WIRELESS COMMUNICATION.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17402, 13 March 1922, Page 8

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION.

NEWS AT SEA; SMALL SKEWS' S.O.S. SIGNAL. (TEOU OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) LONDON, January 26. A statement'made by Sir Joseph Cook, the new High Commissioner for Australia, raises the question of the supply of wireless news to ships at Bea. He commented on the fact that on the voyage to England "we had no news whatever, except that which was received privately or at ports for half the trip, and then we began to collect it from this end." When he last came to England he travelled by wav 0 f the Pacific, and though it was war time, h batch of news reached the skip daily. On his return to Australia after the Peace Conference they were similarly favoured. On his recent voyage, he said, no Australian wireless news appeared on the notice board. Sir Joseph, it is affirmed, was unfortunate, for the P. and X)., though they do not publish a daily bulletin, are in habit of posting up messages from time to time. From enquiries made at Marconi House it appears that the Marconi International Communication Company equipped vessels with apparatus to mf«t the specific icquirements of the owners. Whenever thev Jiad been asked to supply a news service to shipping companies they had always endeavoured to do fq, airl generally succeeded in meeting the request. In the supply of-a news service throughout the journey to Australia there were no technical difficulties ; it was purely a matter of financial arrangement. There are many Bources from which' ships at sea receive news, and on Atlantic and Mediterranean voyages services are received several times daily. In some of the services the messages are prefaced with a code which means that they are free to all ships for publication among the passengers. Other .messages may only be conveyed to the passengers if the ship is a "subscriber" to the service. Thus a great deal of interesting information is picked up and does not go beyond the Marconi room, which in these times is somewhat tantalising to the passeugers. . Amongst the regular services is the bulletin despatched daily from Poldhu. On the other side of the Atlantic is an American and also a Canadian station, both of which send out messages daily. Tlio Poldhu messages are re-transmitted at Teneriffe, so that both North and South Atlantic are served. Then there is the station at Leafield, in Oxfordshire, which transmits messages on behalf of the Foreign Office thrice daily, at noon, eight p.m., and midnight. This service is, of course, available to every ship that cares to publish it. The messages can be picked up anywhere within a circle with a radius of 2000 miles, which means that they can be read us far east as Suez. On. many occasions, of course, -when conditions are favourable they can be tapped at very mudh greater distances. In addition to the services already mentioned there aro innumerable messages sent cut by foreign Governments for propaganda pu'-poses. It will be recollected that at ino Imperial Conference the principle of a "wireless chain"- was agreed to, but there were many reservations Australia, for instance, (tesired direct communication between England iand the Commonweals -without retransmitting stations, and plans have beri made to carry this out. The scheme is at the present* moment being considered by a committee of the Australian Government, and-the question is also before the home Government. When the messages are .picked upat sea various methods are aflopted to disseminate tihe news among _ the passengers. Some of th 6 Atlantic produce publications daily with, in addition to the wireless news received, a number of interesting articles, and also •advertisements. Others use the menu printing machine for running ofi leaflets, while in many ships the news ia posted on the notioe-board. , New Bell-push S.O.S. A new wireles?-operated bell-alarm is being tested to take the place, on certain ships, .of t*he usual "ib.O.S." signal. "Our experiments/' said an official at Marconi House, "have proved most satisfactory. We have an instrument of the 'You touch the button, and we do the rest", kind, with the use of -which small ships need carry only one ■wireless operator instead of three. "Briefly, the instrument is a foursecond bell-alarm. By merely touching a key land repeating a four-second beat three times, a beu is rung on board all similarly-fitted ships with a range of 100 miles. This range is probably by no means final. We hope to extend it to 200 miles. Ten vessels havp already been equipped with this new device, and it is to be installed on about 15 others. In other words the instrument is being tested-on one vessel of each of the 25 commercial.fleets. The post is testing the instrument at North Foreland and at Niton, in the Isle of Wight. It is not intended / to alter the present 'S.O.S.' system -on the larger liners, as they can well afford to carr.v three wireless operators. And, of course, no alteration in the distress signal at all can be made except by international agreement- So far all our' tests point towards success. If the idea is eventually adopted it will be Known as the 'Four-Second Alarm.'. The alawn can be given by anybody, ami should the wireless operator be off duty he can be summoned to send a supplementary 'S.O.S.' message."