"WIRELESS FEVER"

Evening Star, Issue 21079, 16 April 1932, Page 4

"WIRELESS FEVER"

Two gaunt scatfolding poles, mysterious to the passer-by, have been erected on a piece of land at the rear of Hull University College (says the Hull ‘Times’). They might be mistaken for Rugby posts but for the constant attention they receive from a professor and his research students. Pioneer work is afoot. Tho field of investigation is short wave and beam wireless transmission. Exciting things are being discovered. An incidental fact that has recently been found—material for a hundred thrillers—is that short radio waves have a physiological effect and can induce slight fever. But there are more important finds than this. Interviewed in his study at the college, Professor L. S. Palmer gave a reporter a glimpse of the new horizons which are opening. “ The tall poles,” he said, “ are suspensions for experimental aerials for short-wave wireless investigation. The further development of theories evolved in 1929 have recently led to results of considerable interest and commercial importance. “ Although tho short-wave beam s;ations are now an accomplished fact, it is not generally known that the destfu of these stations was in the first phee incorrect, and the expected transmissions to South Africa, Australia, aid other places did not come up to expictations. In fact, the Government vas not justified in taking them over fnm tho constructors for several weeks af;er the scheduled time, during which perbd various modifications were made by somewhat unscientific method of tral and errors. “ Satisfactory communication was eventually established at the desind points, not in the way a beam of lipit comes out of a lighthouse, but by a fin of waves passing over the surface of tie earth in a vertical plane. The origiial inefficiency of tho stations was due to lack of knowledge on the theories of short-wave propagation in general aid on the reflection of such short waies in particular. The theoretical side wis subsequently worked out at the Univorsity College of Hull and published in August, 1929. The same conclusims were reached by two American statists and published in the same monb independently.” With this theoretical informatin about the mechanism of the reflectitn of short wireless waves Professor Punier is now able to design short-wan transmitters of far greater efficiency ._ The most important of his recent discoveries concerns frame aerials. “It is well known to every wireless enthusiast that the tuning of his circuit can easily increase the signal strength hundreds of times. He has no means at his disposal to make any further increase in signal strength other than by increasing the amplification. “ It has now been discovered that with a frame aerial a variation of only a few inches in the dimensions of a frame will increase the current and thereby enhance the signal strength many thousands of times, even though the tuning was already perfect. It has been thought hitherto that increasing the area of a frame aerial would increase the signal strength, but it has now been found that even doubling tho area of a frame may reduce the signal strength, and that for the best reception the area is as critical as the dimensions.”

The professor points out that these discoveries result from an academic research on which no commercial undertaking would have been justified in spending money. Such research as this is an essential and typical part of the work of an institution like the University College. In conversation the professor mentioned that he and his students had found that the short wave, with which they are dealing, being about the same length as a man’s height, have a physiological effect, and are apt to produce a condition resembling slight fever.