WIRELESS EXPERIMENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18455, 17 January 1922, Page 3

WIRELESS EXPERIMENTS

PROFESSOR JACK CRITICISED. POSTMASTER-GENERAL’S STATE-' MENT, (From Odb Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON. January 16. Recently there was some public criticism of the alleged severe restrictions imposed upon Professor Jack, of the Otago University in regard to wireless experiments. The Hon. *W. Downie Stewart, (Minister of Internal Affairs) has now received a memorandum from the Postmaster-General enclosing the facts as stated by the Telegraph Department. The Department states that it is difficult to understand the attitude of Dr Jack, The delay which arose in. the first instance in granting him permission to caixy out wireless telephone concerts has been shown to have been entirely his own fault, as ’ho could not bo prevailed upon to do as all the other wireless experimenters and amateurs are daily doing and as is required in ,all countries where wireless experimenting is allowed—viz., to notify the department of certain simple but necessary information that it should have in its possession. Directly this was received he was given permission to use 25 times the power that would under ordinary circumstances be granted in the United Kingdom, and was given practically a freo hand to carry on his experiments on certain wave lengths of his own choosin". The only other restriction placed upon him was that he was to notify the district telegraph engjneer At Dunedin of his intention 'to transmit signals. .-'This cannot be considered as a hardship seeing that be admits notifying amateurs ana ship stations all over the country of his intention to transmit, and that he invited their co-operation in the reception of his signals. Dr Jack has, however, taken upon himself to go further than this, and has written to at least one superintendent in charge of one of the coast stations, soliciting his assistance in listening for his signals over a period of two hours, and on a wave length that would have prevented his,attention to commercial ship traffic and to the constant watch that ; s required for distress signals. The officer referred this to headquarters, and was advised that he could not under any circumstances . bo permitted to take notice of requests from outsiders which would interfere with the carrying out of the duties of his station, more particularly with regard to the listening Watch for the detection of distress signals) Dr Jack wrote to the press about what he was pleased to call “the incompetence and entire lack of common sense of the official mind” in relation to his requests and experixfients. The departments thinks this unnecessary and uncalled for criticism, and it appears to indicate that he does not wish tp be placed under any restriction whatever,' but wishes to be free to carry on experiments regardless of the effect they may have upon distress signals or any of the operations of the department. Such freedom is not given in any other country, where rigid regulations have to be observed. The department has every desire to give Dr . Jack all possible' latitude in the direction of the amount of power used, and there is no reason why ho should not have written to the department stating his reasons. The district, engineer in Dunedin says Dr Jack’s attitude is in contrast with the official communication in which he thanked him profusely for the consideration and assistance extended to him. Moreover, his attitude is in marked contrast with that of the professors of physics at Wellington and Auckland. These gentlemen have been in close touch with the department and will freely admit that they have been at ail times met in a reasonable spirit, aqd that the department hos gone out of ija way to assist them in research work and experiments, and has on many occasions been < f great assistance to them. • The Postmaster-General in his covering memorandum to the Minister of Internal Affairs says it is apparent that Dr Jack is labouring under some serious misapprehension. Moreover, he was given authority tc use 25 times the power that would bo accorded him in the United Kingdom, aiid he was given practically a free hand to make his transmissions on any wave length of his own choosing that would not interfere with departmental work. Indeed, he was given every latitude with the one exception that he was restricted to the use of 250 watts instead of the 500 watts he desired to use. If Dr ~lack could show any good reason why he should be given permission to use 500 or SCOO watts ho. had only to write to the Minister or to' the department and his request would have received careful and sympathetic consideration. The statements which ho made regarding Hho department ar£ not calculated to assist matters.