EXPECTING BOMBS

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1935, Page 5

EXPECTING BOMBS

WIRELESS STATION. SWEDE IN ADDIS ABABA. BIG PROFITS IN MEANTIME. (By LAURENCE STALLINGS.) ADDIS ABABA, September 15. It is a foregone conclusion, here that the Italians will bomb and destroy the radio station, which is a sprawling, oat-meal-coloured building out in the green plain. Approaching it, one understands tho reason for its location; contrary to popular belief that tho Italians constructed it to be particularly vulnerable to air attack, it is apparent that they chose the best possible situation for short-wave sending. The station snaps its steel fingers to the sky in the centre of a circle whoso circumference is a valley and this valley is again circled, concentrically, by high and formidable ranges. It will be peaches-and-cream for a flight of three Savoiia-Marchettis; and the lads who turn the trick can effect it after the dawn cup of coffee and be back in the hangar playing the phonograph by cocktail time. Ethiopia knows this, of com**, just as the Italians know its destruction cannot seriously affcct the transmission of messages frpm here tc. Cairo. One may not pry too closely into the station, but it needs 110 detective to know that half a dozen Hoinclite generators for petrol power are not everyday practice near a radio station. These generators arc for recharging the wet cells of portable field stations operating 011 short wave, though the stations are not visible and are reliably reported to be hidden with the natural cunning of the tribes which guard them.

As the Italians gave the world tlic radio and lately through Senator Marconi perfected the last skill in shortwave transmission, they may now contemplate the most sccret use of their

invention by a nation incapable of building such profoundly delicate gear of civilisation. Short-Wave Transmission. Mr. F. Hammar, the Swedish engineer in charge, discusses this possible attack from the skies with the imperturbability of his race. "Yes, I think we shall be bombed. No; we shall not evacuate the station in that event. It will be a pleasure to patch it together again. No one is leaving because of it." Italy held the radio station until eight months ago, when the assiduous and phlegmatic Mr. Hammar began to demonstrate, with portable short-wave sets, that he could reach Djibuti almost any hour, despite the lead curtain which the accursed Ked Sea sometimes drops like a pall upon this mountain fastness. As for Cairo, that, too, is quite conveniently reached. The present wireless apparatus, though of Italian installation, actually bears testimony of British enterprise and American manufacture. The main sending sets operate exclusively shortwave, of American design, sending 011 four frequencies between l~> and 40 metres. Flood of Press Messages. Mr. Hammar takes quiet pride in his record of unceasing petty differences with the Italians during his residence. (To have differed with an Italian is a badge of distinction here.) They did not" relinquish the station until Mr. Hammar began to get professional results with a short-wave set of his own fabrication. He has enjoyed the recentdeluge of cables. Tall and blond and serious, the little work involved in transmitting a mere 200 or .'IOO words a day concerning the export of hides, has not been enough to prevent home sickness among himself, his Russian and Armenian assistants and the four Galla labourers. Now, with trouble in the clouds above, newspaper men reward his fidelity with 8000 words a day, at approximately a dollar a word; and there was one day when the correspondents, all teeming with stories, presented 50,000 words. At this rate the station will pay for itself in a year.

Mr. Hamrnar is so pleased with the station's, profits that he does not mind at all the 'prospect of the bombers suddenly blowing him through the windows. His family has gone to Europe, but this was their vacation time. He looks forward to their return soon. As

jfor bombproof shelters, "Yes; a good I bombproof we are building. Of courAj if one of the big bombs strikes it wo shall not be safe because I have 110 j concrete to reinforce it. But for genicral uses it will do." I One looks around the landscape for | a sight of newly-turned earth (tlio rarest sight in Ethiopia, anyway) but the valley is tranquil in the thick, sopping grass. "It is well concealed," Mr. Hainmar remarks with a smile.-— (Copyright, N.A.N.A.).