TELEPHONING AT SEA.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 7 January 1928, Page 3

TELEPHONING AT SEA.

A REGULAR SERVICE NOT FAR OFF. INTERESTING GERMAN developments. .BERLIN Not. 13. The German 'postal authorities consider that wireless telephony has made such technical progress that measures can now be taken for introducing a regular telephonic service between the mainland and seagoing vessels. The idea is still in the experimental stage, but the tests so far made have been so successful as to give ground for hoping that they may soon be translated into practical achievement.

The German Post Office has for some time maintained regular telephonic communication with vessels at sea from the Nordreich wireless station, and this has operated so well that the German official wireless 'communiques have been transmitted by word of month to the ships and accurately received. The Post Office has now equipped an experimental vessel, the steamer Hoexter, which, in the near future will conduct test voyages on the North Sea and the Baltic. The object of the experiments will he to determine’ with what degree of reliability a telephone service can be maintained with ships at sea at all states of the weather. The Post- Office engineers anticipate that the tests will be fully successful, and that the 'time is not far distant when, with suitable equipment, it will be possible to conduct regular two-way conversations with ships at sea, which would constitute an evolution of enormous importance in'the sphere of communication.

At present, there are about thirty . ocean-going liners under - the German Hag* which are already equipped with wireless telephone transmitters, and every new vessel of any size 'that is launched is so equipped. The liner Columbus, of the Norddeutseller Lloyd, - , hjjs carried a powerful experimental sot for some months, and it .has operated so successfully that conversations have, been carried on over a distance of 2500 miles between the Columbus - and other ships at sea. This addition to the means of communication is regarded by the captains who have used it as a valued resource.

Messages from ships at sea have also been transferred to land lines, and speech has already been heard in offices in Berlin from vessels at a distance of 200 miles._ though hitherto no two-way conversation has been conducted . It is only a step, the postal authorities believe, to the institution of a service whereby a passenger travelling, say, to New York, will be able to ring up his office in Berlin * from the middle of the Atlantic.