TELLING THE TIME BY WIRELESS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8613, 26 December 1913, Page 9

TELLING THE TIME BY WIRELESS

BRITISH CLOCK MAKERS AND A POST OFFICE DEMAND.

Watch and clock makers anxious to reap the advantage of the international signals wirelessed from the Eiffel Tower, in Paws, and Norddeich, in Germany, at certain hours of the day and night are incensed at tho demand of tho Post Office that they shall pay more for the privilege of using the necessary private •wireless installation than the thousand or so people who already hold licenses as telegraphic experimenters. Mr F. Hope-Jones, chairman of tho Wireless Society of London, told a 'London “Daily Nows" representative that when the watch and clock makers applied for licenses for wireless installations for which experimenters pay one guinea a year, the Post Office authorities intimated that, as the apparatus was to bo used for a trade purpose, a royalty would have to be paid iu addition to the licence fee. No decision as to the amount of royalty had been arrived at, but the representative of the General Post Office asked applicants to deposit a fee of two guineas. Mr Hope-Jones replied that, while clock makers in other countries are permitted to listen to these time signals, a refusal in Great Britain unfairly handicaps business in tflie markets of the world. He also pointed out that the Post Office restriction would result in evasion of the law. "If the signals wore transmitted from the Greenwich Observatory a small charge to meet the expenses might be levied with some appearance of justification." added the chairman of the Wireless Society of London, "but unfortunately tho British Empire elected to take no part in tho organisation or transmission of tho world’s time signals. Hence the proposal to tax those who desire to listen to them will appear to the watch and clockmaldng profession of this country as preposterous and as futile as a tax on taking their time from the stars." "I suggest that there is no more reason for denying them the use of their eara than tho use of their eyes," was the concluding observation.