FIFTY YEARS OF RADIO

Evening Star, Issue 25425, 5 March 1945, Page 7

FIFTY YEARS OF RADIO

FROM MARCONI TO TELEVISION MODERN DEVELOPMENTS OUTLINED "Television within any country is to-day really quite practicable. In fact, you might say almost easy, but it requires a good deal of expenditure of money to provide the necessary equipment and some difficulty in arranging programmes, but it- is a thing which is coming." This statement was niada by Sir Ernest l-'isk, a radio pioneer, in the course of a broadcast talk last night. The talk was entitled, 'Fifty Years of Radio—From Marconi to Television.' "All the great nations are developing radio," Sir Ernest said. " All are contributing something to our knowledge, and all are anxious.to make full use cJf it. We cannot tell where it will lead, but I think that this great development has behind it a purpose. That purpose is to bring the .peoples of the world closer togetner, and with the exception of aviation, there is nothing we know so capable of achieving that as radio communication. •' Now radio communication is not limited to broadcasting, it is uot limited to sending wireless telegrams; it can send pictures about the world. You can have a photograph sent from New Zealand to London in about 25 minutes by- radio. Some day we shall be able to see .moving objects by what is called ' television.' " After referring to the part radiolocation had played in the Battle tor Britain, Sir Ernest stressed .that this discovery and other methods of radio navigation would prove as important in the world of commercial aviation after the war as signalling systems were to railways. "So far," he said, " radio has been capable olf use only to save human life and property, and to aid human defence against enemies. No means of using directly for destructive purposes has ever been found. Talks of radio death rays and radio rays which can bring aircraft down are not. based on fact; it cannot be done, and I hope it never will be done. Radio is a beneficial science, and is for the use of mankind and for the help of the nations of the world."