WIRELESS TELEPHONE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20968, 3 September 1931, Page 15

WIRELESS TELEPHONE.

AUTOMATIC EXCHANGES. EXPERIMENTS BY MARCONI. The operation of automatic wireless telephone exchanges is likely to bo an accomplished fact in the near future. A series of experiments are now ,being carried out in automatic radio telephony by Signor Marconi, tho world-famous inventor. Further experiments on a larger scale will shortly be conducted by connecting the telephone networks of Rome and Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, by twe powerful wireless stations. It will then bo possible for a person fn Rome to dia] a number in Cagliari, 250 miles away. The impulses will be transmitted across the sea by short-wave wireless in a manner similar to that in which Marconi from his yacht at Genof switched on the lights of the Sydney Radio Exhibition in March of last year. Once the connection ha? been established conversation will be carried on by ordinary wireless telephone and will be secret, as the system i» based on many superimposed wireless waves which cannot be intercepted. It is interesting to recall that, attending tho success of Marconi causing e switch to bo closed at the Sydney Town Hall, which released approximately lOC h.p. of electrical energy and electrically illuminated the hall with 2800 electric lights, Mr. E. T. Fisk, managing director of Amalgamated Wireless, stated at the time:—"The control of mechanisms such as this at a distance by wireless has already been applied on a limited scale across relatively short distances. The development of these principles will have many useful applications, and I think will eventually lead to the stage where it will bo possible in Sydney to operate an automatic telephone exchange in London." While the application of tho principles of distant control of automatic mechanisms has not yet reached the stage which Mr. Fisk prophesied last year, it is noteworthy that very definite progress in this direction is being made, as Marconi's latest experiments bear evidence. From tho first wireless telegiaphy demonstration by Marconi in London in 1897, when communication was established over a distance of four miles, to the transmission of the first signal across the Atlantic represented but four years' experiments. To-day, with a wealth of scientific wireless data available and research engineers throughout the world developing and applying that data, (here is every reason to beliovo that tho stage of advancement predicted is likely to be accomplished. A telephone subscriber in a suburb of Sydney may then dial a London telephone number and speak with the same facility as. he to-day enjoys with the local telephone service.