WIRELESS TELEPHONY PROGRESS

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 303, 22 September 1928, Page 6

WIRELESS TELEPHONY PROGRESS

WHAT AUSTRALIA IS DOING. The day when Australia will be linked with other lands by wireless telephony is not apparently as far distant as many might think, says the Melbourne “Age.” The chief electrical engineer (Mr. J. M. Crawford) in the Postmaster-Geuerul’s Department, elaborated a recent prediction of the Postmaster-General by promising that probably a wireless telephone service would be installed between Melbourne and Tasmania before many summers pass. A fair amount of research work, however, will bo necessary before that stage of our radio progress has been reached. Intense transmission power is found necessary in Europe and America, where a system of cross-A tian tie wireless telephone calls is in operation. In Australia the system has been introduced by Amalgamated Wireless Limited between lighthouses and the mainland, messages being transmitted over distances of up to 60 miles. The radio telephone for public use presents greater diilicnlties in its establishment. In wireless telephony the process of repeating the voice from one long-distance statio'n to another has proved practicable, and this fact extends the potentialities of this marvellous form of communication. The rate for “calls” across the Atlantic to-day is £l5 for three minutes, three-fifth rates being charged in the evening. Communication by wireless phone is now in operation between all parts of America and Cuba. Canadian cities, Vienna, all parts of Belgium, Copenhagen. principal cities of France, all parts of Germany and Holland,. Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Mexico, Mr. Crawford, stated definitely that the question of establishing telephone communication with Tasmania either by radio or cable line bad been investigated, and when the data obtained by Mr. Brown (Director of Postal Services in England) was available a decision would be arrived at. The cable proposal is the more expensive.