RADIO TELEPHONE

Evening Star, Issue 22084, 18 July 1935, Page 5

RADIO TELEPHONE

COMMUNICATION DVER COOK STRAIT ENGINEERS’ LONDON MISSION [Pms United Pbess Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, July 17. The relative advantages of cable telephone and radio telephone communication over Cook Strait will bo studied by two New Zealand engineers who are being sent to England shortly. The Director-General of the Post and Telegraph Department (Air G. M‘Namara) gave some details to-day of the proposed investigation. He said that a new line of communication was needed between the North and the South Islands, first because of the volume of business, and, secondly, because the existing cables were getting old. Too much risk of accident was involved in undersea cable communication, and the cost of maintenance was high. “ I have a feeling,” he said, “ that cables have become out of date for use in particular services, such as Cook Strait.” He indicated that the New Zealand engineers would specially investigate the recently established ninechannel micro-wave wireless • communication between Scotland and Northern Ireland. This was entirely new, and obviously the cost would be well below that of the submarine cable system. The conditions over the Irish Sea were, he believed, much the same as those over Cook Strait.