WIRELESS TELEPHONE

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 149, 18 March 1924, Page 6

WIRELESS TELEPHONE

MESSAGE FROM SOUTHERN SEAS DISTANCE OF 1400 MILES COVERED It was stated yesterday by the Post-master-General (Hon. J. G. Coates) that the following message addressed to the Governor-General by Captain Hooper, of the Marine Department, on board the s.s. Sir Janies Clark Ross, was received at the Awarua radio station at 11.30 a.m. on Friday last:— “I am pleased to transmit to you the first radio telephone message sent from tne Ross dependency. The first whaling station in Ross dependency has now terminated; and the Norwegian whaling expedition, consisting of six vessels, is now off Balleny Island, 1400 miles from Awarua. radio, on its way to Port Chalmers. The expedition has secured 221 whales; and I hope next season’s operation Will bo more snocessiul, and result hi this company finding it necessary to increase the scope of its operations.’’ The following reply was dispatched by His Excellency "Your radio telephone report, which was clearly'received, is of great interest. I’lease convey my congratulations to the V haling Coinanv on the successful results achieved this season, and my hopes that these results will be exceeded (next year. 1 trust that the expedition will have a pleasant passage to New Zealand.” The Sir Janies Clark Ross, during the whole of her whaling expedition to the Ross dependency, was in communication with the Awarua xadio station by wireless telegraphy, but the message was forwarded in this instance by wireless telephony. The distame.e, 1400 miles, is the greatest over which the radio telephone equipment on board the ship was used during the expedition. This is the first occasion upon which the radio telephone has been used to send an official wireless communication to a New Zealand ccast station. Although the message from Captain Hooper is the first official message to be received in New Zealand by radio telephone, the Sir James Clark Ross is not the first ship equipped with radio telephone apparatus to visit New Zealand waters. Several ships, both naval and mercantile, which have come here have been similarly equipped, and have communicated with New Zealand coast stations, although their wireloss telegraph sets have always been used for the purpose of official communication as being more secret and accurate for the transmission of code and other messages. Radio telephone broadcasting stations as far afield as the United States of America, Honolulu, Australia, sending out concerts by radio telephone, are frequently heard in New Zealand.