WIRELESS BY AMATEURS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19283, 22 September 1924, Page 3

WIRELESS BY AMATEURS.

LONG DISTANCE CONVERSATION. NEW RECORD CLAIMED. A record in wireless telegraphy of considerable interest not only to amateurs and scientists but to the peneral public was established locally last evening. It will be remembered that Mr O'Meara, an amateur in Gisborne. roused a great deal of interest some months a.sro by establishing contact with an amateur in Buenos Aires, and carrying on a two-way conversation with him. So far that was' the only occasion on which the Pacific had been spanned by wireless. Last night Mr F. D. Bell, from his well-known 4AA station in Shag Valley, got into touch by Morse with 6CGW, an amateur in California. Mr Bell had previously been picked up considerably further east in the States, but word of this had only came by post Last night he got into conversation with 6CGW. Mr R. Slade, of station 4AG, Dunedin, heard the conversation both ways, and afterwards himself spoke by Morse to 6CGW. The conversation was. continued most successfully for a considerable time Mr Bell was working on a wave length of 120 metres, and was using a. 50 watt valve. This is another remarkablo illustration of what can be done by amateurs using low power and a short wave length that was so little thought of until quite recently. The conversation last night is a distinct advance on previous records. It is also an advance en previous communication with the United States, because conversation has ■been carried on, and it is an advance on Mr O'Meara's record becuse conversation was established betweern the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Dr Jack, of the Otago University, who is closely in touch with wireless matters, says he does not know of any better amateur record in transmitting and receiving having been accomplished anywhere. -