TRIUMPH OF WIRELESS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 631, 31 December 1913, Page 7

TRIUMPH OF WIRELESS.

A VISION OF TOE FUTURE

Every day nearly the inestimable value of wireless communication is being shown. A few years ago a ship, once it had left port, was an isolated thing, its passengers out of touch with their fellow-creatures, alone and self-dependent, until 'the destination was safely reached. The Volturno's cry for helD was beard by the Carmania 78 miles away, and would probably have carried two or three times this distance had the Cunard liner not happily been so close. The range of present-day wireless installations is such that a ship properly equipped is almost certain to be within hail of other ships, and the? terrors of the Fen sre further minimise with every fresh boat that sails with wireless apparatus aboard. With the progress in efficiency now being effected, wireless telegraphy is making steady strides towards replacing tha cable, or at least competing with it for. all long-distance work. Much very successful cable work is done to-day over great distances by what are known as automatic relays. The strength of the electric current sent through a long cable gradually diminishes until it becorcs too weak to serve the purposes of signalling so that messages have to be read and retransmitted from time to time en route. But if before this occurs the current is passed into a relay, this instrument amplifies, with the aid of a fresh source of electric power, these weak currents and automatically sends off a fresh message, so that without any intermediary operators telegrams can be sent over a great distance very rapidly. But now take the wireless current, or "radiation," which travels at such a rate that it circles the globe in one-fifth of a second. Make these signals strong enough and have sufficiently delicate receiving apparatus, and direct telegraphy from England to Australia or China becomes possible. Some distances are not accomplished yet, but 4000 miles and Enore are beine considered commercially where 2000 were considered two years ago. Wireless work of the future will be long wave wireless, waves sent out into pace five, ten, and more mile each in length, where a very few year ago they were only three to six hundred yards. And with greater distances covered, larger amounts of power are being The current is measured in micro-amperes; the millionth part of the current taken by the average hundred candle lamp is a micro-ampere, /'but far less than this amount suffices when passed through a telephone to give an audible signal.

:: It is in th ; reception of ths messages that the great revolution in wireless is just taking place. Printed tape messages will be substituted eventually for the present auoibls ones in all commercial wireless wo'k. An operator in the ordinary way at present ha? to listen with the double headpiece telephone for just audible buzzes or burrs, and to decipher these as he goes along, perhaps managing 25 words to the minute. In a tape recorded each dot or dash is automatically printed, or registered photographically, upon a moving band of paper, and the rumber of words per minut" received depends merely upon the agility of the mecabnism at the transmitting and receiving stations — for the transmission is automatic also. The messages are converted into little holes punched in a paper'strip, tha positions of the holes for each dot and dash being different, of course, and the perforated ribbon is passed through a machine which controls, the apparatus that is sending out the wireless signals. Wireless telegraphy across the Atlantic by "automatic" will be accomplished' quite possibly ' within the next 12 months. In the great evolution that is taking place at the present moment three things are contributing to the transmission of greater power, enabling us to operate mechanical printing devices thousands of miles away:— 1. Wireless energy is to some extent being directed so that it is not indiscriminately sent out in every direction'and wasted. 2. The immensely long waves now being used travel through space without so much "dying down" effect. 3. Continuous waves, as used in the majority of new systems, travels so rapidly one after the other, and back each other up, so to speak, that far more energy arrives at the receiving station. Wireless telegraphy of the near future, writes Thorns Bakre, A.M.1.E., in the Daily Mail will therefore mean transmitting very rapid signals of sufficient povor to actuate a printer which will racord on paper the messages sent; a permanent; record'will be obtained, ?nu th;? rate of sending messages vi-'iii be increased from the present 20 words ;.■ minute cv thereabouts to nerhans 150 or 200. This should lead to a considerable reduction in telegraphic r£«s eventually and so increase toe amount ef telegraphic ccrrespondenen e norm on si?. It was long ago a dream of Nikola Tesla to radiate power iron: a iarge central station, with which lumps could be lighter', machinery driven, and so on. Bun in O'der to transmit power by wireless we must 11 r:---E It:urn the secret of concentrating it. power can more easily be controlled by wireless —a .thing of undoubted vains i'oi' exploding mines : :t a. distance in varfars, directing tnroedoes, and soon; :-,:'.d these types of work are bi'cviirnnp: snore within reach of accomplishment now that so much stronger signals are available. At the present moment trials are being carried out both in England and in Germany for the stopping of trains by wireless signals sent out from the signal boxes or other control stations, snd there are signs on every side of the wider applications of wireless to matters non-telegraphic.