BEAM WIRELESS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18927, 16 February 1927, Page 13

BEAM WIRELESS.

WONDERFUL APPARATUS. UNCANNY RAPIDITY. (moM oub own cohresfokdmct.) SYDNEY, January 27. According to Press cable, messages from London tho official tosU of the Australian beam wireless aewico conducted by the British Post Office hnv6 not como up to the prescribed standard. Despite this, all the high officials connected with the service in Australia aro confident that all will come right in the end. Ono of these is Sir George Mason Allard, chairman of Amalgamate Wireless (Australasia), Ltd., which is responsible for the Australian end of the service. Sir George Allard was present last Friday evening in the company's operating room in Queen street, Melbourne, witnessing some of the tests being carried out with the General Post Office, London. He described somo of tho marvels of that nerve -ccntro of the scrvieo on his return to Sydney this week. "I was almost astounded,'' lie wild, "ns I stood in that room watching a small apparatus-about tho sine of » rawing machine-automatically leeling out a tape on which was printed a succession of Morse lettering. That lettering skilled operators were able to read with ease and transcribe on to typewriters in plain language or the ; usual telegraphic code words. One felt that here was something mysterious, uncanny, when one realised that th* Morse-covered tape was printed and poured forth into that Melbourne room as the effect of a similar machine operating in the London Post Office, at precisely the same moment. Hie time taken to go half round the world was infinitesimal.. " 'Look,' said the operator to me, I'll tell London to stop transmitting.' He moved bis transmitting key for a sec-

ond, giving tho Morso signal to stop. Quicker than I can tell you, the tap© ceased to record. Thus, m two moments Melbourne communicated with London, and across tho world, Melbourne observed tho result. 1 ' At the close of Friday's testing eossion, Sir George Allard sent a messago to Viscount Wolmer. Deputy Postmas-ter-General, and received a reply at the beginning of the next session. "The process of dispatching the messago," said Sir George Allard, "was intensely interesting. First, on what looked like an ordinarv typewriter, tbo operator tapped the keys, and from the mnchino ran out a tape punched with small holes which representor! Morse lettering. Tins tape was fed into a small transmitting machiue. and in a few seconds it passed through at tho rate of 175 words to the minute. As t stood there the operator told mo that the message had been transmitted and received. At that speed, of course, tho messago was perfectly secret, and certainly not available to listeners-in. "One amusing incident occurred during the tests. Tho British officer at the Skegness beam transmitting station wished at one stage to request the operator in London to hold down a key to his board, but because of troublo on tho lines from Skcgnw* to London ho was unable to, communicate. Therefore he sent a message over tho beam to Melbourne, asking that a message should bo sent to London requesting tho operator there to hold down the key. Tin's was done. The request was sent 24,000 miles instead of 120 miles from Skegness to London."