WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18513, 25 March 1922, Page 10

WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

NEWS AT SEA. SMALL SHIPS’ S.O.S. SIGNAL. (Fbou Oob Own Cobbebpokdent.) LONDON, January 26. A statement made by Sir Joseph CoolC the new High Commissioner for Australia, raises the question of the supply of .wireless news to ships at sea. He commented on the fact that on the voyage to England “we had no news whatever, except that which was received privately or at porta of call, for half the tnp, and then we began (to collect it from this end.” When he last came to England be travelled by way of tne Pacific, and, though it was war time, a batch of news reached the ship daily. On his return to Australia after the Peaoe Conference they were similarly favoured. On his recent voyage, he said, no Australian wireless news appeared on the notice board Sir Joseph, it is affirmed, was unfortunate, for the P. and 0., though they do not publish a daily bulletin, axe in the habit of posting up messages from time to time.

From inquiries made at Marconi Horse it appears that the Marconi International Communication Company equipped vessels with apparatus to meet the specific requirements of the owners. Whenever they had been asked to supply a news service to snipping companies they had always endeavoured to do so, and generally succeeded in meeting tha request. In ihe supply ot a news service throughout tne journey to Australia there were no technical difficulties; it was purely a matter of financial arrangement. There are many sources from which ships at sea receive news, and on Atlantic and Mediterranean voyages services are received several tim«s daily. In some of the services the mes sages are prefaced with a code, _ which means that they are free to all ships for publication among the passengers., Other messages may only be conveyed _to the passengers if the ship is a “subscriber” to the service. Thus a great deal of interesting information is picked up and does not go beyond the Marconi room, which m these times is somewhat tantalising to tie passengers. ..... i Amongst the regular services m the bulletin despatched daily from Poldhu. Oa the other side of the Atlantic is an American and also a Canadian station, both -A which send out messages daily. _The Poldhu messages are retransmitted at Teneriffa, so that both North and Soiith Atlantic are served. Then there is the station at Leafield, in Oxfordshire, which transmits messages on behalf of the Foreign (office thrice daily—at noon, 8 p.m,, and midnight. This service is. of course, available to every ship that cares to publish it. The messages can be picked up anywhere within a circle with a radius of 2®o miles, which means that they can be read as far east aa Suez. On many occasions, of course, when conditions are favonrecle they can be tappel at very 'much greater distance*. In addition to the services already mentioned there are innumerable messages sent out by foreign Governments for propaganda purpceee. « will be recollected that at the Jmpenai Conference the principle of a wireless chain’’ was agreed to but there were manr reservations. Australia, for instance. _ desired direct communication between Jt<ng land and the commonwealth without retransmitting stations, and plan* - e made to carry this out The scheme is at tha present moment bein- considered by a committee of the Australian Government, and the question is also before the Home Go - eminent. When the messages are picked up at sea various methods are adopted to disseminate the news among the passengers. Some of the Atlantic liners produce publications daily with, in addition to the wireless news received, a number of interesting artides, and also advertisements. Others use the menu printing machine for running oil leaflets, while in many ships the news i» posted on the notice-board. NEW BELL-PUSH S.O.S. A new wireless-operated bell-alarm i* being tested to take the place, on certain ships, of the usual S.O.S. signal. Our experiments,’’ said an official at Marconi House, “have proved most satisfactory. We have produced an instrument of the ‘vou touch the button, and wo do the rest’ kind, with the use of which small ships need carry out one wireless operator instead of three. , “Briefly, the instrument is a four-second bell-alarm. By merely touching a key and repeating a four-second beat ttire© times, a bell is rung on board all similarlyfitted ships within a range of 100 miles. This range is probably by no means finai. Wo hope to extend it to 200 miles. Ten vessels have already been equipped with this new device, and it is to be installed in about 15 others. In other words the instrument is being tested on one vessel of each of the 25 commercial fleets. The Posh Office :s testing the instrument at North Foreland and at Niton, in the Isle of Wight. It is not 1 intended to alter the present ‘S.O.tx’ system on the larger liners, as they can well afford to carry three wireless operators. And, _of course, no alteration in the distress signal at all can be made except by .international agreement. So far all our tests point towards success. If the idea is eventually adopted it will be known. as the ‘Four-second Alarm.’ The alarm can bo given by anybody, and should the wireless operator be off duty he can be summoned to send a supplementary ‘S.O.S.’ message.”