THE QUENCHING OF SAYVILLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16589, 12 January 1916, Page 6

THE QUENCHING OF SAYVILLE

THE CLOSE OF A SORDID STORY. (From the Wireless Ago.) With the control of tho Gorman-owned Sayvillo wireless station now in tho hands ot tho United States Government, and its operations governed by American naval officers, details of tho acts whicli led to tho seizure are rapidly coming to light. Accusations of neutrality Violation have followed thick and fast, and people hitherto respected by tiii'ir neighbours have been placed m the limelight oi suspicion. Even tho ranking of the L fiitania has been connected w:tli tho operations of tho station, and tho country has boon stirred from end to end by disclosures made in unexpected quarters. That tho principal evidence upon wliich the seizure was made was supplied by ail amateur makes the story just that much more dramatic, to oar readers, and boaro out an oft-repeated contention that the amateur is a valuable member of tho community, and entitled to serious consideration.

The story properly begins back in tho early part of July, when the first rumblo ' of suspicion came from Washington officials and found its way into the i.ewepapcrs. It had been repeatedly hinted in certain quarters that the Government might refuse to issue a license for the new and more power- i ful equipment then being installed at Sayville. Persistent rumours of messages of a military character sent under cover of ordinary commercial despatches in plain Eng- . lish and German caused tho situation to bo viewed from an anglo more serious than that which concerned tho right of the Government to refuse to errant the new license on the ground that no belligerent nation or its agents has the r;ght to establish a wireless station in a neutral country after war has born dcelarcd. Some of the messages filed had been rejected by the navo.l censors on the ground tint tbev were too obviously not what they pretended to bo. For example, orders' from Amcrica to buy cotton in Germany impressed tho censors as entirely unworthy of being intended to bo taken at their face value- by thoso to whom they were addressed. Other commercial orders, or pretended commercial orders, that could not in the naturo of tilings bo executed in Germany on acco'-int of the prcssnt commercial isolation of that country were rejected also. Certain messages to persons in Amcrica to execute orders for gooos that could not bo shipped to German porta > or would be useless m Germany in this time of war, if it were possible to get them into German territory, shared the same fate. Tho fear was expressed that through apparently harmless messages tho. Sayville station might be used to communicate military information to Germin submarines. In nnswer, Dr Karl G. Frank, of tho Atlantic Communication Company, which owns too station, said he did not consider this intimation Worthy of serious consideration, for what it claimed was a physical . impossibility. "In the first place," ho said, tho wave-length used at Sayville ie eight or ten thousand metres, whereas tho wirclecs equ lament of submarines would produce a very much shorter wave-length." When this statement anncared wireless men called attention to tho fact that information eont first to Naucn could easily be re-transmitted to tho submcrsifclcs through one of tho several types of equipment installed at Nauen. And so the situation stood when, on Jn'v 9. tho United States Government announced ' that in tho f ture the plant would be conducted by American naval officers in the interests of its proprietors. Tho official memorandum from the Sccrctary of Commexce stated that tho now license had been refused because it had been learned that the Atlantic Communication Company is owned by tho Telefunken Company, of Germany, the controlling interest in which is owned by powerful German elcctrical concerns. Dr Frank was identified as the New York representative of these controlling companies, and Professor J. Zennock. who had bwn conducting so-called experiments at Sayville, wa.3 known to bo a captain of marines m the German army, and had been during tho present war in tho trenches in Belgium. The opinion of tho department as stated wao: "To grant a lieenso for a new station, erected since tho war began, with German apparatus, avowedly under German ownership and control, communicating avowedly with stations known to bo under the control of the Imperial German govern; msnt ... would bo an unneutral act. The seizure of tho station was characterised a " precautionary measure," and rested as such in the public mind for ton days. Then, on a Sunday morning, Now Yorkers wcro startled by reading in theirnewspapers what was announced bv the World the real reasons " for taking over Sayville. Investigation by tho Secret Service, the account said, ha-d established a definite probability that unneutral uees were being made of the station, the exact nature of these usss remaining an official secret. Great was the aeton'shment of readers when they learned that, in the course of tho investigation by tho Secret Sen-ice, phonographic rccords were taken by Onirics i-». owner of & wireless experimental station at Wcstfield, N. 0., for 14. successive nights of every message, every signal, sent out from Sayville. These "canned messages established the truth about >_iyvilic. They showed exactly what had been tiansmitted; their comparison with the messages as they were submitted for approval to tho censor showed tho impotence of anything but Government operation. i . m Mr Chas. E. Apgar thus explains flow ho cornered Sayville " 7 , " There is comparatively littlo 1 can anu to what has been so well set down by this magazine's editor. First, lot me deal wit a the attempts to discredit the use of tno en ; n New York papers that as the phonographic records did not. reach Washington till afVr the Sayville station had been taken over by the Government,' they did not play any important jwrt ; n securing certain desired information. Replying to this, I will say that- the records were made each night, between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. The next morning I immediately transcribed the recorded messages to Chief Flynn in Now York, or sent them to him -in Washington; hence they' were filed with the Secret Service a vc-ry few hours after being sent, out by Sayville, which enabled practically immediate comparison with the censored messages, as well as with thoso received by other wireless operators, of tho Government, who wore 'listening in, presumably at Arlington and elsewhere. " Just before this special work began, L. R. Krunrm. chief radio inspector, of tho port of Now York, visited my station, and after many hours of actual experience witii tho receiving instrument, pronounced the station of the' highest efficiency. Many phonographic recorels wcro demonstrated to him; henco when Chief FJynn, of iho Secret Service, consulted him concerning the beet method to get Sayville undeniably on record, lie requested me to call .it his office 'on an important matter.' "I was "immediately introduced to tho bead of the Secret Service in New York, who told mo to 'get busy.' Needless to state, perhaps, it wns some plcas'.'-ro nt least to a'd in taking the 'Say' out of Sayville. " When I was asked to execute this commoesinri? or whatever you want to call it, no time was allowed for extended preparation. Tho interview was held at 11 in tb-o morning, and I was instructed to botrin work the same evening. Scouring New York for 'blanks' meant some tall hustling, but before sundown I had secured a number suffioVr.t for a night or two. Subsequently ihirmg tho period of action it became neceesarv for me to go several t : mos in person to the Ed : son Company at Orange to replenish my sunply of wax cylinders. In regard to the operation. Sayville was never vrv crenero'"s with her 11 p.m. test sirrn.al Vs. and it meant working ffst to ut'lise these : n securing nerf'vt tuning. There uyt" rvTil circuits to V> looked ."ft" l *, thciv viroi'" coikl'tww. lotteries-— rv-rvt'dn". Kid to l>-» nra"tV"l'v in p-rf-H; b-Tnc-nv the Sayville h'-mn RendTT. That n-vk a single -w-ia.wVWI hundreds were rcco r de'l i«i ov : 'l"ne" that rv--v •wl rW-Vo of my liomes«t. did its <-bity fully and nromritK-; which is to m A . of course, very gratifying."