WIRELESS ON TRAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 140, 14 June 1924, Page 22

WIRELESS ON TRAINS

QUEENSLAND EXPERIMENT.

(MOM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

. .. . SYDNEY, sth June. Some very: interesting experiments regarding the installation of wireless on railway trains have been carried out in Queensland. Although so far the results have not been . altogether encouraging, .'there are hopes that methods will be found for overcoming, the obstacles to success. The experiments were carried out on the Commissioner's inspection car. .He 'arranged for the inspection car_ attached to the Townsville mail train to be fitted with a wireless telegraph receiving set only, and this was placed in charge of Mr. O. Daley, of the Eailway. Department. The experiment was interesting and instructive. When leaving Brisbane a concert-.was distinctly heard even when passing through the towns, but it was not'loud enough to entertain a carriage full of passengers. At Rockhamptonl and in North Queensland, \ music from Farmer and Company's broadcasting station iri Sydney was heard indistinctly but messages forwarded in the Morse code were easily distinguishable.'

■ The noise of the running car'militated against ' the success of the experiment, and the operation of- the electric light dynamo was also an obstacle. Telegraph and : 'telephone messages being conveyed on the lines running parallel with the train were frequently picked up by induction while the train was in motion. By a strange coincidence, an officer at one railway station was heard telephoning to another station that he had a truck ready to load an aeroplane for the station called. It was singular that the reference .should have been to a flying -machine while an experiment in wireless, the. other' big invention of science, wak being conducted. )'•..■■