WHISPERING GALLERY

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1928, Page 9

WHISPERING GALLERY

MARCONI’S WIRELESS STATION. On the wind-swept uplands above old-world Dorchester, in the heart of the Thomas Hardy /country, one of the most wonderful whispering galleries in the world has just come into operation (writes a Dorchester correspondent of the ‘Daily Chronicle’). .It is the new beam wireless station of Marconi’s. Daily it whispers across thousands of miles of ocean to New York, Rio, and Buenos Aires, and in a- short time it- will be on speaking terms with Egypt, Japan, and the Far East. There is virtually no limit to the range of its powerful, yet gentle, voice. Sometimes when it speaks its messages go round the world three times —75,000 miles in three-sevenths of a second —meanwhile automatically recording their journeyings with a magic pencil on the reception tapes. A half-mile long avenue of latticework masts, 280 ft. high, with great aprons of copper-wire aerials and re Hectors slung below them, marks Dorchester’s station for communicating with the ends of the earth. Five ol these monster masts provide- four working “bays.” At present two arc used for New York and two for experimental purposes. Across the road aYe two more masts lor the South American service, and in a neighbouring field, formerly given over to quiet pasture, workmen are now engaged on. anothei- gigantic erection to be used for transmission to the Far East. There is no wastage, and the same masts serve for New York and Cairo. Radio beams follow certain defined circle tracks round the , earth, and New York, Dorchester, and Cairo are all on the same circles. And so arises the miracle of a message sent out into space on the west side of the aerial going to the new world, while the same message leaving from the east side finds its way to Egypt. Both sides can be. used simultaneously. Beam wireless can be used lor telephony as well as telegraphy, and extensive successful experiments give promise that during the next yeai it will be possible for a- business man in London or elsewhere to pick up his received ami speak to South America, Egvpt. or Japan. Photographs, prints, ami cheques can be wirelessed from Dorchester in Ihe same way, ami most amazing of all. the three methods—telegraphic, telephonic. ami pietoria I--ca n be l ransmitted simultaneously from the same aerial, the same transmitter, and on llm same wave-length. In other words, a photograph ol ih\ King opening .Parliament, a telephoned newspaper report ol a boxing match, and Stock Exchange business in the Morse code at 200 words a minute could be sent to New York simultaneously from the same apron of copper wires on the hill-top above Dorchester. Marconi’s handle only foreign beam wireless, tlie dominion services being

operated bv the Post Office at the Grimsby, Bodmin, and Bridgwater stations built by the Marconi Comp’lii.v. The beam system, a monopoly of Marconi's, places Britain in the van of wireless development.