BEAM SERVICE BEGINS

Grey River Argus, 9 April 1927, Page 5

BEAM SERVICE BEGINS

ENGLAND TO AUSTRALIA. 100 Words a Minute. FAULTLESS TRANSMISSION. LONDON, April 8. No fault could be found with this afternoon’s first press trial of the G.P.O. beam, which worked splendidly and within the safe limit of a hundred words a minute. In the vast Central London Telegraph Office to-day, when one’s ears were attuned to the metallic click, Melbourne’s strong O.K. could be heard almost simultaneously at the conclusion of the transmission. It was uncanny to watch the Wheatstone automatic transmitter on one side of the operator, swallowing up yards of lace-like morse tape, while simultaneously on his left hand the printer was reeling off dots and dashes coming from Ballan. The first newspaper message of greetings sent by the beam wireless system went to the Sydney “Evening News.” This was transmitted immediately the official messages were disposed of, and the reply was returned from Australia in less than one minute. Australia seemed uncannily near. An ingenious plant is devised to assist the mutual turning adjustment al both ends of the Australian beam, when fading or other difficulties ari The operator here inserts the trans mitter set to the agreed signals on the Morse tape, gummed to form a circle, continuously feeding through the in strument which keeps sending out the same calls till Melbourne answers that it is getting them clearly. Among the amafced onlookers was Mi Amery,, who with a message tc. Lord Stonehaven and Mr Bruce.

Here, is an incident demonstrating the almost personal touch. It was midnight in Melbourne and Sydney, hence it was hardly to be expected that Lord Stonehaven’ would be available to reply to Mr Amery’s greetings. The Morsing went on steadily until the official listening wrote: “Lord Stonehaven is now here waiting. ” Thereupon Mr Amery’s message was sent, and in an incredibly short space of time came the reply. Australian Press Association’s first greeting to its units in Australia was used as a test of the speed of transmission of the acknowledgements. From the instant the end of the tape entered the Wheatstone transmitter till Melbourne’s answering O.K. strongly resounded in the inctal amplifier was a shade under 45 seconds. The journalists’ greetings literally swamped the ether for more than an hour, in which only once or twice was there a suggestion of fading, but. never enough to make the incoming tape unreadalbe. In fact, the signals the whole time were adjudged sufficiently strong to work the creed automatic printer for direct delivery of (he address. Lord Burnham conversed with Sir George Fairfax, on behalf of the Empire Press Union. Sir Joseph Cook congratulated Messrs Allard and Fisk, and the acknowledgments were ticked out with bewildering rapidity. It is not divulging a secret to state Mr Amery showed the greatest thrill of interest when Mrs Bruce asked Mrs Amery did she realise they were the first women to greet each other on the world’s longest wireless link. Mr Amery said that anything which accelerated Empire communication was all for good. He was given a souvenir of the perforated tape with which the wives wirelessly performed the Do minions’ offices social amenities. 1000 WORDS A MINUTE. The technical heads of the Post Office afterwards faced a battery of Press inquiries. They said there was nothing to stop the wireless circuit accurately transmitting a thousand words a min ute, only the limit on speed was the mechanical capacity of the instrumentand land lines. Perhaps new inventions in the near future would make the present apparatus seem very slow. Even if there were fading, there would be sure to be thirteen hours’ standard transmission daily. The London business day did not overlap Australia’s, and even with fading it was fairly certain that a Londoner’s message would be waiting on a Melbourne or Sydney man’s office desk before his arrival. The Post Office engineers do not intend exploring the possibilities of telephony by the Australian beam till the shorter Canadian beam is satisfactorily harnessed for that purpose, towards which considerable progress is already made. Tests of the African and Indian beam station will shortly begin. Sir Joseph Cook, interviewed, said:— “This day is of the greatest importance in the evolution of Australia’s progress, since it opens the door to an opportunity lor providing increased facilities for the interchange of knowledge and information of vital Imperial importance. Wireless has been years maturing, but it is here at last.” Sir Joseph Cook recalled the wireless messages from Mr Hughes, when Prime Minister, to himself as Minister of the Navy, despatched from the Marconi Station at Carnarvon on October 22. 1918, and received instantaneously. He added: “It is right and just to remember Mr Hughes’s great pioneer work in the early stages of this wonderful development.

LONDON PRESS ENTHUSES. LONDON, April 8. The London morning papers feature the opening of the beam wireless system, with editorials, numerous special messages, and photographs of the operating room at the G.P.O. during the transmission of the messages to Australia. The “Daily Telegraph” says: “It was said when the ordinary tclgeraph system was begun that distance was annihilated. What was then only a figure of speech is a statement of fact to-day. There is now practically instantaneous communication both ways between the heart of the Empire and its most distant sister State. In tfe drawing together of the peoples of tho

Empire, at least as much can be affected by the cheapening of press messages as by any other agency; but, in all ways, the new service must open a now chapter in Empire relations.” The “Morning Post” says: “Those who are cynical about the British Empire as organism too wide-spread and too cumbrous to continue must now revise their opinions in the light of the beam achievements. ’ ’ The “Daily News” says: “Not all scientific triumphs can be hailed by humanity with unqualified rejoicing, but almost the miraculous improvement in communications is a feat as beneficient as it is wonderful.” PUBLIC BUSINESS BEGUN AT MELBOURNE. MELBOURNE, April 8. The Beam Wireless Office has opened for public business, and it is being well patronised.

SEEING BY RADIO.

U.S.A. INVENTION (Received April 8 at 1.5 p.m.; Thp first public demonstration ol television, or visible radio, was held at Company. There a group, of fifty men simultaneously heard and saw the Tlou. Mr Hoover, the United* States Minister, deliver a radio address iron Washington. The invention is I . work of Mr Francis Jenkins, a Washington. scientist, who is now working on i mjphiine that is to be carried by an aeroplane in time of war, so as to take impressions of the landscape over which the plane is flying, and to transmit the same one hundred miles Lari to a piotectcd screen at the headquarters. Mr Jenkins has invented a cinema projection machine, and also the transmission of still pictures by radio instruments, which are now in use, and by which weather maps can be trans mitted from the shore to ships at s?a.

Seeing by Telephone. CHALLENGE TO THE CINEMA. (Received April 8 at 11.55 p.m.) NEW YORK, April 7. Regarding the television demonstration made, the same has been repeated by a telephone wire, with equal results. The synchrenization of the speaker’s voice and his actions was extremely life-like, although verisimiltude was more nearly approached when a picture was projected on a small screen. Eighteen pictures ,p.er second were projected over a distance of 250 miles, on a screen of two inches by throe inches, and then on a screen of two feet by three feet. After this, Vice-President Curty, of tho American Telephone Company, in Washington, conversed individually With men in New York, looking each straight in the eye, while upon a screen before him he saw the individuals whom he addressed.

This was followed by the projection of a variety entertainment from a studio in New Jersey into New York by wireless. This was a much shorter distance, and the effects were excellent. Tho officials declined to discuss the commercial prospects of television, indictating, however, that its greatest possibilities will be in the field of entertainment.