NOT A DEAD END

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 11

NOT A DEAD END

RADIO OPERATOR'S CHANCE MANY CHANCES AND GOOD PAY. An article in Wednesday's Post, entitled "Outlook for 'Sparks,' " has aroused a great deal of interest among ."wireless people. The matter consisted of extracts from the English journal, The. Navy, and. described wireless as a deadend occupation, and professional operators as "stick-in-the-muds." Strong disagreement with the views thus quoted has been expressed to a Post repnesentatiyo by several wireless men, who support their attitude with arguments to show that on both arguments The Navy's writers were wrong. One of these critics^ said that he would suggest that the views expressed in the .article were those either of unsuccessful operators or of mercantile marine deck officers. "If written by the first type, then their opinion, is biased, and not worth considering. If written by the second type, they are the views' of men who, right through, have tried hard to discredit the work of the. wireless officers. The newspapers prefer to. write of the heroic stand of the wireless officer rather than about the captain being the last off the ship. • It is a glorious fact that no British wireless officer has been found wanting in time of distress. They have, kept their, apparatus working even undar exceptionally difficult conditions, improvising ways and means to keep the apparatus in working condition. . This is the strong argument against the statement that the operators are 'stick-in-the-mud' experts. If they were, then it would be. impossible for. them to .have such a knowledge and, practical grig of their, iristrumente as to enable them in distress (tbe great..test) to improvise apparatus when parU have been destroyed-" Referring to the idea, that wireless is a "dead-end" occupation, this speaker declared; that, from a very ample knowledge of! the wireless business in the larger sense, radio work offered a. great many fine oppoi;tunitie3. It must bo remembered, he said., that it was only 25 years since Marconi was the only wireless operator,' whereas now there were thousauds of ship end hundreds of coast sta- | tinns, and dozens of companies dealing ' solely with' wireless. The business had grown enormously," and it was absurd to ' suppose that it was going suddenly to [ stop growing now or soon. That meant that a continual, series of good appointments was being added to those already held, in.addition.'to the increasing number of operators' posts. ■ . . ' . ■ As an example of the prospects in the business, tho reporter-was'reminded of a young man who joined the profession in 1905, and after bfting' on ships was appointed to the shore staff. He is now head of a large wireless company, with a salary of over £1500 per year. Another young man who joined as wireless officer in 1910 is now secretary of that company. Another youn^ man left New Zealand to go to sea as wireless operator; he is now receiving £800 a year from the Australian Government—still in wireless. "Take the early cases," said tho critic. "Bradfiiftldi, Gray, and numerous others loft good positions to join the wireless profession; Where ar» they now? Still keen on wireless?" Certainly; and getting big salaries."

Tho criticised article stated that the operator resents fresh devices. It was declared ; that, on the contrary, every operator was keen on his work, and was the real, source of many improvements, which have been made on ship sets.. In the Union Steam Ship Company's ships, 90 per cent, of the operators had their own receiving apparatus which they experimented with when oft official watch. One writer had stated! that operators were not allowed to "tinker" • with the apparatus. How could ari operator keep his apparatus in working1 order unless he knew his instruments' thoroughly, and constantly "tinkered". with' them? : "The operator is the man who knows the prospects of his own business best. | Only recently an offer was made to four I wireless officers in turn, that they shxmld I come ashore to a vacancy at £7 a week. They all flatly refused, a.nd said they [ had better prospects at their own work." Deck officers, continued the speaker, might be unable to find outlets for their knowledge ashore; but there were no men on the wharves to-3ay with wireless operators' tickets. To the wireless operator, the sea represented only a few rungs of the ladder to a big job ashore; and more than that, it enabled a young man, during1 six years afloat, to save about £1000 —a sum with which he certainly need not start again at the bottom of the ladder. There were not many professions in which a man could save as much as that by the time he was 25— an age at which a great percentage of university students, for instance, were still training to enter a profession.