remains to be seen. A number of purely fraternal and seasonal greetings have been passed over the wire, and the transmission is aparently as good t and even better than it often is ia local circuits. There is, however, one point which must be established before the services, can be used for anything confidential Considerable surprise has been expressed here that the G.P.O. made even so cou« tident a statement as: "It is impossible with ordinary wireless receiving sets to overhear thesei conversations. Special apparatus, knowledge, and skill would be necessary to secure an intelligent reception of any portion of a conversation held betweea this country and Xew York. Experiments are l)oinz pursued with a view to securing a higher degree of privacy ia the future." More than one case has been reported of a listener in tapping message s . It is true the speech, when overheard thus by an unknown listener, is not always so clear as broadcast speech is usually, still, it is audible. To-day it is reported from Vienn.i that a wireless conversation was tapped there on the opening day. In the case reported a simple three-valve receiving set. tuned to a wave length of 5,760 metres was used. Though it was posted in a particularly noisy street in the' heart of the city, every word of the conversation on both sides was clearly overheard, and a part of it was even passed on to the editorial office of a local news« paper. This was done by placing th-» loud-speaker of the receiving set against the mouthpiece of a telephone connected up with the newspaper office.

A standard three-valve broadcast re> ■'elver, in fact, appears to h» able to in tercept this telephone service easily.