EMPIRE WIRELESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19240, 2 August 1924, Page 11

EMPIRE WIRELESS

COST OF RADIOGRAMS. TWO-THIRDS OF CABLE RATES. Frees Association —By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, July ML. The agreement between the Marconi Company and the Postmaster-General lor tile construction of beam stations meutioqs that the charge for the transmission -if telegrams to Canada shall not exceed the cable rates, and elsewhere in the Empire they shall not exceed two-thirds of the cable rates.—Reuter. The report of the Imperial Wireless Committee, the main features of which the British Government has now adopted, recommended that the State, through the Post Office, should own and operate all wireless stations in Great Britain for communication with the Empire overseas. Enlargements of the Lcaiield station and extension of the. new high-power station now building at Rugby were advocated. In regard to foreign services the committee proposed free competition in developing wireless communication, the State reserving the right to take possession in a national emergency. A new situation was created by the success cf the Marconi experiments with the wireless beam with the help of which messages have been transmitted on very short wave-lengths a distance of about 2000 miles. The Marconi Company asked that before sanction to erect a second high-power Government station was given to the Post Office it should be allowed to demonstrate its ability to transmit by means of the beam over much longer distances than that from Poldhu in Cornwall to the Capo Verde Islands, two experimental beam stations being specially built for that purpose, and work in other directions, except at Rugby, was meanwhile suspended. An important feature is that, these beam-transmissions being, on very short wave-lengths reauire much less power, and ere consequently much more economical than a long-wave system. A third advantage is that short wavelengths are much more convenient xor high-speed work, and that consequently even if a “beam” station could not work for as many hours in the 24 as a highpower one, it might, by the acceleration of its automatic transmission, bo able to get through an equal amount of work. On the other hand high-power stations have already shown themselves able to reach any point on the world’s surface under moderately favourable conditions.