CABLE OR WIRELESS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 25 July 1924, Page 10

CABLE OR WIRELESS.

THEIR INTERDEPENDENCE. A KNOTTY POINT. LONDON, May 23. A discussion as to “Cable communications and how to use them” touclies Dominion interests so closely that we transmit at some length the chief speech, since it devoted attention to the new competitor, wireless. Many people declared that the day ol the cable was over. Similarly people had said that the cable would supplant the mail. “The truth is, oi courts©, the lecturer continued, “that the world is not too small for the cable and wireless to exist side by side. The demand for speedy column n Lealioii is so insistent and pressmg that there can hardly he too many means available for supplying it. And though wireless has demonstrated* its great practical value in very many different- ays, it still remains true that the submarine cable, with its world-wide organisation, privacy of transmission, and comparative freedom from atmospheric disturbances, is the most reliable, swift, and secret method of international eommunicatmn. In so far as the services provided by wireless and the cable overlap, -there is undoubtedly room for ■some kind of understanding by which the wireless and the cable interests or this country should work in collaboration. Such an arrangement, if in the luture it should be considered desirable or feasible, would offer great advantages to the users of both, systems and would promote efficiency by the elimination of costly and unnecessary competition.” Illustrating some- of the new methods of cable transmission, the lecturer explained how automatic transnussmn had so accelerated service that the result of a cricket match in Melbourne could be read in England within a lew minutes of the fall of the last wicket, although .the message wouid pass through sis intermediate retransmitting points. A still newer invention, known in America a<s wlied wireiess,” made it possible to transmit two messages at once in the same direction. Thus local traffic heavy and yet not interfere with long-distance traffic passing through the same relay stations. In all the immense services of the cables the error was very email. In his own -ompanys returns, which took careful account of all mistakes, it was shown hum! ° U t ! ) ° f 696,275 word ’ R F u 'iched by 01$ ,w p r centa " e - of error 1 o ( ,q SS T,h f u one , m 500), and in words punched by machine tne percentage of error was 0.037 The percentage error in a month’s grand teial of 2.628,296 words was 0.086. In conclusion the (lecturer begged business men to remember that the wiL h a llnS m a l ea i 3kl ofiice were between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., and urged them to make use of the slack hours as much as possible. He also suo“ Stent th< bf th f t mplOVme;it of a cotnISw^oPn'r Ck ’ rk , iv,th a £° od know- / eroding, “routeing,” ] lsi ° n was an ¥*-