Beam Wireless

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVI, Issue 211, 24 August 1926, Page 4

Beam Wireless

Unofficial Tests FADING OUT OIFFICULTIU. EXPERIMENTS WITH CANADA. (Received 24, 1.45 p.m.) London, Aug. 28. Lt Is learned that unofficial tests ot Canada’s beam wireless over some days kept up reception here at the rate Ot 100 Words per minute lor 24 hours, but at other tunes, through the inexplicable perverseness of tfie ether the signals often laded out to such an extent as to defy amplification to make- audible. Consequently experts are concentrating on experiments to overcome the problem ot fading. Lt will probably be found that by the time Australia's stations are completed Grimsby and Skegness will be governed by the results of these experiments, Lt is Jet too early to talk of possible achievements hgr Australia’s beam system, but the indications point to its period of greatest utility being during the night fot the despatch of messages from England. Experts believe the use of different wave lengths at different times of tile day may widen the period of Australian utility. Both Australian stations in England will be about one-third the siee of Rugby. Each will have masts 300 feet nigh, compared with Rugby’s 81X1. The plant is virtually ready for assembling, but the date of testing has not yet been considered. Charts of the strength of receptions at various Goversment testing stations reveal that this has been a particularly bad year, which possibly explains why so little successful antipodean amateur communications have been carried, though experimenters ascribe the instability to the ether and the influence of sunspots, the matimitfii cycle period of which has yet to come. Despite this weakness surprising progress was made in trans-Atlantic wireless telephony, giving the hope that during some periods of the day low wave cosversatio-n with Australia mav he possible.—(A. and N.Z.)